I don't have a problem
with hipsters, first of all. I long ago realised that 'fashion' as a
concept wasn't for me, but I don't want to intrude on anyone else's
fun. Or what passes for fun when you're too cool to publicly emote.
If you want to wear skinny jeans, leggings with elaborate prints on
them, thick-framed glasses, t-shirts featuring animals that also wear
thick-framed glasses – well, fair play to you. Well done on the
impressively swoopy hair.
It is
bewildering, though, isn't it? The way one particular style starts to
pervade the media until an entire era has a definable Look. In the
same way that some photos are instantly recognisable as being from
the seventies, the images we're churning out in advertising and
posting online all scream “I was taken in the twenty-tens!”, and
there's nothing you can do about that. The very cut of your fringe
betrays you.
I
think what bothers me most is that people don't realise how temporary
it all is. Twenty years from now, when aesthetic circuitry is the big
thing, you'll still have a moustache tattooed on your index finger.
Forty years from now, when fabric can be programmed to display
whatever you dreamed about last night, you will still have
a moustache tattooed on your finger.
That doesn't bother some people, but I like the fact that some tattoo
artists will only ink unique works. If you already know three people
with a particular design, like it or not, you're joining a club. What
would the club of people with moustachioed digits look like, I
wonder? Would you want to be a part of it?
There's been a lot of
debate over what exactly makes someone a hipster, and because humans
can't cope with there being more than two kinds of people, I've
helpfully decided where the line is. You're welcome. The schism is as
follows:
Anyone
who gets conspicuously, publicly excited about their interests is a
geek; anyone too cool and reserved to do so is a hipster. There's a
distancing from the moment in that attitude that's actually pretty
sad, and more held
back than laid back. If you're tempted to say that you preferred a
band's early work because the alternative is to appear happy or
unhappy at the music entering your earholes at that exact moment,
you've detached too much.
I
think you'll find a comments section below, if you want to say that I
don't know what I'm talking about, and lord knows you'd be right to.
I'm no expert. I'm just a victim of the times, like everybody else.
It wasn't intentional - I'd been looking for non-skinny trousers for
months, and eventually gave up. I bought the first tolerable item
that looked like it would cover my legs, only to check the label
after purchase to find that I was now the ashamed owner of a pair of
jeggings.
That's
how fashion works. It gets everywhere, until you have no choice but
to succumb. I have girl boxers with bowler hats and monocles on, and
I'm not sure I could tell you why; only that it seemed the least
abhorrent option at the time.
And
so the symbols of our time continue; repeating, duplicating and
mutating, until every surface in sight is covered in owls with
moustaches.
