🔥FIRE SALE🔥 No. 9
🍾New Year...New (old) Clothes🥳
As I write this, it is a balmy 65 degrees in New York City. What would otherwise be an uplifting Spring day is actually an incredibly spooky omen of the global climate crisis. It can be difficult to feel as if the year, and thus your life, is reestablishing itself when the climate can’t decide if you live in Miami or the northeast.
Nevertheless, there is a sense of renewal in the air. So what’s “in” for 2023? Kindness, respect for mother earth, a distrust of corporate greed, and small, intimate, critically acclaimed masterpieces. What’s “out”? Disdain, stripping the earth of its life force, the genius myth, thin plots, and interminable runtimes.
I don’t have any particular resolutions this year except to look for small moments of enjoyment and squeeze my entire psyche into them. 2022 felt like the first “normal” year in some time, but that new regularity ironically required some growing pains. I’m thinking more about what habits, attitudes, and, most importantly, outfits will be left in the past and what will come with me. While Christmas has me feeling resupplied, there are some pieces from Depop’s annual New Years’ sale that have me thinking that Santa may have skimped a bit this year. Here are some of my favs!
🕊 I grew up Catholic, and while I’m not the most observant, I do find myself strapped with that infectious shame and guilt complex, so I tell people I’m “culturally Catholic.” With the oft-debated rise of an interest in Catholic beliefs and aesthetics in downtown circles, I have found myself zagging away from the more Baroque and Rococo styles that the fascist-lite arts scene admires. I love this made-in-USA blue sweatshirt embroidered with a luminescent rainbow and peaceful dove. It’s a kitschy and optimistic embrace of a cornier religious aesthetic.
🐩 This sweatshirt from www.austinanimalart.com printed on a heather grey Hanes blank is super cute and ~freakin random~ 🤪
🐻⚔️ Nearly a decade ago now, I went to Mackinaw City with a close childhood friend, and we went to a classic touristy store where “fudgies” could buy screen-printed shirts with the most heinous DeviantArt-style wolf shirts. On that trip, I also got a Mackinaw City High Comets t-shirt which I cherished for years. It featured an anthropomorphized comet with a gruesome snarl – the kind of illustration you don’t see in sportswear anymore. These two sweatshirts, one featuring a dignified marching knight, the other with Joe Bruin looking more like a dancing bear from the Grateful Dead than a fierce opponent, evoke that strange time in America when nearly every institution had a mascot with outrageous character.
🇫🇷🥖🍟 Givenchy is one of many fashion houses that have fallen victim to sans serif-ication in the past few years. Like hosts of other brands who are surely repped by Emily Cooper and the geniuses at Agence Grateau, have conflated luxury with minimalism, which is to say nothingness, which is also to say nihilism, which is also to say being sucked down a black hole. Despite every brand’s logo looking identical, extreme logo-mania has flourished, especially in the emerging Asian luxury market and for the Love Island/Dubai set. This black knit sweater featuring Givenchy’s iconic symbol, created in 1952, with unique fraying in a Rick Owens sort of way, is a subtle revolt against the decadent void of today’s uninspired graphic design at the highest reaches of fashion.
🚧 I have a sneaking suspicion that the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer, Caterpillar, and their workwear brand, will become more popular as Carhartt and Ben Davis become associated more with gaslighting “photographers” than charming cat-calling union members. As the supply of Carharrt double knees dwindles, it’s time to move on to a fresher style. I especially like these baggy utility pants in black with enormously pronounced pockets.
🏃 Russell blanks, especially if they are heavyweight and made in the USA, are of exceptionally good quality but also exceptionally coveted and common among the vintage vulture set. This mock neck is a nice way to stay warm and a subtle way to stand out amongst the crowd.
🗺 I am constantly looking for creative ways to evoke Americana without wearing a hyper-aggressive Chris Kyle Punisher tee. What is America, if not open road splitting right through indigenous nations? This tee has an almost Warholian effect on me. It’s so plain you fill in the blanks with your own associations about the state, the country, and the automobile.
❄️ This retro scarf features the Grand Lake, Colorado, snowmobile trails. If you cannot hit the Rocky Mountain slopes this winter, this token will help you traverse the terrain in your mind. Wear it as a scarf or a kerchief perhaps.
To set the new year off right, here is an extremely low-budget music video of Mariah Carey slaying Auld Lang Syne (The New Year's Anthem, Fireworks Remix).
Wouldn’t be 2023 if you didn’t work in a slay