Industrious

Some time ago, I wrote about Industrie, the menswear chain that has a similar logic to Sportsgirl (in the women's mass fashion retail market) as a signifier of 'fashionability'. That is, the clothes appeal to young men who don't really know what's in fashion, but want to look as though they do.

But it's not just about 'fashion', but 'style', which I have previously defined as "a more permanent and idiosyncratic dress sense that works aesthetically in a variety of contexts and fashion cycles". Sportsgirl's elaborate boho clothes are designed to generate individual 'looks' through multi-layering and mismatching mass-produced garments and accessories. Likewise, Industrie makes stylistic gestures towards 'individuality' - deconstructed shapes, torn edges, prints and embroidery that are designed to make the garments look customised, even though they are mass-produced.



The company has diversified into womenswear with a line called Her Industrie, which has been out for about a year now. As you can see from these images, Her Industrie carries the same streetwear-influenced logic of 'individuality' as the men's line. Look at the stencils on the cargo pants, and the stencilled version of the black stovepipes that, by now, are everywhere in high street fashion stores. There are also layered t-shirts and singlet tops, and raw-edged, printed hoodies.



(As an aside, it's worthwhile mentioning that these hoodies are called "Harajuku". Since Gwen Stefani introduced this word into mainstream parlance, it's become completely disassociated from the specific geographic, aesthetic and cultural context of the Harajuku district in Tokyo, and now seems to mean something closer to "crazy-hip".)

Industrie seems very unstylish indeed to people who have a strongly defined personal aesthetic. And it seems very uncool to people who thrive on the affect of exclusivity that comes with being a style innovator or early adopter. As Will pointed out in the comments to my 'deconstructed hoodie' post: "Industrie is the kind of stuff where, if you wore it to an extended family barbeque, your family might think you were hip." And the hipster kids over at ThreeThousand are "so over" this style they wish to be woken when its moment is over.

For me, the most fascinating thing about brands like Her Industrie is that they relate only tenuously to the standard 'bubble-up' and 'trickle-down' models of fashion adoption. There was a really stupid and unsophisticated article recently in the Sydney Morning Herald which espoused the 'bubble-up' model:

Sportsgirl and the like may have finally discovered the skirts of India swirling around the ankles of nerdy girls in high schools across the land. Market research is all about youth, hunting for the next big thing. Business pays market research companies big bucks to observe young people and predict which of their angst-ridden outpourings will inspire the next Witchcraft [does the writer mean Witchery?] spin-off or be-labelled beanie.

Using this (unhelpfully crude) logic, whatever styles these trendspotters see subculturally affiliated kids (or, in this example, any kids at all!) will show up, blanded out and priced up for the masses, in chain stores. But this model breaks down when the subcultures and the hipsters don't even like the style to begin with.

So, why develop fashion lines like Her Industrie? Not because they are innovative, and not because they're associated with subcultures, but because they're just versatile and customisable enough to reassure most shoppers that by purchasing and wearing these garments, they're exercising their individuality and staying 'in fashion'.

As mainstream New Zealand women's lifestyle portal NZGirl opines:

The best way to inject a taste of ‘army girl’ into your wardrobe is with a pair of army print pants or shorts. Available from most chain stores, these will be a summer staple which will be worn year after year. We love the pictured Rose Bud combats from her industrie. These funky combat pants mix the masculine army print with girly accents by using print detail and feminine ties. Wear them longer on a cooler day or hitched up over your bikini at the beach – sweet and casual.

I did a bit of Googling to work out who's talking about Her Industrie, and the answer seems to be semi-articulate teenage girls:

went to myer, and omgsh i want these 'her industrie' pants.. but they 100$ and i didnt like the printing on the ass part of it.. hahaa so i derno if i'll get them or not.. may just look arnd first at city or something..

Here's another one:

my mother wont let me buy my Her Industrie three quarter pants thing.. she sed its army and its baggy. i guess it makes me look tom boyish x, x MY MOTHER!

This is a case for real market research - interviewing people to ask them what they like and dislike about the clothes. But from what's written on blogs and forums, it seems that people think about how the pants fit (are they in my size? are they comfortable?), how much they cost (young shoppers rely on allowances, part-time income, and parental permission), and where they can wear them (good for the beach, for going out, etc).

Intriguingly, there seems to be a backlash against the 'sameness' of Industrie clothing, particularly the prominent screen-printed branding. People posting to this bulletin board laugh at men (and women) who wear exclusively Industrie. Rather than making them seem fashionable, it makes them seem like dull-witted fashion followers. Still, I do think this is an exception. It might pain me, and it might pain the ThreeThousand kids, but stencilled army pants probably are going to come back in this summer.

Starter kits for hipsters

Awww, how cute! Supre is selling the yoof of today everything they need to dress like a real hipster! I was in there today and they were bigging up black stovepipe jeans...



And only $60 - all the more to spend at Ding Dong! They had them displayed on a rack with stripey t-shirts in different colours - pink, blue, yellow... Now all they require is a blazer with a few button badges on the lapel, some scuffed-up Chuck Taylors, a chunky studded belt and some black eyeliner. And voila! instant hipster.

Sometimes I think I am too critical of hipsters. After all, in Melbourne there is not much difference between hipster style and mainstream fashion. The picture below was taken at the second birthday party of Australian Vice magazine. I was there earlier in the evening and couldn't move for all the posing. My friends who worked the bar said it got much worse. People were spewing and passing out and you had to wade through rivers of spilled alcohol. As you can imagine, the wooden floor kinda suffered. Hipsters scaled the outside of the building and broke the lift. The building owners now will not hire the venue out for parties because of the expense involved in restoring it to normality.





























I quite like her little bow. Very Jaunty Pussy. Please also note the vintage Nike sneakers worn with the regulation black stovepipes and blazer, ugly op-shop 80s footwear such as grey pumps and red Rumpelstiltskin boots, and that chick with the blonde bowl haircut who I've seen before at these kind of events. I like to subject hipsters to Mel's patented "Would this person look odd walking down the street?" test, and Melburnian hipsters generally pass.

By contrast, here are a couple of examples of how they play things in the States (pictures via the always-hilarious Tale of Two Cities):

The bag's the charm

(Picture: Vice magazine)

2005 really seems to be a charmed year, accessory-wise. (Haw haw.) Elaborate charm necklaces and earrings continue their reign, and probably will as long as people persist with the boho look. (As an aside, I am just astounded at how long this boho nonsense has persisted for. Surely people will get tired of it soon. Surely.) But lately I have been noticing that mainstream stores are getting into the idea of bag charms, something that only used to be popular with international students. (I've had a little decorative satin toy on my bag for the last couple of years - it was given to me by a Chinese postgrad in my department after a trip back to China, and I couldn't think what else to do with it.) But now you can buy leather bag tassels at Witchery, diamante initials at Portmans and beaded charms at Sportsgirl.

(Image from Sportsgirl.)

This object is billed as a "keyring", but you can tell by the size and the fact it also has a hook that you're also meant to use it as a bag charm. You can buy blinged-out versions of these at accessory shops like Diva. I was in there last week and asked the assistant about them. She said they were very popular, along with mobile phone chains.

At first, this seems to stem from a desire for individuality - making mass-produced accessories reflect your own taste and personality. But there are two problems with that. First, these accessories are just as mass-produced. You're equally likely to see someone with 'your' charm on their bag as you'd otherwise be to see 'your' bag on someone else. Second, when you mass them up as in the photo above, it loses coherence and just looks insane.

As the bag equivalent of wearing about a billion button badges on your jacket, I suppose you could call it 'punk'. But what is punk? Is it an anarchic philosophy? Is it a DIY style of cultural production? Is it an aesthetic of bricolage? Punk is such an elastic term that a recent BBC Radio 1 poll on the greatest punks of all time includes Che Guevara, Johnny Cash and Eminem. In turn, that makes me wonder whether the punkest thing you could do right now would be to defy any coherent semiotic reading of your clothes, like Dick Hebdige and a thousand other British academics performed on the original punks.

In that sense, the insane proliferation of charms on your bag doesn't make a statement about 'who you are' - it repels analysis, and obscures your tastes and identity. Instead, it's just a bowerbird mentality - a love of decorative 'shiny things'. Rather than a semiotic statement, it's an affective statement. It's saying "I wear these things because the way they look makes me feel good." And perhaps, like the bowerbird's collection, it's intended to draw admiring glances, thus drawing a kind of affective circle: "these objects make me feel good, and the attention of others also makes me feel good."

Retail Review

A couple of days ago, I read an interesting article in The Age which reviewed three new Melbourne shopping precincts: the GPO, QV and the revamped Melbourne Central. It was all the more interesting because shops don't really get reviewed in the general press like fashion shows, art installations, theatre or even architecture, although I would argue that retail combines elements of all these. Jonathan Green's piece nicely evokes the way shopping centres are designed to move shoppers through space, to generate affective responses that will stimulate purchases, and to mirror the CBD's older, laneway-based retail environment. Here he is, for example, on Melbourne Central:

The spaces are enclosed and intimate, a warren of laneways, lofts and balconied atriums spreading in a fair replica of organic old-city chaos from the cleared central circle that surrounds the cone-topped atrium and the brick battlements of the Coop shot factory tower.

Somewhere around here, we'll find no fewer than nine mobile phone retailers, 32 female fashion specialists, 12 for men and everything in between all set in a crazy, vibrant clutter that screams pace, pace, pace. The signage seizes you at the Lonsdale Street entrance — "Scooter", "Grab", "Sushi Sushi" — and propels you deeper into the increasingly complex innards through a bombardment of sound as well as scent and vision, each shop pumping out its own particular notion of aural ambience at volume.

[...]

Onwards ever onwards. There are multiple entry points, from Elizabeth Street through a fragrant series of sidewalk eateries; from Latrobe, Swanston and, of course, from below, through the centre's own proprietary branded station on the City Loop. The redevelopment has closed in formerly open spaces and redrawn the massive footprint to enclose laneways that ape the intricate retail lacework of Flinders Lane and Little Collins Street.

For the last few months, I've been wanting to take Footpath Zeitgeist "live" by actually photographing street style in Melbourne rather than relying on other people's photos. I've been holding out for a decent digital camera and the money to buy it with. Suddenly becoming a full-time freelancer hasn't helped matters.

But one of the things I plan to do when I get my camera is institute a regular review of retail store merchandising and promotion. The Retail Review section will analyse store window and retail interior design using aesthetic, trend-based and more general cultural criteria. I will also critically review catalogues, particularly hybrid "magalogues" like Furst Publishing's STU, which is a General Pants house magazine.

I think that much of the time, these things are seen as peripheral promotional devices, and as such they're not worth reviewing. But they perform a crucial mediating role between a retail store and the people on the street. Street style can be influenced by a window display or a smart catalogue, even if people can't afford or would never buy the clothes in the store.

Every jaunty pussy needs a tomcat

On Tuesday we were discussing names for the male equivalent of Jaunty Pussy. We arrived at one that I found extremely satisfactory, but of course I can't remember it now. Suggestions in comments are more than welcome. But today, I was perusing a feature on dandies at Style.com, the online home of US Vogue, where a variety of jaunty pussies cavorted in photographic and painted form before my eyes.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you David Hockney!



Moreover, I bring you the rock star of bespoke tailoring, Duncan Quinn!


Any man who's into hot pink is All Right By Me. (Says she wearing her pink jaunty-pussy bow with pink and black striped over-the-knee socks.) There is also a wonderfully camp picture on the website of Duncan sitting in an armchair, surrounded by tousle-haired male models, with a fluffy white dog on his lap. He even has his own Duncan Quinn Signature Cocktail, the French 75:

A LARGE measure of English gin
A generous splash of freshly squeezed lemon juice
A swirl of syrop de sucre

Shake over ice
Pour to fill 2/3 of a flute and top with fine champagne

Miaow, baby!

More jauntiness

Today I found this round-up from Australian Fashion Week, captioned: "a taste of what we'll be wearing this spring". There were also a couple of looks featuring ribbon pussy-bow sashes at the waist, but what I want to point out is that clothes are becoming simultaneously slinkier and simpler in line - which I argue is a key attribute of the Jaunty Pussy look.

Today my co-worker Kate is wearing a vintage jumper which is cream with gold lurex pinstripes, and with a long line of pearl buttons up the left side. It's glamorous and prim, all at the same time. Very Jaunty Pussy.

Jaunty Pussy goes mainstream

I got into work earlier and found a magazine article open on my keyboard. (Thanks Lucy!) It was from last Sunday's Herald Sun Sunday Magazine (22 May 2005) and had the following tidbit in the fashion page:

Tie me up

Primly knotted at the neck Parisian-style, tied in a pussy-bow or long, tasselled and tossed loosely around the shoulders, winter sees the return of the silk scarf in all its different incarnations. Experiment with pattern, colour and even the size of the scarves, and you'll soon wonder how you ever accessorised without them. For a modern interpretation, from one of the classic homes of the silk scarf, check out the Hermes Twilly, $185, which resembles a wide ribbon and comes in a range of prints and patterns. Or tie a little tenderness with Scanlan & Theodore's spots and stripes (above), both $120 (stockists: (03) 9826 5742).

Of course, you know something is extremely mainstream when it gets into the Sunday glossy supplements, but on the whole, most street style is mainstream. The edgy fashion that most people think of when they think "street style" is worn by a definite minority; everyone else gets their inspiration from pop culture (particularly movies and music videos), magazines, shop window displays, and to a much, much lesser extent, what they see other people wearing in public.

Jaunty Pussy has gone mainstream, my friends. I'm wearing my lilac spotted scarf today - what about you?

Jaunty Pussy!

On Monday night, I watched Anchorman on DVD, with Christina Applegate. I was struck by her 1970s corporate style. It was a combination of crisp, relaxed and glossy elements - her wavy blonde hair; her pink, shiny lips; her tailored jackets and vests; her satin shirts and Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses. It reminds me of the clothes on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.



I wanted to make it after all.

Right now all the shops are still stuck in their tiresome "boho" theme, but people on the street are getting into cleaner and more structured elements of that style: tailored velvet jackets; tucking their jeans into their boots. As I've repeatedly written, I'm interested in the combination of soft and structured elements in fashion; and back in March, I noticed the layering of soft blouses with t-shirts, singlet tops and jumpers.

For a while, I have anticipated that the 1960s mod era will start influencing the way people dress - not least because the dread Sienna Miller, who is something of a fashion touchstone, was supposed to be starring in the film Factory Girl. She has just been replaced with Katie Holmes, who is currently surfing the dubious wave of being Tom Cruise's 'girlfriend'; but I still predict that the contrasting block colours (particularly black and white) and geometric shapes of mod style are going to find their way into fashion.



Biba boutique, London, 1965. Image from Sixties City.

More generally, I think there will be more fashion references from the "Swinging Sixties", and the decorative, dandy elements of mod style - the Carnaby Street look epitomised by Austin Powers. Melbourne's indie-pop scenesters already wear this kind of thing - just go to Cherry Bar, Ding Dong Lounge, Weekender or Shake Some Action. And, being Melbourne, many people already wear black.

But I predict the emergence of a specific hybrid of 70s career-chick and swinging 60s style. It's a tailored yet slinky look. Think satin blouses with tight jeans and flat boots; berets and velvet jackets with striped t-shirts and boyish pants; messy hair, shitloads of mascara and glossy pink lipstick. The key colours are bright, space-age, Technicolours - pink, yellow, neon red, black and white, with judicious touches of denim.

Penny came up with the perfect title for this look: Jaunty Pussy. This was a work of unspeakable brilliance. I liked it so much that I've taken to saying it repeatedly in a plummy English accent.


"You're a woman of many parts, Pussy! "

I tried out Jaunty Pussy last Tuesday. I wore a hot-pink racer-back singlet with a hot-pink sash tied in a floppy pussy-bow around my neck. Over it I wore a black and white striped jumper; and I teamed it with black knee-length, man-style shorts, hot-pink opaque tights and white cowboy boots, with a bracelet made from three rows of very large pearls.

On Thursday, I wore a pale pink puffed-sleeve blouse with a black racer-back singlet over the top like a vest, with the pink pussy-bow, grey pinstriped jeans, and pink Chuck Taylor sneakers. Yesterday, I wore the pink singlet again with the pink pussy-bow, a fluffy white off-the-shoulder angora jumper, a black a-line skirt, hot-pink-and-silver-striped knee socks, and white cowboy boots. And today I'm wearing a lilac silk scarf with black polka-dots, tied in a pussy bow, with a black off-the-shoulder t-shirt, a black skirt, black tights and white cowboy boots.

It would seem that I find the pussy-bow the key accessory.

Look out for Jaunty Pussy on a footpath near you. It's also making its way back onto the catwalk - here are some looks from the Fall 2005 collection from Diane Von Furstenberg.

No slouch at fashion - or not?

You may remember that I commented on Janice Breen Burns' theory of soft versus hard in clothing, saying that the majority of people will find a way to be fashionable without sacrificing comfort. Well, along these lines, I was very interested to see that at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney, Josh Goot has just presented a collection of very soft, comfortable, sporty clothes made entirely from cotton jersey ("t-shirt material"). You can find them in Melbourne at Marais in the Royal Arcade, above Caffe e Torta. Here are a couple of my favourites:





(Photos: Sydney Morning Herald)

There were other pics, as well. Maybe I should call this look "Back to the Future". They look very 80s in that baggy, preppie, pastel-coloured way that to me, makes them look like something from old-school Benetton, Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren, especially when you go to the website and see the models lined up. But at the same time, they're completely futuristic - you know, that image of "the future" that you sometimes see in movies, where everyone wears floppy, unisex clothes in grey, white and beige. In The Matrix they wear weird homespun t-shirts when they are in "the real world", as opposed to the tight, structured, tailored clothes they wear in the Matrix.

Goot won the Tiffany Design Award at this year's Melbourne Fashion Festival. He's only 25, and all the usual pundits are predicting he's one to watch. But what I find most interesting about Goot is that he creates structured pieces like jackets, trench coats and tailored pants. I am interested in this combination of formal tailoring and casual fabrics.

Today I am wearing a cropped, double-breasted jacket with raw edges on the lapels and cuffs, made from windcheater material. I got it from erstwhile hippie shop Rasa Rani in the Royal Arcade, which has now closed for renovations, after which time they'll reopen as Hello Gorgeous (the brand name of the clothes they produce). I was drawn to this jacket because it looks dressed-up, but is still casual and very comfortable; and I think that's also the attraction of Goot's clothes. As one anonymous commenter says on Coolchiq:

at first sight, the jackets doesn't make you want to own one. But once you put it on, you'll know what josh is trying to achieve in his line "easy and affortless" ... it will remain one of your staple wordrobe item for a while... you can dress it up or down by playing with scarfs and accessories... the silver track suits definately capture the vintage feel if you are looking for one!!! try one and you'll know!

I am drawn to this idea: "try one and you'll know." It implies an affective dimension to the clothes: that they are made to instil feelings in the body. For example, today I'm wearing thicker than usual socks and my cowboy boots sit quite snugly. I don't have a word for the pleasure this gives me as I walk around; but it makes me feel more cosy and luxurious, even though the actual items I'm wearing are not particularly 'glamorous' in appearance.

Perhaps the genius of Josh Goot's clothes is in creating an innocuous, everyday garment that doesn't look like much, but feels like everything. As he told The Australian:

"People today want to feel relaxed and easy, to counter the stress in their lives. I'm taking that feeling and putting it into my clothes."

Business casual is back, mofo!

Rockin' the Chicago street. (Picture: WearWhatWhen)

As I pointed out on my other blog, the idea of wearing a tie with casual clothes was huge a couple of years ago when Avril Lavigne and a million teenage girls did it, but that it is probably considered "totally played" by hipsters. Well, it's funny how many people I see around actually wearing ties. Skinny ties, fat ties, ties pinned to the side and worn as kerchiefs (kerchiefs, if you'll recall, were one of my 2005 Fashion Predictions). Ties with shirts, polo shirts, t-shirts, singlets. Business casual is here to stay.

Now, when I say "business casual", I don't mean it in the Andrew G sense of "let me put on a blazer with the sleeves pushed up with my jeans, t-shirt and appalling Farrah Fawcett hair," nor in the pragmatic sense "clothing to wear to work when professional dress codes have been relaxed". Many companies have given up on their business casual codes because workers were confused by them or because they actually prefer to wear suits.

This ties into the careless luxe trend I identified several months ago - the mixing of signifiers. So, what is business casual all about? Is it a nostalgia for dressing up in an era when dressing casually is more widely accepted than ever? Well, you have to admit that the more prominent new-tie wearers are the usual artsy, creative types, who can afford to wear whatever they want. Perhaps they wear business casual as a declaration of their independence from the socioeconomic tyranny of 9-5 labour. As Dougie (my source on the ground for Japanese fashion) wrote recently:

Watching MTV, I realised that one of the reasons punk and rock bands dress bizarrely and let their hair shag out wildly is effectively telling the world that they've made it, because they're completely unemployable by any other industry.

This week, I've been doing my own version of business casual - cutting off old black or navy pantihose and turning them into sheer footless tights. I wear them ankle-length with my cut-down Dunlop Volleys, or hitch them up to mid-calf or just under the knee to wear with sneakers or cowboy boots. I was reading with interest an article (the link is to the cached version) about how business casual policies have meant that pantihose fall by the wayside as corporate wear. Most young people I see (even business types) wear opaque tights. So, I'm interested to see if my idea of sheer leggings takes off.

But I am not so much into the Tommy Hilfiger look of tucking the shirt into the jeans. No, Tommy, no!

Footpath Cracks - Bettina gets 'em young

Welcome to the first of an occasional series. Footpath Cracks are my bitchy fashion news briefs, and they'll come up when I feel some style-related issue in the press deserves a good snort of derision.

In today's inaugural crack, Bettina Liano has announced she's designing a range of children's wear. I am a little alarmed. I suppose the "ruffled tops, tulle skirts and jersey pieces with mini versions of Bettina's celebrated denim garments" won't be too much of a stretch. But isn't there something a little wrong about producing this clothing for kids? After all, this is the same designer who said in 2003,

"It is important for women to feel amazing in my clothes and feel sexy but comfortable in my jeans."

And as The Age noted last year,

"Her designer jeans (generally falling into the "spray-on" category of fit) are incredibly saucy."

I also wonder if this is her attempt at buttressing brand loyalty among mums who may have "sagged out" of her target market, so to speak. If so, you have to applaud her for thinking laterally. But by far my favourite thing about this article was that:

"The clothing will come in size 3 to 10 ..."

Just like her adult designs, then!

Winter of the deconstructed hoodie

Photographed in Nolita district, New York. (Picture: Shannon Skillem, Nylon magazine)

At the risk of sounding like the Late Show parody of The Sharp, hoodies - are - back! Not that they ever went away. They're one of those things that instantly makes you look hipper, even if you aren't. But this year, we won't just see plain old hoodies. 2005 is going to be the Winter of the Deconstructed Hoodie.

I want to look at three ways of deconstructing the plain hoodie: adding words and images; cutting it up; and reconstructing it. The most obvious way to customise hoodies is to create slogan hoodies. Chris has a wonderful hoodie, which he created himself, that has "Baudrillard" appliqued across the front. Last year I was researching an article about the explosion of specialist t-shirt labels (that my editor butchered so it merely said "whoa, ain't slogan t-shirts subversive!") and I discovered Neighborhoodies. The idea is genius. You tell them what you want on your hoodie, t-shirt, etc, and they'll sew or print it on and deliver the finished garment with a personalised note. It's a business model that I plan to emulate, with modifications, when I finally get Melkwear off the ground.

Then there are cut-up hoodies. Everyone tells me that the Flashdance 80s look - raw-seamed sportswear - is 'over', and people are now wearing tailored or 'ethnic' clothes. But that's not what I see people wearing, and those aren't the hoodies you see in the shops. Industrie has some great 80s-style hoodies with ripped-off sleeves this season (they call them "Raging Bull"), which you can check out online if you can get over the Kevin Federline-esque model.

I think Industrie is the Sportsgirl of menswear. They do some great basic menswear with a slightly edgy quality that always looks quite sharp in the catalogues and the shop windows, but never looks as good on real men. Possibly this is because the layered, structured way that stylists (and hipsters!) construct outfits seems completely alien to the approach of your average dufus: "Duh, I will put some pants on. And then I will put on a top. And then some shoes. I dress me real good."

But Industrie possibly plays the same role for men as Sportsgirl does for women - as a signifier of "fashionability" (or "fashion-ability"!) for those who aren't otherwise adept at fashion semiotics. Just as any chick can go to Sportsgirl and know that she'll be "in fashion", men can go to Industrie, safe in the knowledge that whatever distressed garment they buy will be considered "fashionable".

Here it is worthwhile differentiating between several linked ideas: "fashionable", "cool", "stylish". I should perhaps devote an entire post to this. "Fashionable" implies being on the crest of a wave of deliberate obsolescence; knowing that what you're wearing now won't be acceptable within the symbolic and actual economies of fashion. "Cool" is an ephemeral, aloof form of affect that trades on exclusivity and otherness. The cool person is always the other, because it is fundamentally uncool to call yourself cool. "Stylish" implies a more permanent and idiosyncratic dress sense that works aesthetically in a variety of contexts and fashion cycles.

According to this brief and problematic schema that I've just sketched, Sportsgirl and Industrie are fashion stores. If you pick and choose garments to fit with your own aesthetic, they can also be stylish; but their ubiquity makes them uncool.

But anyway. I also saw a wonderful men's hoodie in a shop on Little Collins Street, which had large circular cut-out panels in the sides. It was designed to be worn with a singlet or something underneath. I was so excited by this look that I went to Savers to try and find a cheap hoodie to cut up and experiment with, but there weren't any I liked. I bought a spotted t-shirt instead.

The final winter hoodie trend I want to point out is the one illustrated by this New Yorker - reconstructed hoodies. I'm fascinated by his Frankenhoodie - it appears to be constructed from two separate garments sewn together. It makes me wonder whether he has a doppelganger wearing the opposite-coloured hoodie. Industrie is doing a version of this, too. Particularly, look out for the pink one that they somewhat alarmingly describe as the "savaged zip" hoodie.

The main characteristic of the reconstructed hoodie is that it toys with the basic hoodie construction. The cut-up hoodie pulls the familiar form apart and creates dynamic absences that are only enhanced by the small traumas of their curling, frayed edges. But the reconstructed hoodie draws its dynamism from the slightly askew way it puts the hoodie form back together - the things it adds, like extra colours and zips.

The irritation of Sienna Miller and the curse of the It Girl

An article of mine was published today in the Sydney Morning Herald. It discusses the irritating phenomenon of Sienna Miller - someone who's famous as a clotheshorse and celebrity handbag rather than for her own accomplishments.

I don't particularly like Sienna's "signature boho style" or whatever else the papers want to call it. But it's fascinating the way she has become a style icon, even for her fashion mistakes. My SMH article briefly outlines the media's role in this - their desire to identify fresh talent and monitor its development, even as that attention crushes the talent's potential.

But I am also interested in the industrial apparatus that enables high-street fashion stores to diffuse celebrity and runway style for chicks on the street. Topshop is the best at this, but Supre and Sportsgirl are very canny Australian examples. As Elanor has said, Sportsgirl at the moment is a "shrine" to Sienna - and I would like to do more research into the process by which this happens.

I think the most interesting thing about Sienna Miller is the very blandness I object to in her media deification. While she's not very interesting as a celebrity, she's not that different from thousands of other women, and her style is wearable and comfortable. You don't have to be astoundingly beautiful or style-savvy to look like Miller - it's just clever accessorising. Basically, she is a blank canvas onto which you can project your own sense of style. Because of the bitsy nature of 'boho chic', it can sustain a wide range of variation.

But as Claudia Croft suggests in The Times (UK), this look is tired already. And if Sienna wants to maintain her status as a fashion icon, she'll have to reinvent herself. Croft points to the fact that Miller is starring in a new movie as Andy Warhol's muse Edie Sedgwick, who was also an It Girl. Maybe we'll all be dressing as beatniks next year.

Nova is a pimp. Everyone is a ho

I have been following with interest a promotion by Melbourne radio station Nova 100, called Pimp Up Your Life. The premise is that an online car sales company is giving away a 1981 Chrysler Valiant that has been "pimped up" with a new paint job, interior and accessories, much in the style of the US TV show Pimp My Ride. I mentioned this to Glen, and we are now thinking of co-writing a paper on that show for a new book on reality TV. Glen will discuss the car part, and I will concentrate on the aesthetic of pimpin' and the show's interlinkage with hip hop.

The Nova promotion culminates tonight in the "Pimp Party". People who have won tickets from Nova will dress up as pimps and hos and descend upon The Next Blue nightclub, where, fittingly enough, people go to ordinary club nights dressed up as pimps and hos. Some Australian R&B artists will perform and the car will be given away. They have probably given it away by now; I haven't been listening to the radio.

I recently had a paper published in Continuum which dealt in part with the African American notion of pimpin' and how it might translate in Australia, where we have no precise equivalent to that culture. Here is a little of what I said:

... the uses of the black female booty within African American patriarchy impose as many constraints as they provide opportunities for self-empowerment. As Rose argues in Black Noise, “male sexist discourse often involves naming and dominating black female sexuality and sexual behaviour.” (253) Some African American rappers display an enormous distrust of the booty, seeing it as a lure to manipulate men’s desire for women’s own purposes. In “The Bomb”, Ice Cube warns men to “especially watch the ones with the big derriers [sic]”, while Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison” cautions them not to “trust a big butt and a smile” (Rose, Black Noise 254).

This anxiety over being ‘booty-whipped’ plays out in the pimp and ho (whore) dichotomy. The figure of the pimp has a long history in black American culture, from the macquereau (mack) of nineteenth-century New Orleans to the ghettocentric images popularised in 1970s ‘blaxploitation’ films like Superfly (1972) and The Mack (1973).* “In its most simplistic (and powerful) forms,” writes Mark Anthony Neal, “pimpin’ was a constant reminder of black patriarchy’s role in the black community, as pimps were the visible controllers and connoisseurs of black female sexuality.” (Songs 153)

Thanks to hip hop, pimpin’ looms large in contemporary youth culture. In what Neal calls the “neo-pimpin’” discourse (Songs 154), terms like “big booty ho” or "hoochie"** have come to police sexually explicit African American femininity — whether or not it is for sale. In Notorious BIG’s openly misogynist song, “Big Booty Hoes”, it is a woman’s willingness to perform graphic sexual acts on Biggie that makes her ‘deserving’ of disrespect, and therefore of the name “ho”.

More importantly, writes Neal, it is the imagery of pimpin’ that is being pimped in booty-dancing songs and music videos. Jay-Z can probably be described as the preeminent exponent of the neo-pimpin’ aesthetic. In the video for his 1999 hit, “Big Pimpin’”, women in bikinis shimmy aboard a luxury yacht in the Caribbean; while in 2003’s “Crazy in Love”, Jay-Z plays the role of limousine-riding pimp to Beyoncé’s delirious, booty-wiggling ho.

* While the pimp is a figure of black hypermasculinity, the ho has a far less empowered presence in black popular music. Some of the few feminist interventions into this discourse are Marlena Shaw’s “Street Talkin’ Woman” and LaBelle’s “Lady Marmalade”. Regarding the latter, Neal argues: “Rather than a narrative about the illicit and illegitimate culture that supports prostitution in places like New Orleans … in the hands of LaBelle the song became an anthem of sexual assertion and empowerment” (“Songs” 98).

** ‘Hoochie’ or ‘coochie’ means a sexually promiscuous woman. Closer in meaning to ‘slut’ than ‘whore’, it derives from ‘hoochie coochie’, a dirty dance or even a black vernacular reference to sex (eg: Muddy Waters, “I’m Your Hoochie-Coochie Man”). It may come to English from the French “couchée” — the past tense of the same verb used in LaBelle’s famous chorus “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”

At first, I was a little disturbed by the cavalier way that the radio station deploys cliches of pimpin' - for example the implication that hos are as much an accoutrement of the pimp as his cane, pinky ring and fur coat. You a pimp? Well, you gon' need some bitches, nigga. There seemed to be very little admission that pimpin' is still rhetorically (if not literally) a sexual economy with women's bodies as its currency, except that today I heard an announcer say that the Pimp Party would be "like Carlisle and Grey Street". (FYI: these are notorious streetwalking strips in St Kilda.)

Curiously, in Nova's view pimps and hos are equal partners. They are like stags and does, rams and ewes - just names for the male and female version of the same thing. Some of the prizes to be given away are a kind of "his and hers" thing that seems completely alien to how I understand pimpin'. No self-respecting pimp would lounge around with his ho in matching Peter Alexander robes, for example - he would wear the robe, and she would wear her booty. Later, he would wear her booty.

What had actually first grabbed my attention about this promotion was the line "This is an equal opportunity promotion." I was quite excited by the way it was inviting women to be pimps, even though that isn't at all feminist because it still maintains the pimpin' discourse. But there was something a little subversive about that I liked. It seems to have got lost along the way.

But that is really an aside. What interests me is the aesthetic of pimpin', and the use of "pimped", "pimped-up", "pimpish", etc to describe a 'look'. I haven't got time to discuss this properly now; but it is a preoccupation of mine, as is the aesthetic of bling.

Chains of credit

You might well have noticed the TV commercials and metrolite posters for the National Bank's new Visa Mini. The thing about this new, smaller-sized credit card is that it can be attached to things - they suggest your keyring or your mobile phone. Laura was wondering whether this might tie into the 'chain' aesthetic that's popular at the moment (and which I've written about previously).

I'm interested in the 'fashion' angle they've taken. In theory, it's quite brilliant. By positioning it as a fashion accessory, they're piggybacking on fashion's voracious consumer ethic and the cycle of obsolescence that demands further purchases. With a credit card. Wearing a credit card around your neck also calls to mind the omnipresent laminated backstage passes on lanyards sported by fashion journos, PR types and other honchos at fashion events, like this week's Melbourne Fashion Festival.

In addition, by highlighting miniaturisation as the 'latest thing', they're also tapping a certain tech-nerd early-adopter desire - the sort of people who read Gizmodo and get excited by the latest iPod accessory or mobile phone. I can see the creative brief now.

TARGET AUDIENCE

AB, 18-39, M/F. Tech-savvy and style conscious professionals in the information and service economies, these men and women are big spenders and conspicuous consumers. They want the latest in everything - cars, mobile phones, music and video, fashion - and they're prepared to pay. They're connoisseurs of digital technology - they own an iPod, download ringtones, pay their bills on the internet and use their personal digital assistant for email and MMS. They have a wide social network and like to party.

Ugh. What a nice reminder why I never got into account service.

The good people at The Pen have done a marvellously succinct and biting summary of the actual (as opposed to aspirational) logic of this card. I particularly liked the observation that:

Your new card also comes packaged with a fabulous accesory kit (safety clip, long strap, phone attachment and a card cover) so you can keep your card around your neck whilst the noose of debt slowly strangles you. [my emphasis] Our gorgeous model Bianca wonderfully demonstrates this.

Yes: the chain rhetoric, much like the notorious "Unchain My Heart" refrain from the GST introduction ad campaign, is darkly ironic. And of course, the creative brief may or may not have added that this same target audience is often deeply cynical of advertisers' attempts to co-opt them. Of course, the real cynicism is among that demographic that's involved in cultural and intellectual production and has more political involvement and less money.

This target audience, by contrast, is the cynics' consumerist peers: the sons and daughters whose achievements parents boast to their friends about. Then the friends start nagging their own useless artsy children about when they're going to enter the corporate world and start buying houses and whitegoods on nice shiny credit cards. So, perhaps this campaign will work where other attempts to link products with cutting-edge fashion have failed dismally.

Still, I do wonder. Gadget Lounge puts it best: "When is it that something moves from extremely fashionable, to completely unfashionable? When a bank uses it to get you to use their credit card."

Layerin' my arms

What a dreadful pun that was, even by my exacting standards. Anyway, I was looking at pictures from Paris Fashion Week, and was intrigued by this look from Collette Dinnigan:


(Picture: Herald Sun)

It looks a little too silly to be worn as a street look, but the sculptural forms are really beautiful - the way it bunches on the upper arm and then softly bells out before being caught up at the wrist. It's interesting the way that a retro-looking design is being worn in this very irreverent, casual way. It sort of brings to mind the grunge layering look, where you'll wear a t-shirt over a long-sleeved top. But it manages to look quite neat and dressed up.

Marc Jacobs had a similar design for Louis Vuitton, only his was a jacket with puffed elbow-length sleeves worn over a long-sleeved top. Sometimes you see this look on the street when someone is wearing a vintage 3/4-sleeve coat with long sleeves underneath. Also, you sometimes see girls wearing detachable thick sleeves over t-shirts or with sleeveless tops. I used to do this look by wearing legwarmers on my arms. It was surprisingly warm in winter.

I predict that we might see more sleeve layering over the next year - whether with long gloves, detachable sleeves or short-sleeved garments worn over long-sleeved ones.

Great scarves - DIY

Spotted in Dikanyama district, Tokyo, in week of 14-18 February. (Photo: style-arena.jp.)

Look at that scarf. I've never seen anything like it. In another close-up shot, you can see that it's a very chunky knit, embroidered with huge pearls. But from a distance, it looks crisp and prim.

It would be so easy to make. I wonder if you'll see stuff like that here soon, given the knitting craze that gripped Melbourne's young women about two years ago and still continues to get coverage as if it's something wildly novel. Here is an article that's more analytical about the entire DIY fashion phenomenon. It links it to various stages of industrialisation and feminism:

This generation doesn't worry about being mistaken for their mothers because mama didn't knit, sew or bake: She fought the gender wars, leaving these young women free to be glamorous - or whatever they want. [...] Just as the Industrial Age spawned the Arts & Crafts movement, so the Information Age is begetting the Creative movement, in which individuals take charge of their own lives.

The article also links the rise of handicrafts to Faith Popcorn's edict that post-9/11, we're all into 'cocooning' - comfort, the domestic sphere, the reassuring rituals and objects of home. It also reminds me of an anti-branding backlash I read about yesterday. Interestingly, staff at Faith Popcorn's consultancy, BrainReserve, are forbidden from wearing branded apparel. Popcorn herself dresses entirely in black Issey Miyake and Armani. I was wondering - if she's so anti-branding, why does she call her dog Miyake? Maybe she equates branded clothing with conspicuous branding, and her clothes are exempt because their branding isn't obvious.

But the idea of customising your clothes to remove any traces of branding seems to me to spring from the same impulse that drives people to make their own scarves. Perhaps these people want something that nobody else has, and their taste is about displaying exclusive aesthetics rather than conspicuous consumption of brands. But there are also brands like Hauser which prominently name themselves (large labels on the outside of the garments), yet are also exclusive (in this case, available at Frauhaus on Brunswick Street). Perhaps the brand is a subcultural item, in its broadest and least Marxist sense.

I wrote about this in 2003 in terms of Australian labels like Gwendolyne, Shem and Alannah Hill. You could also add newer labels like Claude Maus, Willow, One Teaspoon and Camilla + Marc.

Forget the arse-crack!

(Photo: AFP)

This photo from Milan Fashion Week shows that the charm look won't die anytime soon. I heard someone recently describe those necklaces with the mass of various charms as "bowerbird" necklaces - a term I love. But I particularly like the clever way the tough eyelets are substituted for a chain as the anchors for the charms. I also like the contrast between the satin dress and the leather edging.

I read an interesting Age piece by Janice Breen Burns alleging that soft, girly fabrics are on the way out, and we should enjoy their flattering drape while we can because within three seasons, we'll be shoehorned into stiff, tailored fabrics. Breen Burns may be right - it's certainly true that structured 50s-style tailoring is popular at the moment - those big skirts - those nipped-in jackets. But I think the very point she makes about soft drapery ("It's the look most women warm to, gladly invest in - even those not particularly fussed about current fashion") means that a combination of hard and soft elements will be a more likely street look.

After all, Ted Polhemus has a lot to answer for. He has been the most visible commentator to characterise 'street style' as innately subcultural, spectacular and self-contained - a range of easily identifiable 'looks'. The same thinking pervades the Fruits conception of outlandish Tokyo teens as the epitome of 'street style'. But Breen Burns undermines her entire argument, perhaps unconsciously, by setting up an opposition between the dictates of fashion and what women actually enjoy wearing.

I think actual street style reveals the compromises and interpretive choices ordinary people make; and what I like about this dress is that it combines slinky with tough, punk eyelets with preppie charms. There's something for everyone. And of course, regarding that arse-crack - my bet is that by the time the dress makes it off the back pages of mX and onto the red carpet (and through copycat designs, into stores), it will have been re-cut higher.

Oscar Humphries' take on metrosexual fashion

Oscar Humphries, gormless posh gadabout and son of Barry "Dame Edna" Humphries, has recently returned to London with his tail between his legs after an unsuccessful attempt to become the Kate Moss of the Antipodes. Last year, young Oscar had a really unfortunate column in News Ltd's Sunday Magazine about his raffish adventures at premieres, nightclub openings, etc. Now he's offering his sage fashion advice to readers of The Telegraph (UK).

Oscar has a very preppie, almost feminine style, but I'm not sure whether it's a Sloaney kind of street chic that's attractive, attainable and wearable, Sienna Miller-style (and Sienna isn't particularly original in her boho style - indeed, Penny quite accurately calls her "a photocopy of Kate Moss"), or whether it's a kind of personal sartorial vision that Oscar merely wants everyone to wear. Anyway, Oscar has an interesting spin on metrosexual style.

In Melbourne at the moment, metrosexual style encapsulates a tension between butch and femme signifiers. You've got butch roughed-up clothes in pretty pastel colours; distressed workwear-style jeans and visible t-shirt seams, as if put on inside-out straight from the bedroom floor, but with delicate embroidering; butch leather accessories with shiny, groomed hair and dainty sneakers that are almost like slippers.

But Oscar seems to be pure femme - he's seriously advocating that men wear velvet jackets, women's brooches and Pucci-style silk scarves. My first impulse was hysterical laughter, particularly when I saw this dashing picture:



This is such a literal interpretation of the watered-down careless luxe that's all the rage for women this season (which I have commented on extensively) that it's funny on a man. But it makes me wonder how much longer Australian men will continue wearing their polo shirts with turned-up collars, distressed t-shirts, untucked printed shirts and designer jeans. The traditional understanding of men's fashion is that its cycles are much longer and changes more subtle than women's fashion. But these trends seem to have been around for years - I remember noticing the first appliqued Roy t-shirts around 2000.

Perhaps Oscar is pointing the way.

The Incredible Melk's Spanking Fashion Parade!

A mink-blowing cavalcade of Supre fashions like you've never seen them worn before! The Incredible Melk and her posse of foxy models will show how Melbourne's premiere youth fashion brand styles up for the runway. The Melk will perform the smutty gyno-rap you know and love, plus some outrageous freestyle mic action! There'll also be cocktail specials, and merchandise from the Melk's exclusive Melkwear range available to purchase.

The Incredible Melk's Spanking Fashion Parade is a fundraising event for the Melk's upcoming season at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. A revamped version of her Fringe Festival hit, The Incredible Melk's Booty Pageant, is playing the Kitten Club from March 23 - April 17.

Saturday 5 March
The Galaxy Space at Tony Starr's Kitten Club (297 Little Collins Street, Melbourne)
Doors open 7pm; show starts 7:30pm
Tickets $5