The Next Big Bling
Lately I've been wondering what an Obama White House might mean for the future of bling. For the fate of heavy gold, medallions, below-the-butt denim, the whole hip-hop gangsta fashion habit. What if January 20, 2009 turned out to be not just a cultural and clothing pivot point for adults -- a return to the minimalism of sleek, 60s-era sharkskin suits, the containment of golf-ball sized Barbara Bush costume pearls -- but a watershed fashion moment for teenaged boys? Picture it. On Inauguration Day next year, thousands and thousands of young men and boys from city street corners to suburbs, look up from their X-Boxes and catch a glimpse of the impeccable President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama climbing the steps of the Capitol and suddenly feel... unfashionable. Out of it. Old. What if they are overcome by the same stunned, something's-happening-here feeling that teenagers in the early 60s, their closets full of sock hop regalia, felt when they first laid eyes on The Beatles in 1964, on the nationally televised Ed Sullivan Show. For adults, this kind of moment is, at most, something to take note of. To a teenager, it's a gale force warning of imminent social tsunami, an urgent prod from the eyeballs and the amygdala that to everything there is a season, and now is the time to change, change, change. Ask not what you can do for your closet, but what your closet, if ignored, can do to you.
This week in the nation's capital, Washington Post's Metro columnist Courtland Milloy wrote about the street scene in the mostly African-American, inner-city neighborhood of Trinidad, where D.C. police have set up a Balkans-style traffic checkpoints in and out of the neighborhood in an effort to stem a recent spate of drug related murders. Sitting on the front porch of 67-year-old Willie Dorn, a retired corrections officer, Milloy noted the antics of a group of teenaged boys "shirtless, pants below their behinds," who, as Milloy and Dorn watched, launched a plastic bottle at a passing scooter, nearly causing an accident. "Maybe a President Obama could help restore some pride in the black community," Dorn said.
The relationship of clothing to behavior is real. Clothes may not "make the man," but they shape the mind in ways large and small. Ask any stay-at-home parent, freelance writer or invalid who has spent one too many days in baggy sweats and stained T-shirts and begins to notice (in a semi-alarmed, detached sort of way, of course) a dwindling of discipline and energy. The well-known Rx for this condition is a shower and a change into grown-up clothes, the kind with seams that may pinch the body, but can help focus the head.
Until Barack Obama came along, the most visible pop culture exemplar of 1960s suit-and-tie style was the tightly-wound Rev. Louis Farrakhan. But Farrakhan, for all his former high visibility, was never mainstream. It's no surprise that he failed to inspire a national craze for slim suits and buffed oxfords.
Barack Obama is different. Barack Obama is the suit next time.
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The relationship of clothing to behavior is real? Are you serious? High levels of lead paint in homes, which effect the brain, shape behavior, the crack epidemic in poor neighborhoods shape behavior, terrible schools with ill equipped teachers shape behavior. Malnutrition shapes behavior, racist judicial systems shape behavior. Limited economic opportunities shape behavior. Get real chick.
With all due respect, when your young and broke, the way you dress can be the difference between total depression and empowerment. Having a group identity through dress, and music is the only way to create meaning for a lot of working class people regardless of race.
Thank you. I was going to write something quite similar. It is crazy to have all these middle-class liberals (of all colors) on here (including the author of the post) pontificating about the lives of poor and working-class Black boys and men without any mention of economic devastation, educational injustice, and the cultural demonization of Blackness (if Obama is being presented as "scary," how do you imagine the average Black kid feels?). I am not saying that being poor makes people wear sagging jeans or even that sagging pants are inherently good or bad. The point is that even if they could fit themselves into skinny jeans and belt them up tight around the waist, this wouldn't address the stench of dead rats in the walls of their overcrowded classroom (an example from a friend of mine, a white woman who teaches in the South Bronx). So until we want to do something about these things, young folks have every right to dress in ways that piss us off. We pissed them off first.
Not true. Clothes influence ones own perception of self. Imagine you're a poor kid watching TV. There you are, in your sagging pants and wifebeater, and there's your President, looking cool in a suit. It was easy to dismiss the difference between you when the President was Dubya, white and privileged and clearly undeserving of the honor of the office. But now that the President is a black self-made man, that might cast seeds of beneficial doubt in your mind: perhaps there is something to dressing classy, speaking well and studying beyond 'acting white' and 'not keeping it real.'
Excellent post, and there must a very interesting thought process behind it.
I suspect that you're right, and that if we see an Obama presidency, this might well precipitate (or more likely be a reflection of) a sea-change in the zeitgeist.
When you get right down to it, gangsta chic is all about power. Getting it, keeping it, and displaying it. More importantly, its about NOT having power, because as the secret, internal meaning of all fetish objects is their opposite. So, gangsta style makes a fetish of the signs and symbols of power; power of a particular kind--local, physical power. Our society denies the attainment of social power to poor black kids from the projects, so they respond by dropping out of society and grabbing & displaying whatever powerful *objects* they can for themselves: guns, gold, designer crap & bravado.
The resulting look is almost totemic in nature.
~~
But this whole dynamic changes when there *is* a viable route real social power, at least the illusion of one. Yes, if Obama is the bellwether of real change, then the above complex will lose its engine.
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You think? Hmmmmm....
Hip Hop/Rap cloths and music are old skool. That scene has been around for decades.
If Obama could inspire ALL of the American people to be more articulate (and not feel uncool), that would be the most important cultural sea change in decades.
Then again, it's very possible that President Obama's attire will have no effect whatsoever on African-American culture.
true dat, its certainly also true that he is having an effect on national discourse, and making people question what is inside their heads and their perception
but shift to what, or where? (at the rsik of sounding corny) only time will reveal
meanwhile doesnt President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama have the most wondrous ring to it? yep, gets me every time..
Also this hip hop fashion thing isn't a trend it's Poverty! Kips wear clothes falling off their bottoms because their parents always bought there close too big because there parents could only afford to buy clothes that they could grow into. Others thought it was cool so they decided to make it a trend. Same thing with White t-shirts they're cheap come in packs of five and go with anything. Once again others see it think it's cool and emulate.
Actually, the below-the-butt pants aren't a sign of poverty, chadstanton. Its something that came into fashion just a few years ago when gangsta culture - street gangs, violent rap music, gang tatoos, prison time - became hip among young urbanites. The droopy pants look originated in prisons, where it was a sign that a male prisoner was willing to become another prisoner's uh... prostitute. I seriously doubt that most of the guys that wear their pants down around their butt today realize the origins of their look.
Speaking of male fashion, its soooooo boring, isn't it? Professional men have beeen wearing that same suit, jacket, tie, pants, button down shirt - virtually unchanged (except for a brief respite in the 1970s), for decades. YAWN. Of course there are always fashion iconoclasts especially in the music industry , but in general, the droopy pants look is the first major innovation in male fashion since most of us can remember. Its amazing that the droop look has held on so long, but that's pretty much the only kind of fashion statement a man can make without being made fun of by his male peers.
I'm so glad to be a female, when it comes to fashion!!!
Hopefully you're right and the Obama generation will usher in a new era of fashion!
Blame Beau Brummel.
I've heard that it originated in prison lie before and it's not true. How can you sag your pants i a jumpsuit?
I've read from Bill Maxwell, an African-American editorialist for the St. Petersburg Times, that the look of pants falling off, exposing the buttocks originated during the slave trade. The idea was the same as in prison: this ass is available for use.
I still don't understand why young black men want to emulate this look, unless they really have no idea where it came from.
Clothing is a form of expression, but at some point it's about function as well. When I see young men (black, white, hispanic - they're all doing it) wearing pants falling off their hips, endlessly hitching them up so they don't fall off, I wonder about the inconvenience of it.
adorable!
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I polite fully disagree.
maybe they'll be rockin' this look:
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That pic is hilarious. If that doesn't scream "soccer dad" I don't know what does.
What a dork, bless his heart. He's like the quintessential Dorky Middle-class Dad in that picture. XD
If an Obama presidency can get kids to quit wearing that idiotic hip-hop garb, terrific. I just hope they don't opt for turbans instead.
Other presidents have worn nice suits too. Whats magic about Obama's wardrobe?
There's nothing wrong with wearing a turban if you ask me. Just like there's nothing wrong with wearing a cowboy hat. Actually the people of McCain's state, AZ, would benefit from wearing turbans in the summer. I was in AZ during the snow storm in OH, it already felt like a summer in NY. A turban would block the sun rays and keep your head's temperature to reasonable levels, and would also keep your sweat from running all over your face.
Must be why the beduins and Arabs who live in the deserts where them...
Kim Wilson from the Fabulous Thunderbirds had a pretty good run with the turban.
cuz Obama wears it well -- we haven't seen that kind of style in the WH since John and Jackie
BTW, what is wrong with wearing a turban ???
Turbans?! it's this kind of talk that has kept me from being proud of America. I hope Obama makes ignorance and latent bigotry out of fashion.
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