7 Hipster Fashions We Love To Hate (SLIDESHOW)

It's mid-September and it's getting harder to deny the fact that fall is just around the corner. Or maybe it's here already. (When's Daylight Savings, again?) Anyway, fall is a new season and new seasons mean new trends, and while, in general and as a rule, we hate trends, new trends mean that, God willing, we can finally say goodbye to old ones.

While everyone falls victim to the trend every now and again (Yes, even yours truly -- I own some skinny black jeans that I more or less never take off and I may or may not have a pair of purple knock-off Ray Bans, though, to be fair, I tell myself I have them only because, um, hello? They're purple. But I digress.), no one group of people have ever so succumbed, so embraced, so clutched on to trends for dear life with cold, pale, smoke-yellowed fingers as that so-called creative counter-culture: The Hipster.

Am I generalizing? Probably. Am I aware there are exceptions to the rule? Absolutely! Am I going to clarify shortly? Let's hope so.

From what I can tell, the hipster depends, nay, thrives on irony, but the problem is that in doing so, they've a) diluted and deserted any formal definition that irony may or may not have once had and b) they've only served to create a fashion version of The Blob in which once they adopt a "trend" -- usually historical and always ironically, of course -- it feeds on itself, and it grows and grows until frat guys are wearing it and the cast of "The Hills" are designing it, and then someday Rachel Ray will star in a Dunkin Donuts commercial while wrapped in it. Or maybe it's the other way around. (As Meryl Streep can attest, it's all so very, very complicated.) Whatever, moving on, because there's a c).

And so: c), though they initially drench themselves in these sartorial affectations in a (soon-to-be proven misguided) attempt to show how very unconcerned they are with what exactly it is they wear and though it would seem that their entire image hinged upon the sheer disinterest they have in other people's opinions and the exquisitely cultivated and the desperately disdainful, "What, this? I picked it up off the floor and pulled this out of the garbage and stole this from my myopic maternal grandmother!," the very act itself is contradictory. In attempting to embrace something so patently unflattering so as to prove how patently unimportant such flattery is, they are -- in fact -- acknowledging their concern, and therefore, their endorsement.

Too complicated? Don't worry. To put it simply: these trends, these accoutrements, these god-awful outfits are fugly. And yet, they are everywhere. And somehow they just never seem to go away.

And so, without further ado (since there has been so obviously more than enough): I bring to you, seven hipster looks I love to hate. And I do mean hate.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • You know how I said hipsters wear things that are purposely unflattering to look like they don't care, but really that's just one big backfire? Yeah: Case. In. Point.

So, what do you think? Agree? Disagree? Think I'm a judgmental brat who has no taste in clothing? Let's have at it! Share your favorite (and least favorite) trends and non-trends in the comments below.

Comments

[superew]

the article fails to mention these articles solely as bad aspects of 'hip' fashion. arguably, every kind of 'style' out there has good and bad wearers. by that i mean that with each group, some simply have it and others do not. just because some 'hip' people sport a bad look does not mean that everyone does. the ones that do, however, simply have no sense of fashion. their bad taste does not lend itself to the 'hip' trend, rather, just a poor eye for executing a good outfit. no one has anything to say about people that dress well because there is no cause...so really you cannot put down an entire 'hip' movement when only some of the kids just have no taste. honestly though, the 'hip' look draws far more people with poor taste than other looks...and that is one truth.

[ELEMCIVS]

I have been living in Williamsburg and Greenpoint Brooklyn looong before the attack of the Hipsters and have to say you missed 3 biggies:

1. The appalachia beard [ last year]

2. the ballet shoe - ruined mainsteam shoe design for 3 years running.

3. My newest late summer fave - ANY American Apparel hot coulored tight [ pink, aquamarine, lime] worn under a black one piece bodysuit [ yes, like a bathing suit] with ....ballet slippers.

[stribs]

"We 'hipsters' are the one's who have been decorating your entire cultural experience since the dawn of mass media. We design your favorite clothes and your favorite websites, we write your favorite music and direct your favorite movies. We are the creative class, a seldom appreciated economic force that will probably be the only thing left when this country was finally outsourced everything else."

No, generally I think hipsters are the ones who imitate the "creative class" though seldom contributing creatively themselves. After all, wearing gigantic glasses, having extravagant facial hair, and buying all your clothes at American Apparel is hardly creative. It's simply following one's friends. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You're simply adopting the same identifying characteristics of your sub-culture, much in the same way that a corporate type might wear khaki pants and a blue shirt.

Betsey Johnson. David Byrne. Damien Hirst. Hedi Slimane. Marc Jacobs. Chip Kidd. Zaha Hadid. JR. Shepard Fairey. Banksy. Chuck Palahniuk. Cormac McCarthy. Joel and Ethan Coen. James Nachtwey. Nan Goldin. Would any of these creative types or any other truly influential creatives you can think of embrace the label "hipster"? Hardly. They're simply individuals. In fact, some of them aren't remotely "hip." The best of them stand out for what makes their work unique, not for how they follow everyone else.

The hipster definition of a creative type is a rather narrow interpretation, which omits some creative giants and includes a sea of wannabes.

[rainbows4dinosaurs]

Well then I think we can establish that 'hipster' is a purely subjective term. Of course no one uses the term to describe his/her self, and so many looks get lumped into this illusionary genre that it's rendered meaningless anyway. Would Byrne or Banksy or Fairey be labeled a hipster if one of the folks ranting on this blog, not knowing better, were to pass those guys on the street? I'd say almost definitely.

Furthermore, there may indeed be a sea of wannabes out there, but there are also many many undiscovered giants as well, giants who may even like American Apparel.

Like I said, subjective.

[hartkid]

I love you Verena.

[andygaus]

The guy with the mustache looks great, and the mustache is the very thing that makes him look hot and masculine. Women don't like mustaches because they don't really like masculinity, or at any rate, they don't want any greater amount of it than the vermouth in a dry martini.

[lylo]

Not true. As a female, I love facial hair. Manly guys (not football watching, crotch scratching, but honest to god masculine) are so sexy.
But I have to agree with the author. Orlando Bloom's is just freaking sad. It reminds me of middle school.

[gpyc]

Mustaches are weird enough, but what is the deal with these weird looking beards/goatees lately? Especially when they consist of about 22 scruffy hairs.

Sincerely,
-Out of Touch and Proud About It

[mutron]

I'm not clear here on your definition of the word "hipster". I associate it with a 1940's post WWII Jazz subculture. You seem to associate it with fashion faux-pas. All I know for sure is something Lenny Bruce said, "There's nothing worse than an aging hipster."

[mongoosecleaverstrokes]

Growing up in Seattle during the late eighties and early nineties, I feel privy enough to comment on trendy ish of all sorts. Its clear to me that the vomitus of hipster politics should at least strive to go beyond simple eighties re-hash. There are plenty of brilliant decades and eras to bite from. Maybe we/they can grab hold of a worth-while moment in style/culture and eek out something better that jeans and shoes. . .
Take on, well, Ukrainian welldiggers of the late eighteenth century. Whatever!! Bloody simpletons. . .

[sagcat]

oh man, I would ~kill~ for the ability to break out my drab t-shirts & jeans with an unbuttoned plaid flannel again. I was so in style - and comfortable - in 1991-1994 it was awesome. I mean - it was RAD.

[rainbows4dinosaurs]

This all sounds like a giant, stinky bowl of sour grapes to me. "Whaa... I didn't get invited to the cool kids party!" Here's a tissue, poseurs.

We 'hipsters' are the one's who have been decorating your entire cultural experience since the dawn of mass media. We design your favorite clothes and your favorite websites, we write your favorite music and direct your favorite movies. We are the creative class, a seldom appreciated economic force that will probably be the only thing left when this country was finally outsourced everything else.

[cottelax]

Please tell me which hipsters have made my favorite music and directed my favorite movies. The hipster's chief economic asset to our country is waiting tables, hoping that their electro-pr­og-folk-ro­ck band will soon hit it big....but not too big.

[petecook5]

By definition, one who calls himself/herself a hipster is, by definition, not hip. Hipster is a term that people call others they perceive as either being hip or trying to be hip.

Sorry. You're a little too eager to slap this label on yourself. Methinks you may be a poseur.

[rainbows4dinosaurs]

Well, perhaps I walked right into that one, but I did use single quotes for a reason. No, I do not call myself or anyone I know a 'hipster', but I see a picture of a guy with a "hipster mullet" and relate it to my own crooked rat tail. I also have many friends and workmates with skinny mustaches, head bands, fixie bikes, big glasses, etc. Maybe they are trends, but the trends originate from within the creative community, and are dropped as soon as these acutraments find their way into your local Target. It is a necessary process that has been going on for ages.

I still say the whole 'hipster backlash' phenom smells like envy. The stereotyping is pretty ridiculous, the observations clueless, and the passion indicative of self hate.

[JBS]

Hipsters ain't hip!

[pilgrimmills]

to rebut the "big deal" comments:

style is not meaningless by any means. it's an indirect expression of contemporary dispositions. clothes from the eighties... political and economic policy from the eighties. coincidence? when youth become cynical, narcissistic, and easily advertised to, generally there are bigger problems afoot.

[Judyisacutie]

The hipster look has turned into another branch of fashion whether hipsters realize it or not, but I have a sneaky suspicion that they do realize that their look is another form of fashion, and the non-hipsters realize that the hipsters know that, so the hypocrisy drives the non-hipsters crazy. However, the hipsters probably delight in driving non-hipsters crazy with their non-conformity: refusing to dress like everybody else and refusing to acknowledge that their look is fashionable. They don't want to care, and non-hipsters like this columnist are trying to make them care! It's comedy.

[mog]

One thing I like about being in LA is getting to see these looks *just* before they become trends. Free dance nights and cheap coffee shops are great for spotting upcoming trends. I saw leggings with ballet flats (which I hated, then adopted after it was trendy, and still adore).

I saw the stupid 80s glasses and can't believe it became a trend; same goes for stupid 80s slouch ankle boots. I saw the high-waist 20s, 40s, 60s, and 80s pants (sailor pants, short shorts, jeans, etc). Knowing they come back every 20 years, I'm not surprised or disturbed to see them.

One thing I dislike about being in LA is having to see these looks *everywhere* when they become trends. LA is full of both trend setters and trend adopters...

P.S. I posted a complaint about neon Reeboks on my Flickr account *months* ago!

[petecook5]

OMG! You ARE LIKE, SO TREND-FORWARD. Sorry mog. That may have been true 20 years ago. But now that everyone in the country has the internets and the Mtv, they can all copy what mary-kate and ashley's new looks just as fast as you can. Get over yourself.

[lylo]

Amen.
GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!!
Geeze. It's so boring going in to public because of "trends." Everyone looks the SAME!!!!!!!!!

You "cool" people are so irritating that I've never had much faith in humans because of you.

[cherrycola]

The worst is the Trollsen inflatable headband. I remember thinking when originally encountering this photo that no one would touch this look with a ten-foot pole. But I have since seen hipsters (oh boy, have I seen hipsters since I live in Williamsburg) wearing all manner of ridiculous, ugly headbands. Olivia Newton-John wore her headband because she was supposedly "getting physical." It was like a sweat band. It was part and parcel of the Eighties aerobics craze. Headbands look good: if you are playing a sport. If you are going for a flapper look. If you are going for a hippy look. If you are deep into New Age beliefs and want to accentuate your third eye chakra. At no other time are headbands acceptable in my book.

[tx]

I live in a part of the country where if one DOESN'T dress like a "hipster" (not sure that's the right word) then one really stands out. Not like Los Alamos, New Mexico where all the men in the Pizza Hut have white shirts and neck ties. Here, in order to disrupt the conversations at the coffee bar I wear Giorgio Armani, Brooks brothers and Harris Tweed. Perhaps a nice Fedora to top it all off. Makes everybody very nervous. I guess that means that, when in Rome, big hats.

[strawberryjulius]

Hipsters are everywhere from Brooklyn to Omaha, from Austin to Boulder, From San Francisco to Nashville. The coasts don't have the monopoly on cool anymore.