Vice Magazine’s Halloween 2009 throwback to 1994, my campy Debut-era Björk-era hairdo as part of my costume for the event, and the Portishead and Veruca Salt-laden playlist I had blasting as I was twisting my hair into the requisite pin curls, got me to thinking: are we—meaning myself and my fellow Gen XY Brooklynites—getting ahead of ourselves in the current iteration of the 20-year fashion cycle?
Fashion trends of the past half-century often show recyclage from looks seen two decades earlier. Cases in point: the vivid hues and synthetic materials popular in the 1980s got their start in the 1960s. The baggy pants, baby tees and visible navels of the late 1990s? As a high schooler, I raided my mom’s closet on more than one occasion to cash in on such ensembles. I was in the high school class of 1999. My mom? Class of 1977.
Now, as whatever-you-want-to-call this decade comes to an end, baggy sweaters atop stretch pants and slouchy ankle boots have made their grand return onto urban high streets and trickled their way down into small-town strip malls across America. This all makes sense in terms of 1989 redux. Check out the cover to Paula Abdul’s 1988/89 single “The Way That You Love Me.” Ten-odd years ago, as we were cracking open our cans of Surge and grooving out at house parties to Moby, the more blunt among us might have said to someone working the off-the-shoulder look, “Unless you’re being ironic [or going to an 80s-themed party], take that off!” In 2009, not so much.
Considering such grand calculations, astronomers—scratch, no, fashion trend journos—would predict the grand return of Doc Martens and flannel shirts to occur sometime within the next decade, namely in 2011 to coincide with music e-tailers’ indubitably forthcoming “20th Anniversary of Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind!’ Get it again now like you never have before!”
Yet I’ve already seen traces of the early 1990s already bedecking the fair streets of Williamsburg; Vice Mag party notwithstanding. Yesterday I snapped a few shots on Bedford Avenue as well as at Insound’s event at the Brooklyn Brewery showing more than a few examples of good ol’ grunge 1990s plaid—not the two-tone stuff already on the streets for some time now. Also pictured below: members of Brooklyn band We Are Country Mice, who did a couple of shows during CMJ two weeks ago and were gearing up for a Thursday night show at Williamsburg’s Cameo. I knew the bass player, Josh Kothe-Levie, back when I was a mere high schooler … um …when I was raiding my parents’ closets.
Stylistic musical video interlude of the post: “Cut Your Hair” by Pavement—another 1994 nod that has hinted at a comeback. Dig those slouchy pants, Stephen Malkmus!
Leave a Reply