Pseudo Bohemian Fashion Fantasies
How do you manage to like clothes these days while also avoiding the gravitational pull of clonedom β which seems to be driven by yuppiedom?
Iβve spent the last week really mulling over @thestyleturnerNYCβs Tik Tok about Bode. In the video, he scrolls through the labelβs newest pieces, including their Burlington puffers, wool overshirts, and iconic quilted jackets.Β
In a voice-over, @thestyleturnerNYC asks, βdoes anyone else have a brand that they really like, but because itβs become synonymous with 20-year-old privileged douchebags you just canβt bear to buy it, but it's also too cute not to like so you just kind of look at it from the privacy of your own home pretending that it hasnβt been tainted by rich boys trying to live out this pseudo bohemian fantasy?βΒ
Ah yes! This is exactly how I feel about those cute little snails and frogs on an Online Cermanics tee reminding me that I am, in fact, going to die someday. My gut reaction wasβ¦yes. In 2019, walking down Mulberry past Aime Leon Dore and Noah and hooking a left on Hester to check out Bode was a pleasure. I was new to New York City, and everything seemed expensive, stylish, and tantalizing. I could get the entire menswear landscape in an afternoon. Now, when I do the same walk, I donβt have the same excitement. Just as Joan Didion was happier before she knew the names of all the bridges, I was happier before I was too familiar with these stores' clienteles and too poisoned by their reputation online.Β
I was lucky to have a brief taste of pre-COVID New York. I moved in the summer of 2019 to work on a Masterβs degree and enjoyed a city unspoiled by those who flocked to the city enticed by low COVID rents. This was before Tik Tok street style fit checks and an influx of fintech signing bonuses flooded into NoLita.Β
In that brief time for me, when New York was all possibility and intrigue, seeing Bode in the street was a wonder. Just as it is now, the price tag was so excessive that when I saw the pieces in the wild I always assumed they were gifted and I assumed, perhaps naively, the person wearing them was a painter, writer, or tasteful interior designer β not a project manager or jr. analyst. I associated the brand with Jeremy OβHarrisβs breakout, not a pointed NYC starter pack.Β
@thestyleturnerNYC was hitting on what I feel is the essential question of this menswear moment and what I am trying to investigate in this newsletter. How do you manage to like clothes these days while also avoiding the gravitational pull of clonedom β which seems to be driven by yuppiedom? Are there lessons to be learned in microtrends and overexposed brands? Is authenticity completely dead? Am I the biggest fucking hater on planet earth? Β
In 2019, it felt like the tail end of logomania, the middle of the sexy art-school chic Eckhaus Latta era, and the rise of an artisanal, pastoral, and cozy Bode era β though these movements werenβt in direct competition. One did not precipitate the end of the other.Β
I would see people pairing eclectic pieces from other brands with a statement Bode quilted jacket, and the contrasts worked in harmony. A uniform had yet to be established. The over coordination, and strangely faultless symmetry, in the outfits you see on the street today, are the dead giveaway of the overpaid fashion bro of today, and perhaps the character @thestyleturnerNYC is describing.Β
Is this just a rant about how things were better back in my day? And, by back in my day I mean less than three years ago. What I am trying to articulate is that more than ever it feels like the incentives to fit in have grown exponentially.Β Β Β Β Β
When you watch a certain GRWM Tik Tok β one in an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows and birch hanging shelves decorated with vintage cameras β the pieces often feel unnatural and premeditated. Even the holes in a distressed vintage tee feel perfectly placed.Β Β
Things feel overly precise, and by precise, I really mean matchy. Conjure an image in your head of the all-ALD guy. Itβs not difficult to do. Heβs got double knee pants, a Yankees cap in a color other than black, and New Balance 550s. As one Nolita dirtbag fit check spoof video put it, to this kind of guy, βfashion is about fitting in.β These pieces, on their own, are great, but when they are put together, you are doing the menswear equivalent of wearing the full Jordan uniform to a pick-up game.Β
Perhaps Bode, or Mulberry Street, feels particularly douchey because the pieces are not being worn well. Often, they are wearing the first-year consultants, not the other way around.Β Β
Nevertheless, it is upsetting to think of people not buying or being inspired by specific pieces because of this brief and particular moment in their clientele. When you stop liking certain items simply because of the clientele, your range becomes limited. You get dressed from a place of fear, which must be avoided at all costs.
So what is there to do? Firstly, log off.Β
Secondly, take notes. See what is and isnβt working on the streets, in old magazines, and sexy Italian movies. I am saying this to myself as well, do not worry about being ~perceived~. Worry about being yourself. If you can transcend that anxiety, even if your outfit includes Bode or ALD or any other brand that yuppie forces have annexed, you have a chance of avoiding clonedom. If you avoid these particular brands because you are concerned about being perceived as basic doesnβt that defeat the purpose? By reacting against a perceived basicness, you are giving in to a different kind of basicness β just one you are more comfortable with.Β Β
I go back and forth. Sometimes I feel like I am actually lamenting the loss of a brief moment when New York felt completely new β back when I was a little more curious and a little less jaded. Itβs an uphill battle to retain that early enthusiasm. The silver lining, and why I should ultimately be encouraged, is that there is no shortage of people interested in finding their own style. Itβs just a struggle to watch the growing pains. Perhaps Iβm just a recovering hypebeast yelling at the clouds.