I have no idea why I felt the need to talk about this, but anyway…
Europe always seems to be about 3-4 years ahead in style than the U.S.–or should I say, the U.S. is about 3-4 years behind.
What’s still considered in-style for younger men in the U.S. are the following:
The ganster look–baggy jeans with loose-fitting extra long t-shirt
Workwear
Suit & tie, usually white shirts
And that’s it. Anyone outside that gets labeled with the term “metrosexual” or “gay”.
I’ve seen European pictures over the past few months of clothing for men including capris, belly-showing shirts, lower-rise pants than the U.S. standard (also low-rise slacks), the return of late 70’s early 80’s style glasses frames (yikes!!! please no! Michael Jackson wearing them to court is bad enough!), and flourescent colors. Since I don’t live there, I don’t know whether that is actually true or not.
I’ve seen hints of bright colors show up here in the states, but mostly for women.
Does style seem to be adopting a partial return to the early 80’s? Style, not just in clothing but in everything, seems to repeat itself in a modified way every 24-27 years. Does that pattern still hold true now?
Well I guess you are right in that 80’s style did somewhat come back 1-2 years ago, atleast on young people and man that was boring for me to see…Those ugly neon colors…
Seams like the creators of clothing don’t have that many new ideas…
However it probably works in a two directional way, sometimes some trend is created here and spread to US and the oposite also holds true.
I really don’t know much about the style:
personaly, I’m quite a “no-look” person, that’s how someone has defined me.
I always had the same kind of clothes: I don’t use anything but t-shirts (mostly demoscene-related or funny), shirts (with just a color, or with stripes), simple jeanses and a jacket (always the same ) in winter, or a shirt over the shirt
Personally, I hate most of 80’s music, as I hate most of simple music, and unfortunately that style is coming back (listen to Moby, for example… how I hate him… and how I hate that Depeche Mode’s clone song he wrote for Vodafone…
And I hate the way people dress and look, because they all look similar, and it’s even difficult to find a jeans which is not full of pockets and not low.
Damn, I have a personality, I don’t want to &*$£ing look like TV people
Of course, you have to read the work “hate” as “ignore”
Until more recently, I used to say the same thing about 80’s music, but then I thought about and realized how much musical experimentation went on in the 80’s, particularly in electronic music. I’d say I dislike the 90’s even more when it comes to “simple” music or groups/bands/artists that sound like each other–especially in rock–everything turned into Nirvana and Korn clones, and most electronic music in the 90’s has that lame typical dance-club-rhythm. The 80’s offered a lot of individual sound. It also offered the whole hair band and bubblegum music sound as well (and crap like New Skids on the Block), but one has to take the bad with the good…
Probably my favorite era musically was the 70’s. It had a lot more jazz influence, producing-wise instruments had a smoother warmer sound, soul actually had soul in it, and the only “rap” around was truly cutting edge.
I couldn’t agree with you more about Moby. The fact that he has gotten as popular as he has says alot about the way the public looks at music, unfortunately. People generally don’t seem interested in complex music, which is a shame.
Hm, funny to see a picture of Frater Sinister, as I used to chat with him on ICQ some years ago, heard an XM he made called Sweet Violent Suecide which I really liked.
Remember he told me he had given up tracking all together, is that still the situation?
I’ve been a guest in his home for some days when we took that photo, and we decided to make a surprise to NeuRoTiX, who lives at about 60km from him, so I had the opportunity to know him better.
He has a strange familiar situation, which somehow reflects on his unsteady approach to life: he’s a greatly talented composer and pianist, but his life is pretty a mess.
Last year, he suddenly disappeared, then he sent me an email telling he went on eastern Europe to search for a job (in Eastern Europe?! ), then he came back this year.
He quitted tracking, yes, but he told me yesterday that he’s composing on Linux these days (probably with RoseGarden, because he was enthusiast about it when it was released), but you really can’t know when it’s about Frater
The upside of living among fashion ignorants is that faux-pas’ go unnoticed, and if you wear anything unusual, people think you’re trendy, even if it’s not trendy at all.
For kids around 13-17, the “hip-hop” look is very in. It remains so for the foreseeable future.
Concerning the other end of the spectrum, however…
As far as I know, businesses in the US require far more formal attire from their higher-ranking employees than their European counterparts, so anything besides a single-breasted black, navy or charcoal suit with a pure white shirt and ‘power tie’ is usually not allowed. Around here, very few professions require an outfit like that.
Me, I’m a sucker for nice suits and expensive ties
Also, I can see why people around here (North/Northeastern Europe) are not used to seeing men taking care of themselves. Why it’s such a strange thing in the US, escapes me.
Capri pants in their original form are usually worn by women, men tend to wear bermuda shorts and in some cases, cargo shorts. Aviator sunglasses are ‘in’ again, but I haven’t seen many people wearing them. And fluorescent colors? Haven’t seen them either.
I can tell you, 2 years ago it was all about warm yellow-ish colors, stripes, burnt shades of brown, red and orange, and Indian influences. There were also some hints about the comeback of the 80s, which eventually gained enough momentum to become the main trend of the last year – with bell-shaped tights, fishnet shirts, retro colors and the whole shebang. Pink went out of fashion (only to return this year) and cold, light colors, especially pale blue, came strongly in.
This year, it’s a choice between quiet elegance (simple stripes, linen fabric, light greens and blues) and bold show-off (odd patterns, bright discordant colors, pink-striped collared shirts, etc). If in doubt, take the simple way, because if you can’t pull off the latest trend, you’ll just look silly.
Actually, all it takes to look classy is having basic knowledge about mixing, matching and layering, remembering a handful of fashion dos and donts, and having some attitude. (“Who gives a f*ck” does not qualify.) You can never go wrong with contrasting colors (white button-down with blue jeans, red v-neck with gray slacks and black blazer, dark-green polo with white chinos, etc.), simple patterns and classic fabrics.
I’d like to contribute with a few pointers.
Wear a fairly light colored cotton sweater with neutral earthtones, dark grey polyester pants that don’t look like polyester, black indoor shoes, and look down alot. Like you’re shy or something.
If you fail at that, return to this thread and ask again. I will give you a completely different look that will just work all over the place.
Shit! I almost forgot. You can tweak it (and every other look) by just changing it around. Use a fairly dark sweater (still made of cotton), light grey polyester pants that don’t look like polyester, and again black indoor shoes. This will give you more fashion power.
from 20 to older baggy clothes just means your a bum or a loser without a job. From where i live this style is not done… we tend to look more trendy now. even men like to show their figure through good fitting clothes… Maybe in the US ppl hide themselves in XXL clothing cuz they’re fat (??) That what i see in pics of ordinary ppl in the US fat even the women are fat… ugh fat asses… i thought gym’s were originaly from the US?
I’m hoping that in the U.S. more revealing clothing for men will eventually be back in style instead of these hideous underwear-showing baggy pants with the crotch down to their knees accompanied by shirts that almost reach their knees with arms raised–I want to see shape-revealing, not baggy underwear-revealing. Why is it that in the U.S. women get to dress skimpier and skimpier every year while men get to look more and more like they’re drowning in their clothing?
I’m hoping to see even more men’s lowrise jeans and I actually am hoping for men’s midriff-baring shirts, but that’s just wishful thinking out of some gay dude–wishful thinking to me and cringes and shreiks and screams and “Lord, please no!” from everyone else!!!
As far as the fat thing–I don’t think the baggy clothing thing has to do with people being fat–I see more bean-pole-anorexic-looking crank-addicted-looking types with this type of clothing than I do the ones that are really heavy.
Most heavy guys, except for a lot of bikers and truckers, wear stupid-looking pants hiked up above their bellybuttons, usually dress pants or “casual slacks”, or they wear jeans pulled up just as high with a really long shirt–this also usually leaves a permanent indent in their belly making it appear as if they have two bellies, one on top of another. A lot of bikers and truckers wear pants that actually fit and they wear them below their bellies and wear shirts that look like they fit great unless they raise their arms in the air–but that’s a much better look than the whole fat Erkle pity-party-look. If a person is fat, they need to like it and accpet it, love it and enjoy it, or lose it–trying for a pity party and trying to cover it up with Erkle-style-clothing is as lame as a balding man with a hair-from-behind-the-ear-combover.
ok wtf, who actually cares about fashion? i’ve always been a nonconformist, so i try to avoid what is in fashion, but beyond that, i really honestly don’t give a shit. i can’t pretend to care what people think of my appearance when i actually don’t. i wear the same clothes to bed that i wear out in public.
people confuse me with the amount of importance they place on appearances.
Edit #2: I just wish I could find non-business-standard casual clothing that isn’t hiphop or extra baggy looking. Pants have been the only exception, but the only pants that are lowrise and fit better are also made of material so thin that they get all ripped up within 8-10 months, in addition to the cost of most lowrise pants–over $50 a pair–more expense for less quality and durability! Ugh! T-Shirt styles for men are still extra-long, as they have been since '92–I’d like to find some that stop just below the waist of my pants, but I have to go to thrift stores for those, and those usually have some stupid sayings, or logos or some big advertisement for something on the front and back.
It’s sad that people get treated differently for the way they dress, but it’s a fact. One can ignore it and ignore the differences in the way one gets treated, one can conform to it, one can defy it, or one can have fun with it. The first option is boring, the second is absolute madness, which leaves the last two as the most interesting choices, to me.
I’m a lot with dj_io here, as you may understand form my previous post above:
following fashions is a waste of time, energy and money.
I really don’t mind more than a 1 minute a day about how I should dress myself, and, when I go to a dress store (which is a quite rare event ), everything is decided in about 15 minutes.
Time is the most precious resource, and programmers are still not choosen according to they style of dressing, luckily
I have no problem finding normal fitting clothes - it’s more like you would have to go to a skate/hiphop store to find baggys these days. And slim fit stretch jeans are everywhere, mostly on girls tho. But this is in Sweden. Still, unless you’ve got the time to look through 2nd hand stores or have the money to buy designer clothes, it can be a challenge to find fun clothes. What’s available for guys can be so depressing. Socks are usually black, marine, grey or brown - so I buy the largest size at girls department instead. My shirts are mostly 2nd hand or band t-shirts. I’ll have to visit the STREET market next time I go to Stockholm. I bought a really nice t-shirt with a robot gorilla print for a resonable price last time I was there.
) in winter, or a shirt over the shirt 
)
), then he came back this year.
