Denim Blunders, Reflections and General Nonsense.

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

49 minutes ago, Double 0 Soul said:

When you first signed up here.. i was 5 or 6yrs into me no buy phase.. i still didn't have a smart phone back then, you told me doing this was like standing up in a hurricane

I have a cracked i-phone 4 now.. given to me by my elderly aunt who has since died.

I don’t recall that but it sounds like me. I am always behind the iPhone times but not by too much (went from a 6 to a 12 a year or two ago). I am still trying to figure out how to live without one without pissing off all my friends and family, and yes, myself too I guess. Ultimately I’ll choose them over a solitary life. But I mean hell, now it’s attached to our car, our TV, our f’n thermostat. I am trying to draw the line somewhere but it only gets worse. It’s been enough of an issue in my current position that I don’t use Twitter and Whatsapp! I am forever envisioning a better way to live and failing at getting there.  

[chicote]

I've been using non-smart-phones for several years now, and off social media since 2020, yet every time i try to wean myself off of the internet I always end up relapsing within 48 hours ... always something needs to be researched, or i want to check whether it will rain later, or i'm expecting an email from somebody, or just plain bored and lonely (which i think is the root cause of so much of our internet addiction), and watching a youtube video or coming onto this forum is so much easier than taking a walk, reading a book, finishing a painting, calling a friend ... yet ultimately so much less satisfying, so much less stimulating for the mind and destructive to the spirit. I am convinced it has a huge part to play in how little genuine creativity exists in the world today, why movies are so often re-makes and trends are usually just re-hashings divorced from their original context... and so on. But it goes deeper than that, of course.

I'm reading a book right now called Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, about the photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952), who dedicated his life to the photographic, literary and auditory preservation of the indigenous cultures of North America. It's really a well-written history, and I find myself constantly reminded, painfully so, that it was barely 100 years ago in which this story takes place, that this was just two or three generations before most of us were born and contemporaneous with most of the clothing we spend so much time talking about here. In 1905, Curtis sends letters around the country for weeks asking if anyone has a reliable map of the Arizona Territory before taking a trip there on horseback, lugging hundreds of pounds of camera equipment and boxes of glass plates; later that year he takes a days-long train ride to New York City to physically knock on the doors of millionaires asking for money to finance his project; he grew up in a small cabin he helped his father build from trees they felled on their property outside of Seattle; and his photos are absolutely incredible, taking hours of careful posing, sometimes after days of waiting for the exact right sorts of weather and light to fit his vision for his image, developed himself in a studio lit by kerosene lamps, sometimes working for days on a single image, processing print after print, fine-tuning the chemistry to get the exposure and detail exactly how he wants.

There's something about such a long-term project, under such material circumstances, that I believe really inspired people to take such great pride in their work, to insist on perfection at a time when there wasn't even a public education system in place to set the standard for "good enough".

The older I get, and there are obviously many reasons for this, but the older I get the more I really do sympathize with the older generations' common lament that we have it so easy today; but beneath the envy embedded in that statement I also see pity, and real, true sadness for the many things we have lost in spite of what we have gained today in our safety and comfort. (And reading the above posts, and the many thousands of research papers and articles about the millions of environmental toxins we've introduced into the world today, I wonder how "safe" and "comfortable" we will really end up being.)

I'm grateful for the perspective we have here on this forum, as people who I believe largely are aware of the benefits of things coming slowly, carefully, being made "perfectly", of the preservation of tradition, and the intangible benefits that come from taking pride in our work, even at the cost of money and time. I think of how odd and rare these qualities are today, to the point that (as I remember) @shredwin_206 receives compliments from old-timers on the jobsite about how nicely he dresses for work, even though he is just using his (comparatively nice, expensive, functional) clothing for the purpose it was originally created; and how @Double 0 Soul approaches his woodworking projects, carefully and meticulously planning and executing a design for a pergola or a tool stand far more than would be necessary for it to just perform its basic function, using traditional techniques that might have been standard decades in the past but today seem outmoded and extravagant. Obviously neither of these approaches make "sense" to the logic of today; why not just glue 'n' screw and be done with it, or wear some $29 dickies and a thrifted t-shirt to work since you're gonna be thrashing your clothes anyway?

I think a major difference really comes about as a result of being aware that you are continuing a process that was developed by your ancestors... that it took thousands of years of working with wood to develop the techniques used in the construction of your tool stand, and that your continued employment of those techniques is what will allow for the generations that follow you to learn from and build upon them. What I think is really destructive about the modern world, and particularly the Internet, is how easily and completely it can divorce us entirely from that sense of continuity, to the point where the past becomes something of an abstraction rather than an inseparable part of the present, something literally necessary for things existing the way they do today.

I think of Curtis, who was inspired to take on his project largely for the same reasons. How destructive, how brutal, the early industrial age seems when compared to the Navajo woman he encounters on that desert trip, grinding plants and minerals to hand-dye individual strands of spun cotton for a blanket, each colour with a spiritual or cultural significance, each design carrying a specific message, and the weaving technique itself developed over the course of thousands of years of word-of-mouth ancestral teachings, (originally brought to them by the Pueblo people). For Curtis at this time, the surviving indigenous cultures he worked to understand represented a different sort of sophistication: a deeply understood unity between humans and nature, an awareness of the spiritual significance present in every action, and a reverence for the unfolding of history, which was constantly spoken about and referenced in the teachings of long-disappeared ancestors. He wrote that it wasn't that the indigenous people he spoke to were incapable of participating in industrial society; it was that many of them recognized the world that was imposing itself upon them had lost the tack of what they felt humans were originally meant to be part of: the continually expanding, developing, unfolding natural and spiritual forces that were part of the creation of everything around them, something far grander and more mystical than the myopic and self-centered early capitalism that beckoned with its factories, steam engines, cameras and bombs. Curtis spent much of his life and work softly underlining these messages in his work, though I'm sure he knew that he couldn't do anything to stop the ongoing march of society.

Anyway, what this all has to do with modern technology today, and the Internet -- well, I think it's largely the same battle beneath the surface. It's a struggle to retain the meaning and value that we get from being intentional and purposeful in every aspect of our daily lives. And I think there are many things required for that to exist that aren't possible, or at least easily accessible, today -- an awareness of time, of historical continuity, of our connection to one another, to nature, and to the world... physical, and spiritual, connections, not the connection we share just because we can all watch youtube. Anyway, gotta go to work, but thank u for reading this long ramble.

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

@chicote if you ever do pass through Ann Arbor or Detroit, please do drop a line. We have much we could discuss over a coffee. I am nodding along with the majority of your post.
 

It’s funny, as a photographer and photojournalist myself I’m often considered slow to some peers because I don’t use my camera as a phone. But I still take too many pictures and still use digital (since 2015). What Curtis and his peers did was almost of an entirely different medium at this point, and in many ways I do envy it. I reflect on Lewis Hine a lot as well because to my mind he did some of the most impactful work ever made, and was another one of the first to try to make picture out of social concern. He did so in a way I think would be overlooked today. Still impossible to make a living at it - I was just talking to a writer friend tonight and she was telling me about a photographer she had recently visited (and who I know of because she’s highly renowned as a documentary photographer) and the woman is barely getting by, on food stamps. She’s probably one of the best and most well know American practitioners of the medium. 

[Double 0 Soul]

Thanks to the internet I’m better informed and better educated than at any point in my life but the paradox is I can’t seem to recall most of it.. I know it superficially but don’t remember the details.. because it’s so accessible my brain sees little point in storing the information I’ve just spent hours consuming.. 

[Duke Mantee]

3 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Thanks to the internet I’m better informed and better educated than at any point in my life but the paradox is I can’t seem to recall most of it.. I know it superficially but don’t remember the details.. because it’s so accessible my brain sees little point in storing the information I’ve just spent hours consuming.. 

Doesn’t it have more to do with drinking strong Guinness than accessibility?

[Double 0 Soul]

You'd probably enjoy some of John Ruskins blabberings re- division of labour @chicote c1836 but still relevant today.. i posted excerpts before in the CSF thread on DB.. to where it seems very fitting.

"In the place of factory production lines I propose, a reorganisation of work processes whereas each item would be individually crafted and adorned by hand. The value of such an object would lie in discovering its record of thoughts and intents and trials and heartbreaking and recoveries and joyfulness of success..

Ruskin, like Marx, also argued that creative labor had a humanizing effect on workers and in social life...

He observed that we humans do not, of our own accord, produce commodities with machine-like precision. Rather, some idiosyncratic imperfections appear in anything created with human ingenuity and invention. These imperfections, he argued, do not result from a lack of craftsmanship or skill but from the human tendency to err in the creative process. When a person expresses creative thought, Ruskin wrote, “he stops; his execution becomes hesitating; he thinks, and ten to one he thinks wrong; ten to one he makes a mistake in the first touch he gives to his work as a thinking being” (10.192). Such an apparently flawed act, Ruskin argued, embodies imagination and skill. This is not to say that Ruskin believed that all work should contain error, but that labor must allow for, and reflect, the idiosyncratic character of the laborer.

Ruskin believed that industrial capitalism and its factory system undermined the conditions for such expressive labor. This mode of production permits workers to sell their labor, but they lack control over the product or the means of its creation. The concentration of capital in a single elite class causes the dissolution of healthful relationships between workers and their life activity, thus ending their dominion as “proprietors of the instrument” of production (263). Furthermore, as Marx explains, these industrial conditions created an ever-expanding pool of unskilled labor that become integrated as a commodity into the industrial process. Under these conditions, Marx argued, we encounter ourselves as “strange and inhuman [objects]” surrounded by “an alien reality” separate from our “species life” (87). Alienated labor thereby inhabited a bleak cultural landscape in which people could no longer fully develop their human sensibilities and intelligence.

Ruskin viewed the industrial emphasis on precision and accuracy as a kind of “slavery” by design, industrial production, he argued, “must un-humanize [the workers]” while “all the energy of their spirits must be given over to make cogs and compasses of themselves” (10.192). As such, industrial production had transformed labor into a denigrating and unskilled activity, dividing workers into parts so specialized “that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin” (10.196).

Such mechanized labor created a moral imbalance that harmed workers while benefitting the owners of capitalist, who become an elite social, political, and economic class. Once their capital makes workers little more than a commodity, the owners of capital gain a distinct advantage over them. First of all, deskilled labor makes workers increasingly interchangeable, and they also become more easily replaceable through automation. Moreover, a labor regime that eliminated inefficiencies and intelligent craft from the production process was a means for maximizing profits for those who controlled labor.

Marx and Ruskin argued that capitalists furthered their class domination by profiting from the monetary difference between the cost of labor and the market value of a commodity. These conditions of domination depended on the commodification of both labor and the value of commodities sold in the market.

Source

Edited January 12 by Double 0 Soul

[Cold Summer]

Fascinating discussion here, with many good points raised... reminds me quite a bit actually of last year when I read disillusioned-environmental-activist-turned-apocalyptic-mystic Paul Kingsnorth, who wrote an extensive, detailed series of essays about what he calls The Machine, his name for globe-spanning decentralized socio-industrial force mentioned in these last few posts, about where it came from and what it's been doing to us. Thought provoking stuff, and the rare commentary that manages to get out of the tired and often contrived right-left, capitalist-marxist dialectic that tends to keep such discussion generally bogged down in arguing about trees while missing the forest, reflected in the diverse and interesting perspectives of the commenters on his posts.

It's interesting to me how a lot of makers - whether we're talking Roy, the Ooes, Minoru Matsuura, Brian the Bootmaker, and so on - superficially seem to represent nostalgia for a bygone era of industrialization, where things weren't as great as we sometimes imagine, being ourself so far divorced from the circumstances of those times. Yeah, that vintage shirt was Made in The USA... by women working 80-hour workweeks for pennies, in awful conditions. But I think in fact, such makers are utilizing the trappings of an earlier industrial era, while operating under an ethos that hearkens back to an earlier, pre-industrial, smaller scale way of making things, where you'd learn to make shoes from your dad, who learned it from his dad, and you guys were The Shoemakers in your town, and made shoes for real people you knew in person in your community, rather than performing one singular tedious task for the guy who owns the factory in exchange for a paltry wage.

Unfortunately, we live in an era that so worships Efficiency and Specialization and the Almighty Dollar, that such "inefficient" ways and outmoded concerns like "Making things with care for your customer," "taking satisfaction in your craft," and so on, are luxuries reserved only for the elite (or nerds, as in our case?) who can or are willing to afford them. It's a rather sad state of affairs, and there seems to be no real way out of it, short of hoping the whole big Machine eventually falls apart and perhaps somehow or other we can return to the way things used to be in traditional societies, before English aristocrats first lured impoverished peasants dispossessed of the Commons into their urban factories with the promise of A Better LIfe, one where you can perhaps Make A Bunch Of Money in exchange for family, community, rootedness, and other such silly, outdated concepts - and over subsequent decades, successfully exported this way of operation across the entire globe, with few willing or able to hold out against it.

Maybe I'm just trying to justify my dumb hobby here, but when I support a small maker or brand I can get behind, like John Lofgren, or Flat Head, or whatever, rather than buying disposable polyester trash at the mall, I like to think that in some small way I'm rebelling against The Machine. Rebelling by spending my money on Cool Stuff... how convenient!

[AlientoyWorkmachine]

FWIW, my feelings (I believe) are less about nostalgia and more about what constitutes a good quality of life in the most objective sense that I can get to. 

I understand romanticizing the past but I unequivocally would rather live today than in any other point in history. The reason is simple, my wife and my son would both be dead (my son on two separate occasions) by now. If I get get cancer from PFAS at age 45 (I hope to god I don’t), well, I will do my best to accept it because it’s better than outliving my family. The story isn’t over but medical advancements have undisputedly been worth the wait.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive from having a world where artisans work in slower ways towards something less widely appreciated and affordable. I’m not sure what the answer is, but the capitalist machine that innovates should be able to exist in a society where deep human and communal  relationships (the crux of having a good quality of life as demonstrated by the most recent data I can find, and that I find to be true personally) and purposeful work are possible. 

Funny about Kingsnorth, I read him years back I should take a revisit, he seemed an intellectual descendant of Arne Naess as a lot of those environmental writers sort of are. I always struggle with how to get their message - namely that we ARE nature, so to harm it is to harm self - to break through to a wider audience. I think it’s just going to be disastrous polluted floods in everyone’s backyards or, yes, PFAS from a plant hundreds of miles away in drinking water. The idea of exporting the negatives from industrialization somewhere else will all come crashing down in the end but I think even when that happens people will still hold on to their convenience. And in a way, I get it. 

[mlwdp]

Where’s Ed?

[shredwin_206]

Also where’s some of the other guys who used to post a lot? 
@Cucoo, @Max Power, @pudaspriest, and @volvo240thebest 

[Double 0 Soul]

13 hours ago, mlwdp said:

Where’s Ed?

He was run out of town by an angry mob brandishing pitchforks..

He’s still lurking  @Signet incognito like 

[reallypeacedoff]

Speaking of "Pitchforks," @Double 0 Soul, Reddit or BMXMuseum...

[Double 0 Soul]

Holy crap! .. that looks amazing, very tasteful build, kudos for getting it done, are you riding it or just drooling over it?

Ive got a set of those dice caps on my bench at work 

[reallypeacedoff]

9 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Holy crap! .. that looks amazing, very tasteful build, kudos for getting it done, are you riding it or just drooling over it?

Ive got a set of those dice caps on my bench at work 

Both, mostly drooling, though! She came out fantastic and rides like a dream. Joe, and Mike—who built the frame—love it. But seriously, it's been fun, just bunnyhopping over everything. I got crankflips back, so pedals to the shins are imminent. The only problem I have right now is the brakes; they squeal embarrassingly loud. I bombed a few hills and gradually applied pressure, but there was no change. Can't tell if there is a coating on the pads or the rims or both.

[Geeman]

Tried toeing them in a bit so they hit the rim with the lead edge slightly ahead of the rest of the pad? Worked for me on  V brakes and top pulls

[Maynard Friedman]

Interesting article on place, globalisation, Instagram, algorithms and homogeneity (and how they all relate):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same

[reallypeacedoff]

7 hours ago, Geeman said:

Tried toeing them in a bit so they hit the rim with the lead edge slightly ahead of the rest of the pad? Worked for me on  V brakes and top pulls

It's so funny, but I had a think (doesn't happen often) and loosened the brake pads, added a  temporary zip tie between the rim and pad, and then tightened it down. As you said, toed them in. Boom, no squeak. I put the zip tie at the top so that the bottom of the pad would hit the rim first. I doubt it makes a difference at which part hits the rim first?

[StuartM]

8 hours ago, reallypeacedoff said:

It's so funny, but I had a think (doesn't happen often) and loosened the brake pads, added a  temporary zip tie between the rim and pad, and then tightened it down. As you said, toed them in. Boom, no squeak. I put the zip tie at the top so that the bottom of the pad would hit the rim first. I doubt it makes a difference at which part hits the rim first?

Perceived wisdom is that you want the front of the pad to hit the rim first. But if you have no squeak, then you have true peace! 

[StuartM]

9 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Interesting article on place, globalisation, Instagram, algorithms and homogeneity (and how they all relate):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same

You might be interested in 'blanding'. The tendency for individuals, groups and brands to end up all looking the same. There's a fascinating art project from the mid 1990s called People's Choice, but the trend towards the mean seems to be accelerating. http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/rrushing/501/Images/Pages/The_Beautiful.html 

 

[Duke Mantee]

12 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Interesting article on place, globalisation, Instagram, algorithms and homogeneity (and how they all relate):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same

… and there is no new thing under the sun

But it’s the sheer desperation to be unique and relevant that is so pitiful. More and more we move away from real people and gravitate towards things. 

For a fashion related perspective have a look at something like Pitti Uomo ‘street style’ pics and commentary.

[Broark]

11 minutes ago, Duke Mantee said:

For a fashion related perspective have a look at something like Pitti Uomo ‘street style’ pics and commentary.

Why are they always carrying fucking bags around everywhere?! This always baffles me.
What are they lugging around, their laundry from the week? Or maybe they couldn't afford a hotel but had to make an appearance for the e x p o s u r e.
🤢

Great comparison btw. As we continue to circle the drain and get monetized by social media, everything will continue becoming more and more similar, less and less unique.

[Double 0 Soul]

Lads.. lads, we’re exactly the same, there is a sufu look and we all gravitate towards it via sufu approved brands.. folks come along who don’t fit the mould like @Geeman Kung-fu buddy and we all laugh at their purple pointy shoes and animal print bootcuts.. our rep system guides us and keeps us in track.

[Duke Mantee]

1 hour ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Lads.. lads, we’re exactly the same, there is a sufu look and we all gravitate towards it via sufu approved brands.. folks come along who don’t fit the mould like @Geeman Kung-fu buddy and we all laugh at their purple pointy shoes and animal print bootcuts.. our rep system guides us and keeps us in track.

It’s not about what you wear, or where you go, or what where you go looks like though is it? It’s how you wear it, it’s why you go and what shallow expectations you have when you get there

[Cold Summer]

16 hours ago, Maynard Friedman said:

Interesting article on place, globalisation, Instagram, algorithms and homogeneity (and how they all relate):

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/16/the-tyranny-of-the-algorithm-why-every-coffee-shop-looks-the-same

Something in this same category I think about a lot is how all new apartment buildings look exactly the same, at least where I live. They all look like they were designed by the same guy. Or most likely, "the market" determined that this one specific bland boxy design is the ultimate blend of cost-efficient construction and seeming "luxury" allowing you to charge exorbitant rent for housing that actually sucks. For that matter, most new restaurants follow this same glass box aesthetic. Now I know it's silly yearning for the bygone days of fast food, but at least Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Taco Bell, or my favorite - Whataburger - and so on looked unique, once upon a time. You could immediately identify them by the architecture, even if you didn't see the sign. Sure, it's just dumb fast food, but it was fun. Now they all look like the same bleak glass box pioneered by Chipotle (a place with food I think is good, but which is always blasting the most awful, low-key nightmare background music within) fifteen years ago. It all feels so dehumanizing. And not fun! We're not allowed to have fun anymore. Now only the most expensive and exclusive places can afford to be "unique." I'm seeing a pattern here.

Quote

Why are they always carrying fucking bags around everywhere?! This always baffles me.

LOL, great point. It seems rather contrived. I buy it with "street style" photos from somewhere like Japan, where everybody carries a bag everywhere because nobody drives and you have to carry stuff with you for your day out, or leave it at home. I know from experience. But even there, the bag usually has a clearly practical aspect, and isn't just a way to be "seen." It's a little less convincing when you're walking ten minutes form your 4.5 star hotel to the fashion show or whatever.

Once upon a time the way you dressed was a reflection of your culture, of your place and people where you were rooted. That's why you'll see pictures of people from Romania, or Thailand, or wherever, in their pretty, traditional outfits for special occasions, and these cultures all look different from each other, but you can see there's the same underlying motivation to it.

Today, it's all detached and based entirely on personal whim and this interesting cultural pressure to manufacture your own identity out of thin air. I'm certainly not immune to it. Of course I dress in the Amekaji/heritage/vintage sort of style as well, largely just because I like it and there are aspects to it - like stuff that gets better with use, and attention to detail, and all that - which aligns with my particular OCD sensibilities. But it's not so hard for me to justify it otherwise - obviously I'm not a blue-collar working man, being a boring software developer and all that, but I am from Texas, and a longtime resident of the lower Appalachian region, so I think the way I dress is at least to some extent reflective of some aspect of the traditional culture of where I'm from and where I live. I could go watch a bluegrass band perform, and nobody would think I looked weird or out of place; I dare say I'd feel right at home. So that's worth something to me.

On a lighter note, If I may be indulged to engage in some Old-Man-Yelling-At-Cloud action, the style of The Young People these days greatly dismays me. Every time I see teenagers when I'm at the grocery store or whatever, they fall into exactly one of two categories of style:

• Pajamas: they look like they actually just rolled out of bed, wearing sweatpants and hoodies, with some kind of hypebeast sneakers; weird, gigantic logos, often for some sort metal band or hip-hop artist optional. Often seen with very strange hair colors and cuts. Boys and girls often hard to tell apart. Every single thing is extremely synthetic. Constant scrolling through smartphone feeds, bleary, dead eyes. They don't look like adherents of some wacky subculture, like punks, metalheads, or goths. They look like unmoored kids with no culture. it's the uniform of Unconscious Gnosticism.
• Misremembered 90s: What if everyone on Saved By The Bell or A Goofy Movie listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam? This aesthetic attempts to answer that question. It's the mashup of Very 90s fashion with stereotypical grunge style, and it feels very contrived, but it's not nearly as bad as the above aesthetic. It just feels very inauthentic for anybody "who was there" - and I was in elementary school for the majority of the 90s, but even I can tell it's not very realistic.

I'm dreading the day some Gen Z influencer decides to revive the aesthetic of the Late 90s Dark Age. I predict a cringe apocalypse-inducing mashup of the "Xtreme leather trenchcoat" and "frosted tip boy band Abercombie And Fitch" styles. Imagine if LFO did the soundtrack to Godzilla and Batman And Robin. God help us all.

Edited January 17 by Cold Summer

[Hopethisoneisnttaken]

41 minutes ago, Cold Summer said:

Today, it's all detached and based entirely on personal whim and this interesting cultural pressure to manufacture your own identity out of thin air. I'm certainly not immune to it. Of course I dress in the Amekaji/heritage/vintage sort of style as well, largely just because I like it and there are aspects to it - like stuff that gets better with use, and attention to detail, and all that - which aligns with my particular OCD sensibilities. But it's not so hard for me to justify it otherwise - obviously I'm not a blue-collar working man, being a boring software developer and all that, but I am from Texas, and a longtime resident of the lower Appalachian region, so I think the way I dress is at least to some extent reflective of some aspect of the traditional culture of where I'm from and where I live. I could go watch a bluegrass band perform, and nobody would think I looked weird or out of place; I dare say I'd feel right at home. So that's worth something to me

How does not feeling connected to a cultural dressing heritage fits in to that narrative? A person must like the way their people are dressing simply because they were born into it? 
 

I agree that the pseudo 90s revival that’s happening now is horrible, but I feel like that’s probably how it always is for the early generations. I bet that’s how my parents felt when early 70s fashion was semi revived in the early 00. 

[Geeman]

3 hours ago, Double 0 Soul said:

Lads.. lads, we’re exactly the same, there is a sufu look and we all gravitate towards it via sufu approved brands.. folks come along who don’t fit the mould like @Geeman Kung-fu buddy and we all laugh at their purple pointy shoes and animal print bootcuts.. our rep system guides us and keeps us in track.

I feel his pain/persecuted POV due to my leaning towards slimmer fits and you lot with your 9 inch hems 😉 

[Duke Mantee]

Back in early 00s (no not the fucking 1900s Maynard) my niece phoned me asking if I’d pick her up from the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)

She was a goth (yeah, so maybe it was the 1900s Maynard) and around that time the GoMA and Royal Exchange Square used to be the hang out area for alternative sub-cultures*

Jokingly I asked her how I’d know her, and without the slightest hint of irony she said she was wearing the long black coat I’d bought her for Christmas …

In that ‘black hole’ were dozens upon dozens of kids (and a few adults worryingly) who wanted to belong to something and were happy and excited to get the chance to do that.

The Pitti Uomo is not that; nor are the manufactured coffee shops that hope for those dandys 

[MJF9]

5 hours ago, Broark said:

Why are they always carrying fucking bags around everywhere?! 

Hahahaha... and wtf have they got in the bags??

2 hours ago, Duke Mantee said:

It’s how you wear it

^ Yes Duke! 

1 hour ago, Geeman said:

 you lot with your 9 inch hems 😉 

C'mon Gee with that narrow 9 inch hem jibe... more like 10 pal 😉

@Duodequinquagesimus miss you our old lethal weapon... you're due a comeback, not seen some proper trolling in a while...

[MJF9]

Lads lads, fuck Pitti... it's about time we took the Sufu show on the road... show them how it's done 😜

[Geeman]

Imagine how long it will take Neal to get to whatever fashion capital we choose though. Penny Farthings and steam trains and all that....