Premier - Revolt Magazine

TODAY’S
FASHION
BY KATIE CERCONE
York city street fashion is a Petri dish of inspiration for
designers all over the world. It’s timeless,’ says Natalia Yovane,
a fine artist from Brooklyn known for her faint purple eye shadow,
‘New
vintage sneaks and killer forehead fringe. In 2011, blackanese
Barbie Nicki Minaj, an artist whose lyrics boast she’s sporting 6-digit sneakers
(not that she looks at the price tag) was the most popular Halloween Costume.
Plurality is in, and fashion – that grimy whip of the governing elite – who gives a
hoot? Your mistress? Medical intuitive? Inner child? Dealer? Who are you – the
girl that loved pajama day in high school?
Truthfully, the very idea of having to write as an authority on street fashion
- (fashion as far as I’m concerned being a four letter word) ‘street,’ meanwhile
infinitely pregnant with politically incorrect slander – threw me for a loop. I
nonetheless hit the block (Soho, Harlem, Bushwick and Midtown respectively)
like a rookie ethnographer.
34th St. Herald Square – women are still wearing Ugg boots? Bushwick –
Aunt Jemima head wraps, Grandpa shades, faded paisley slips…skinny jeans
are a must and skinny jeans make you gay, depending on the demographic.
Wide leg pants occur in two factions, one being the yoga mat toting bright eyed
sort whose flowing linen tribal influenced dubs could house the Bronx zoo, and
the other being those hip hop types that still think tight white boy swag makes
your upwardly mobile ass gay. Gold nameplate anything – ears and knuckles
screaming Christian names, or worse, proclamations like ‘Celibate’ – glinted in
the disturbing November heat from the direction of hipsters and thugs alike.
Slim Hungry of Bushwick, “stays fresh wearing Rugby and Religion with Lebrons
on his feets.” When he plays basketball he, “stays straight with Nike or Adidas
kits, aka the whole package from the headband to the socks.”
Up north, DaViana Wall of Harlem Overheard writes (“Hood Rich” Spring
2010): “People steal from stores and commit all types of crime just in an effort
to look ‘fly’…these hood stars have $1,200 jackets, and still live at home with
mommy. That’s not what’s up.”
Cindy Hinant, a visual artist whose daily trek through Soho makes her a regular
target for amateur blogarazzi stalking women for photo copy, remarks, “Street
fashion has made me both paranoid and vain. Last week I had my photo taken
twice in one day by two different magazines for their street fashion whatever.
Now when I’m wearing something that I think is awesome I’m disappointed not
to be stopped to have my picture taken.” Others such as Veronica Green, whose
daily ride on the L train sends her into mind choruses of “Why? Whyyyyyy????”
wonders, “How these people possibly work in tutus, fishnets, giant onesies and
gold, lame tops?”
Recently at PINTA, the Latin American Art Fair in New York City, while watching
the barrage of skinny pant legs and dainty beveled loafers, a journalist from
Chile whispered in my ear what numerous cultural critics have confirmed as
of late: “Fashion is dead.” Meanwhile, a balding gentlemen looking dapper in
Sinatra-inspired attire explained he had just spent a fortune on a new wardrobe
at a few select “fashion forward” clothing outlets downtown. Rewind. Some
wolves feed their young their own vomit. Fashion is a hostile scrimmage, a
pedigree pooch chasing its own tail. More sizzle than steak. Check it: Whatever
you do, don’t be the one we all love to hate.
REVOLT
Magazine March/April 2012 6