Watchbands are thick. Jeans are tight. Irony is grandma glasses and a fauxhawk. Ugly is the new sexy and away we go!
Fashion never used to be one of my main concerns. In thirteen years of Catholic school, where the eighties clique cliches held over throughout the nineties, the jocks rebelled by letting their Abercrombie logos peek through their dress-code appropriate polos. The stoners kept their hair flirting precipitously with the tops of their shirt collars, just out of reach of violation and of the vice-principal's rusty scissors. And I bumbled along in whatever my mom found me at K Mart, more or less uninterested in what I wore as long as it could serve to slim me down a bit and hide the slight manboobs I'd had since puberty.
There was an episode of Doug on Nickelodeon that always stuck with me. For those of you who took a wrong turn at Bush Sr. and missed the nineties, just know that Doug was a cartoon staple wherein all of the characters wore the same clothes each episode. One day, the tradewinds of fashion turn toward the outfit that Skeeter, the main character's best friend, has worn without fail since the pilot. Suddenly Skeeter's friends are harping on him for jumping on the trendwagon.
That sums up my adherence to fashion trends for the first, say, 25 years of my life. Plaid, always the friend of the chubby kid who tends to spill, waivers in and out of style and I go with it. I slid into the pre-distressed clothing era with genuinely neglected articles of my own. The rest of the time, I was my usual, sloppy, un-hip self.
Then I met Molly.
Molly had a style that seemed unique, and in a way it was. She could pick over a thrift store for the garments and accessories that had the most unique stitching, most retro floral pattern, or - well, I don't really know. She was an artist, musician and actress and her style seemed to appeal to others with the same talents, people in professions that I admired. I took that to mean that her tastes were good, refined. Nevermind that occasionally what she wore was downright ugly. Vintage T-Shirts (actual vintage, plucked from a rural Minnesota Salvation Army, not a Wal-Mart artificially faded Lucky Charms baseball tee) paired with a floral pattern skirt and tennis shoes was, apparently, a first-rate outfit for an artist.
In the three years we were together she revamped my wardrobe, weeded out most big-label bands from my playlists and threw out my electric hair trimmer, much too precise and therfore inferior to a pair of scissors wielded at a hacking angle.
I was to remain bearded.
Before Molly I had lived on the edge of Hipsterdom, mingled with the (artificially frayed) fringes. But Molly was outspokenly judgmental of other people's fashion. Although she was less direct about my own choices, I was aware of her disapproval of most of my wardrobe and over time grew scared, quite literally frightened, to shop for myself or, at times, even dress myself, depending on the crowd that would be present.
In short, Molly transformed me into a more fully-formed poser, and I remain one to this day. But dammit, I'm going to use this blog (Hipsters blog, right?) to explore, inquire and most of all rationalize the cliches I fall into. My western-cut shirts, squared-off glasses and occasional ugly mustache will be defended against the label of the Hipster.
And I'll complain a lot. Because the web is a good outlet for that.
Stop reading now. It won't get any better than it already is, and it might get a lot worse.
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