Hipsters

[titch juicy]

A hipster is surely just a member of the most recent fashion tribe, no?

[El Pibe]

I've posted this before, but I rather liked it, an open letter to hipsters

http://potlatch.typepad.com/weblog/2011/03/an-open-letter-to-the-hipsters.html

If I were to tell you, my dear hipster, that you represent a post-liberal youth movement, you probably wouldn't have a clue what I meant. You have probably never met anyone who wasn't a liberal. You have scarcely heard of The Daily Mail, for which I envy you. Your idea of a conservative is someone who suggests you wear a bicycle helmet. Your boss doesn't even notice your tatoos, which must register as something of a shame. You are so liberal as to not even know it. So what is it you yearn for? What is your equivalent of the 1960s?

Some have suggested it is the 1950s, which is maybe true to the point of adopting various Beat styles and poses. But really, I suggest, it is the post-punk period of circa 1977-84, the years between The Sex Pistols ripping up the rule book, and The Smiths piecing it back together again. And let me go one further, with a proposition that might (or might not) offend some of you: what you yearn for is the fulfillment of the promises of Thatcherism. What frustrates you about Britain (and, for your American progenitors, New York and California) in the early 21st century is the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of economic freedom. You have been seeking to renew economic liberalism, just as baggy and rave renewed social liberalism.

[Otta]

Apparently they shun the mainstream, so will wear things that aren't fashionable, thus making them instantly fashionable because as you say "being anti-fashion is so fashionable".

It's like music when people won't listen to something because it's too mainstream, so they listen to "underground stuff" which if it's any good, gets popular and mainstream, at which point it shall be cast aside as a "sell out".

[Jeremy]

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> "underground stuff" which if it's any

> good, gets popular and mainstream

false

[Otta]

Okay far too sweeping a statement, of course not everything good ends up being picked up and has mainstream sucess, but the gist of what I'm saying remains the same. Some people won't listen to stuff simply because it's mainstream. They ignore the fact that sometimes stuff is popular and mainstream because it's really good. But it's all about being cool and listening to the "right" stuff.

[El Pibe]

I have to say I quite enjoyed the whole 'chap' thing when it kicked off, what, 10, 15 years ago? Drinking gin and being silly.

It does become somewhat unnerving when it becomes a uniform to follow slavishly, i always found that sort of thing disturbing to be fair.

The closest I've ever got to that is probably a penchant for over-sized wolly jumpers when i was 17, a useful cultural badge when attempting to drunkenly paw at cute goth girls down the local pub.

[El Pibe]

Carnell is also completely vindicated in sporting what might at first glance appear to be hipsterish cultural identifiers.

He has of course been wearing them entirely free of irony since he could walk!!!

[Seabag]

There's an older and more monied 'look' going on too, it's going on in the shadow of Hipsterisms bright light. But it's there

Daddy Rockabilly old motor bike/car driving vintage Hipster is my take

Known to feature:

Redwing boots

Selve edge & Japanese denim

Beards

Vintage work wear

Supreme T's

New English work wear, but old cuts

Blue, Kahki, Olive, Denim

Hair/no hair

Tattoos (old and optional)

Specs

Or is this just urbane arty/creative middle agers, flush with ?150 to splash on a pair of said jeans + ?250 on a pair of boots

[david_carnell]

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Carnell is also completely vindicated in sporting

> what might at first glance appear to be hipsterish

> cultural identifiers.

> He has of course been wearing them entirely free

> of irony since he could walk!!!

Guilty m'lud.

[david_carnell]

Seabag Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> There's an older and more monied 'look' going on

> too, it's going on in the shadow of Hipsterisms

> bright light. But it's there

>

> Daddy Rockabilly old motor bike/car driving

> vintage Hipster is my take

>

> Known to feature:

> Redwing boots

> Selve edge & Japanese denim

> Beards

> Vintage work wear

> Supreme T's

> New English work wear, but old cuts

> Blue, Kahki, Olive, Denim

> Hair/no hair

> Tattoos (old and optional)

> Specs

>

>

> Or is this just urbane arty/creative middle agers,

> flush with ?150 to splash on a pair of said jeans

> + ?250 on a pair of boots

Ah man....caught again (sans beard and tats).....I'm just going to live in a potato sack and be done with it.

Heirloom organic potatoes obviously.

[Seabag]

How much you want for that Vintage sack

I've a chair to upholster, by hand with my renovated tools, in my man shed, listening to my Roberts radio

[El Pibe]

Is Withnail to blame for it all?

[Otta]

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Carnell is also completely vindicated in sporting

> what might at first glance appear to be hipsterish

> cultural identifiers.

> He has of course been wearing them entirely free

> of irony since he could walk!!!

Absolutely, but the difference is that Carnell doesn't look like he's playing dress up.

[Seabag]

There's a fine line between dressing and dressing up, I agree. That includes haircuts and beards etc.

Sometimes I see a gent, usually older and near the city, dressed in the most immaculate tailored clothes. It's a great sight and the details are subtle

But add a cygnet ring and white cuff and collar on a coloured shirt, and were into spiv territory

I'm sure DC is a fine dresser indeed, not a cygnet ring in sight

[david_carnell]

Too bloody right.

Don't really have the finances for the Row so tends to be vintage - either tweedy-country stuff or American workwear.

Trying hard not to cross the fine line into playing dress-up as Bertie Wooster during the week and a lumberjack from Wisconsin on weekends!

[Seabag]

Lol DC

This might interest you. English Workwear

http://www.universalworks.co.uk

I've somehow got an image of you as a grown up version of the Hovis boy, on a bike. Am I close ?

[david_carnell]

You've no idea how close you are.

If I tell you I ride this:

http://www.velorbiscycles.co.uk/student-classic

While wearing this:

http://www.helt-pro.com/en/products/Detail/hunter-loden.html

You being to get the idea. And while Universal Works stuff is ok, I prefer http://www.old-town.co.uk/products.htm for English workwear.

[Seabag]

My god, where do you live ?

I'm now seeing you as Windy Miller from Trumpton

[MrBen]

This thread was done in 2011....http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,804059,804822#msg-804822

One thing I do like about hipster style is that it's one of the most identifiable stylings of any tribe since heavy metal, punk and teddy boys. If it makes people talk then it's probably a good thing. We cant all be seen in John Lewis Gant sweaters and corduroy. Unless you're the proto-hipster Carnell of course.

I broadly admire the micro-capitalist entrepreneurialism. You could argue the movement has single handedly regenerated the inner urban retail and food scene for the better.

Agree there's a particular type who are annoying....but aren't we all to a certain extent?

[NewWave]

Real hipsters reside in Williamsburg in Brooklyn and wouldn't be seen dead in ED....at a push they may head over the pond and hang in Dalston.

[charlesfare]

Hasn't every generation since the enlightenment or whatever had their own version of hipsters? Pre-Raphaelites, flappers, beatniks, teddy boys, new romantics and so on. Some of the posters here are probably old enough to have lived through or been part of at least one of those sub-cultures or some other.

Funny to see people on the ED turn their nose up at today's current crop of bearded, skinny jeans and art school "hipsters" - it's partly down to that class of young people that the values of your houses have shot up so quickly and that coffee shops, art house cinemas, spangly new eateries and the likes are popping up around here. On the other hand, that could be all the more reason to hate them.

[RosieH]

Gore Vidal wrote in 1953 of the "Young men with beards wearing blue jeans and open red-checked shirts contrived to look more Iowa than Murger..."

I suspect it's the contrivance that gets people's goats, but I can't help feeling it's kind of pathetic to rail against people half your age (or a third your age...!) on account of what they wear. You sound like my dad when I was 14 and he ridiculed my latest outfit from Afflecks Palace or when I put the Smiths on my record player. Get with it, daddy-o.

Why are espadrilles more offensive to you than box fresh white trainers or nasty short sleeved shirts? There are tribes aplenty in London, and I find it utterly bemusing that art students raise more ire from the impeccably dressed style mavens of the forum than any other fashion gang.

As I thought when I was 14, so I think now - if someone who clearly couldn't give a stuff about their own clothes thinks you're getting dressed wrong, (and what manner of projection is that?) you must be doing something right.

And Otta - "apparently they...", "some people..."? For shame, man!

[El Pibe]

At 14 is to be encouraged, at 24 its to be tolerated, in your 30s...seriously, grow up.

It's the older ones that really annoy.

I should add this is not specific to hipsters, a mopey goth who should know better will arch my eyebrows in the same manner

[El Pibe]

Christ i still love the Smiths, but seriously if anyone my age is listening to them with heartfelt earnestness at the angst of it all, then they deserve a slap, or at least treatment on the NHS.

[Otta]

Rosie, yes, "apparently they". As in I haven't got a bloody clue what their "thing" is, so I looked it up.

And basically what el pibe said, except I can't say as Ive ever LOVED The Smiths.