Random Rhetorical Hypebeast Fashion Thoughts

[deadkitty]

I thought it was just past season stuff

[sknss]

[smiles]

its mostly poly blend stuff. and some corduroy as well as wool.

hp/h is way superior in finishing but black is still awesome.

[teck]

i'm going to go down to the Black store this week and I'll do a side-by-side with the mainline store. just from my quick recollection theres a decent amount of poly in the mainline but as someone else said the finishing and weight of mainline is more significant.

[teck]

just went to nycc. ive been to a bunch of cons when i lived out west and i was glad to see that, despite the greatly increased popularity, that this pop-nerd subculture is still very alive and well and hasn't been too watered down. that's up for debate if anyone disagrees id love to hear your thoughts.

to relate this to fashion, i know we often get down on ourselves with cop/no cop and 'oh god im so into fashion this is unhealthy' but i just spent a full day with thousands and thousands of people who are passionately, unapologetically, expensively hobbyists/fans/nerds/geeks. There's a goddamn convention for people who are into this stuff, and yes there's definitely nerd shaming but from my experience these enthusiasts don't ever get down on themselves for their interests the way fashion nerds do. for them, this hobby not only defines them, it gives them some resolve -- they continue to geek out despite the haters, and in fact redouble their efforts in the face of hate.

so what is it? is fashion inherently poisonous? is the community too vitriolic? the hobby too expensive?** Am I totally wrong and comparing apples and pears?


**I am going full "Carrie Bradshow monologue" here, sorry.

[Syeknom]

I guess there's any number of reasons realistically, but you're quite right about this. I used to play Warhammer with people who would throw hundreds at the game every month without batting an eyelash - more people spend obscene amounts on hobby things than people seem to realise or appreciate. Musicians can spend thousands every time they want a new guitar or amp let alone their endless collection of effects pedals and buying/trading/selling to get the right one which may differ from a generic one only by a tiny variation in sound but be totally worth the extra hassle and cost.

Perhaps it's a distinction between public and private spaces. When buying warhammer or guitars it will only be apparent to those in your community (e.g. your band, your gaming club, whatever) and those you live with/are close with. It can be looked at as kind of a "private" hobby to some extent. A stranger on the bus isn't going to know or care about your expensive shit. But clothing is something you wear out in the Real World and may get noticed. I think that can cause a lot of self-reflection as well as exposing one's self to potential judgement (in any form). I feel awkward wearing expensive stuff to hang out with my unemployed friends whereas having a crazy expensive computer or whatever at home wouldn't phase me, you know? That distinction between one's private and public world can be quite powerful.

Perhaps there's also the realisation that there exist cheap, readily available and perfectly "fine" replacements for everything we buy in a way that doesn't exist for other hobbies. If one needs a jacket it can be sought from H&M or the back of one's wardrobe or something without much effort. Anything further is "indulging" and excess. But I fear this applies to more than just clothes - food, furniture, housing, cars, etc.

I guess most expensive hobbyist communities have some degree of financial dilemma, "no cop" and price shaming though. I think perhaps fashion necessitates a "no cop" a little more is due to the sheer accessibility of bargains and impulse purchase options.

[starfox64]

a few quick thoughts on that.

1. fashion is more visible, for lack of a better word. if you spend have a comic book collection that's worth thousands of dollars, people need to come look at it (probably at your house). cars are more visible, but not in the same way. if you have really expensive clothes, it's more obviously notable (though less so to people not tuned in to fashion) to people you encounter in everyday situations (coworkers, friends, etc.).

2. things like cars and sports equipment and computer parts typically have quantifiable advantages the higher up you go on the ladder. so even if none of us can really tell the difference between different processors, the benchmark testing done by computer gaming gurus provide hard numbers to back up their assertions that they need to have the best of the best. for whatever reason this gains more traction with people than making equivalent statements with regard to clothes.

3. with a lot of things like comic books, there is some level of investment hype. during the early 90s there was a huge comic book bubble that saw all kinds of variant covers and new books released (x-men #1 was a huge one), mostly driven by speculators. it ended up almost destroying the comic book industry in the mid- to late-90s, but i think that there is still a tinge of people thinking that these things that they are enjoying now will, at some point down the road, become more valuable. action comics #1 (the first appearance of superman) regularly sells for millions of dollars. of course, people don't really take into consideration that it was printed 80 years ago. obviously, this is not applicable to everything, but for a lot of hobbies i do think that there is this sense of permanence, that if you have a good collection of comics or a restored classic car, it will appreciate in value. this is totally contrasted with the public perception of fashion, which is that people who are interested in it are always chasing the latest trend.

and then there is sexism and homophobia, which i don't think can be divorced from public perceptions of fashion at all.

[teck]

[bels]

I dunno. I look down pretty badly on warhammer or comic book fans.

Really need to sell my 2000pt lizardman army actually.

I like it when people are really passionately devoted to things, but there are some things that I think are lame to be devoted to. I haven't really thought this opinion through so maybe I'll have to take it back. But do you really think that someone being super obsessed with shipping Homestuck characters is cool? Is it awesome to collect anime girl statuettes? Obviously it's cool to make a cosplay uniform or write a fan fiction or paint a two thousand point lizardman army but my gut instinct is that in general I'm not fond of superfans. Maybe the reason they derive so much identity and strength from their fandom is that they lack self awareness (plenty of fashion fans also lack this.) or maybe it's because they're so desperate for identity and strength that they try to get it from any nearby batch of groupthink.

Also are comicbook/warhamster fans really dropping serious cash on their gear? I guess some of them probably are but in my recollection warmaster is a rip off but it wasn't really that feasible to spend more than about 500 on it at a time if you wanted to actually paint the stuff. No doubt there are people who buy it and leave it unused in boxes though. Dunno what you spend on if you're a comic book fan. Comic books?

I think stahfox's comment about investment is a valid one. A classic car can be sold on for the same price it was bought, if not more. That probably applies to some effay stuff, but certainly not if you wear it, and certainly not what I buy.

[maj]

i have a mate who like comic books and have visted many a book store.

these books cost like £20 a pop going up more depending on who drew them/ when they were drew/ type of book/ story and in the 3 times i went with them they dropped easily a hundo without a blink. thought this was crazy and stupid when you could get spiderman down the co-op for £2.50 but then i realized i spent 650 on some trainers and quickly piped down.

[starfox64]

[teck]

my main point when i first brought this up isn't so much 'is it less cool to be a comic/car/computer fan vs a fashion fan' so much as 'why do fashion people in particular have so much SELF-loathing'? its an internal question vs external. you can badger the comic fan and call him a loser and he'll just march right back into the comic store and buy more shit. but you make fun of the fashion guy and he's suddenly very insecure and wondering if he should pick up a new hobby. i just don't know if other subcultures are as filled with self doubt. Are there computer aficionados for example who after buying their third video card stop and go "wow what am i doing". I honestly don't know but my gut says no, these people are unapologetically gear heads and will just keep going.

[bels]

Sort of relevant:



I dunno this whole conversation is sort of based around very broad generalizations that I'm not really comfortable making.

[ramseames]

bikes are weird too because there's obvious utility behind spending more on them (better performing components/lighter weight) but 90% of really fast people are young early 20s kids who don't own anything nice/expensive. Almost everyone I know that isn't a racer feels very embarrassed about what they own unless they spent a lot less than they can afford or they're a new money banker type who uses their bicycles as another demonstration of wealth/overall superiority. my mom bought a pinarello recently and even though she was well within her means in doing so and didn't max out the specs or anything she still gets incredibly self conscious about it because despite being a pretty solid rider, especially for her age, inevitably when you're out on a popular route a 22 yr old cat 1 guy will fly by her and judge when he reads the frame. or so she thinks anyway.

biggest thing for me i think is just to sort of ignore it. fashion people for obvious reasons fixate upon people's views of them but really the only way addressing the price of what you're wearing is going to end well is if you're surrounded by individuals who can make the connection that its a hobby, or are also interested in it. better to just give a vague answer if someone asks.

[hooplah]

the differences to me between, say, a comic book fan and a fashion fan are that fashion is intrinsically tied to [frivolous] commercialism and vanity. enjoying comics is not seen as a form of vain self-obsession, fashion is. comics and figurines, though obviously scorned by some, are understood by many to have some sort of investment value. clothes depreciate, and their "original" use is allegedly purely functional, so any attempt to build upon that is unnecessary vanity.

i just had a ton of ice cream. i think i could really get into this topic but i'm like rolling balls off of sugar right now. podcast fodder?

[sknss]

record yourself while eating icecram

[teck]

[bels]

The future is curatorial innit. If you spend a lot of time on Tumblr you might get convinced that collections are actually creative works. And as I type that, isn't it very similar to the creativity a fashion person exhibits when putting a look together?

[odradek]

(but look out, it can get pretty Post-modern in here, behind the candy-colored sweet stuff is thermodynamic elitism at its clearest--

[bels]

How'd you do that.

[odradek]

language is curatorial

[Bobbin.Threadbare]

I think I missed out on this discussion but as a comic book fan I can attest that it isn't only comics and graphic novels that you pay out the ass for, it's clothes, movies, toys, etc.

I don't know why fashion enthusiasts are so hurt by unkind words, but the majority of people in our age group are into fashion by default, not choice. It's polarising and I think there's always a worry that other people know better than you/can afford better/have better taste. I know my sister, for example, is not a confident dresser, although she probably buys 2X more than me.

The same happens with comic book guys, if you ever spend time in a graphic novel store and get talking to regulars you'll instantly regress to their alpha knowledge.

I like ram's thing about the bikes - I got really into them for a while, and I got super geeky about the whole thing -- but I was still just a cunt on a bike. Everyone who could appreciate what I had knew I was too crap to take advantage of it. That realisation ended it there.

[teck]

[starfox64]

i don't think that people who are interested in fashion are necessarily more self-loathing than any other niche hobbyists. you just saw people at a comic con as an outsider, right? like i said earlier, i'm sure if you weren't interested in fashion and went to pitti or new york fashion week or something, you'd come away with a similar impression.

[RycePooding]

It's really hard to get people to understand that clothing are in fact my hobby. They think I'm either 'hipster,' 'try hard' or gay. I've given up explaining, or even caring. My closest friends don't give a shit, which is what I really care about.

[can-]

dolce + gabbana

[bels]

[maj]

love palace, the whole jizz they put out is really cool. with some of the bits being MIE and re-imagining of sportswear classics really looks cool



full editorial: http://hypebeast.com/2013/10/the-rig-ou ... -editorial

[teck]

[Syeknom]

Instagram a photo of your screen with some sepia filters