As with most things, it’s the internet what done it.
First it came for our music. Algorithmically shaving off the human edge, before serving up a puree of auto-tuned baby noise to the distracted and undiscerning. Then it turned food into a toxic poke bowl of insta-snappable performance-consumption. Now the monoculture has come for clothing.
It’s remarkable to think that fashion used to be a vocabulary of belonging and defiance. Now it’s just a pathogen of mediocrity. Take a look at all the ‘individuals’ wearing billowing 90’s jeans, white socks and loafers over at Uniform Display. The algorithm doesn’t celebrate taste; it averages it.
Today London is smothered by Jimmy Fairly, Daunt books and Cubits totes. Each one being swung by someone who, presumably, believes their choice of carrier to be a singular representation of their identity. Wax London? What the fuck is that about? And yet this sample sale fossil appears to have convinced the capital’s most malleable that a plain t-shirt and an unbuttoned wool overshirt is peak style.
If it’s not the none-more-rinsed Salomon XT-6, it’s death-by-beige New Balance. Denim jackets with ties. Enormous brown second hand leather jackets. Chemically mottled jumbo jeans. Rugby shirts — again. Football shirts — again. And such is the ubiquity of Fear of God Essentials sweatshirts I’ve begun to believe they could overtake Reform in the polls.
To put it in a way a 19 year old fashion TikToker might understand. When everything ‘hits different’, everything is the same.
Hello by the way, it’s been a while.
The above was brought to mind on a recent visit to The Design Museum, for the exhibition Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s.
Running a scant 18 months, from February 1979 until October 1980, Blitz famously birthed the New Romantic movement and is universally considered to have been a major catalyst for creative exploration across fashion, music, art and design.
Very cool. Completely honest about what it was. Genuinely rebellious.
Of course these days you do still get rebellion, it’s just now it comes in two main forms. Either a Basquiat t-shirt in seven different colours with a new ‘drop’ every weekend. Or in the dreary hypocrisy of those who claim to worry about our planet’s ecological future, before filling their bags with sweat-shopped Zara slop.
I digress.
Blitz was exclusive, physical, and rooted in place. It was an environment where people could invent themselves through style, art, and performance. And crucially, effort was required. In order to stand a chance of making it inside, you had to absorb, through word of mouth, through fliers, through visits to far off clothing boutiques and record shops. You had to know your Weimar cabaret from your Bowie futurism, your Edwardian tailoring from your Victorian collars. From the fringes to the core, through the labyrinthine codes and philosophies… you had to believe. Only then could you be part of something extraordinary.
Tough door policies still exist, of course. But now they typically involve 40 year old drunks in Superdry being carded to get into a Clapham fun pub after 10pm.
Again, I digress.
Sadly, we’ve forgotten the value of making an effort. When you can see what people in Tokyo are wearing right now and then buy it without getting out of bed, why not? When you can stream 100 track Soca playlists, why train it across the country to crate dig?
This is why there are no more subcultures. This is why the human, passion-driven desire for ‘different’ (the thing that initially powered feverish local crucibles around everything from 2 Tone to Shoegaze, from Acid House to Nu Rave) has seemingly perished.
In the early 90s oversized jeans meant you jumped around till dawn on the top of a JCB at an illegal rave in Blackburn. They were a cultural signifier. They meant something. Now all they mean is you’ve been convinced to buy them by a video of an infantile quiff in a vest and a chunky necklace who told you, “they slap hard.”
By now, this is well trodden ground. By feeding our laziness, desire for convenience and cultural apathy, digital culture has stripped us of our souls. But amongst the identikit pram-pushing Veja’s, tarmac-dragging denims and Uniqlo puffers it has never seemed more apparent.
I don’t know about you, but I can live without ever seeing another nu-heritage menswear brand seemingly trying to fill a non-existent market gap with a heartfelt ChatGPT’d manifesto that promises, “a commitment to creating unique contemporary menswear”, next to a picture of an oatmeal fleece.
When Giorgio Armani died recently I actually read an article that suggested you should pay homage to the great man, not by wearing Giorgio Armani because of the price tag, but by wearing one of the myriad high street knock offs.
Out shopping the other day I overheard a child of about nine proclaiming to her friends, “This jumper’s really hitting, this is what a jumper should feel like”. I was in Uniqlo.
Further down the street I noticed the window of And Other Stories, it literally read: “join our collective and get 10% off.”
That’s culture now.
I’m older. Perhaps it’s inevitable I feel this way. But as much as it’s challenging to try and measure, or indeed convince anyone of, the loss of an intangible, I do think there’s a loss. An algorithmicly-powered absence of need. Nothing feels worth striving for. And in such an absence of need, culture loses its edge. As Plato famously (and only possibly) said, necessity is the mother of invention.
Which leaves me where? Other than clearly wrestling with cognitive dissonance, I have consciously steered my apparel as far from ‘fire fits’ as I can.
As always the foundations are Comme des Garçons: Homme, Homme Plus, Homme Deux. Deliberately anti-fashion, but also frequently and pleasingly anonymous.
In a similar vein, I’ve been shopping at Future Present. You have to make an appointment and trek to their hard to find Clerkenwell office — which I love, effort see. I’ve walked away with some lovely Japanese pieces from brands like Dulcamara, My Beautiful Landlet and Voaaov.
Simone Rocha menswear has entered my wardrobe, courtesy of a superb sample sale. While I’m also enjoying the selections at Shoreditch’s UJNG, and Mouki Mou over on Chiltern Street. Casey Casey remains a staple. As does Studio Nicholson. Although I must admit to taking my pairs of their parallel trousers to the tailor for a subtle hem width reduction. I want to keep the bagginess, but lose the excess ankle flap. There are just too many 90s hem draggers in Soho right now. In fairness, I was championing the ‘big pant’ way back in 2019 — suck it newbies.
Doubtless, I come off like a right little prince. Bemoaning today’s culture, giving it all that, “it were better in my day”, blah-de-blah. I get it. And to be honest, I’d think the same were it not for a social feed filled with half-baked pseudo-profoundity that constantly reminds me to ‘be my honest authentic self’.
I suppose I am susceptible to the digital shit pipe after all.
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Hat: Yohji Yamamoto
Shirt/Coat: Simone Rocha
Trousers: Comme des Garçons Homme
Shoes: Comme des Garçons Homme Plus x Nike
