LIFE HAPPENS: ‘Hipster’ fashion is totally ironic
By: DEB MANZELLA
SUN COLUMNIST
The other day, when I went to one of those trendy stores at the Walden Galleria Mall, I noticed something very strange.
The clothes that were on display seemed hauntingly familiar. It was almost like someone had gone back in time to the early 1970s and reproduced the contents of my freshman year closet.
I had to get a closer look. It was true. There were the flannel shirts, the long john tops, the bandanas, and God forbid — the tube socks of my youth.
There was one very big difference though. The prices were very 2010. I never would have been able to afford these clothes if they cost this much back then.
I came home, mumbling about how they were selling clothes that I used to wear in 1974, at which point my son said, “Oh, yeah. That’s the Hipster look.”
“Hipster?”
It never occurred to me that my nondescript uniform back in college was now a “look.”
“Did you know that it now costs a fortune to dress like I did in the 1970s?” I asked. “Back in my day — yes, I actually said that — I paid $5 for my flannel shirts at the Big N. I got my jeans used from the Outdoor Store. And bandanas were 99 cents. How can they charge so much money for that stuff?”
I paused for a moment before I continued to speak to my son.
“And furthermore, the 1970s were all about shunning commercialism and rebelling against Madison Avenue and people over 30,” I said. “We dressed that way to make a statement about the evils of materialism and the right of individuals to be, well, individualistic. We were all about returning to nature and being free to be you and me. To charge that much money for clothes that look like they’re from that era is a travesty.”
He thought about all of that for a minute before he responded.
“True,” he said. “Hipsters don’t get their clothes from the expensive stores. They get them from the Goodwill. It’s supposed to be ironic.”
Ironic?
My beloved flannel shirts and Converse sneakers are ironic?
That’s worse than being overpriced.
Kids aren’t dressing like the 1970s because it’s a cool look. They’re deliberately dressing “uncool” to be ironic.
Although now that I think about it, when I was a kid, I thought the poodle skirts and bobby socks of the 1950s were a little ironic.
It didn’t mean I wanted to dress in them, but I get the idea.
OK. So my era is ironic.
But it is in style again. I might just go down to the Goodwill and buy another flannel shirt just for old time’s sake.
Right after I sing a chorus or two of “We Shall Overcome.”
(React to this column by sending an e-mail to: lifehappens101@hotmail.com or by calling Editor Dan Meyer at 649-4040, ext. 255. You can also write a letter to the editor and mail it to: The Sun, Hamburg Village Square Plaza, 141 Buffalo St, Hamburg, NY 14075.)
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