Body Rockin’ Rites of Passage
I slipped my father’s aviator sunglasses onto my face under the red bandanna I had tightly strapped around my head. I sauntered through the cold storage doors to the full length mirror in his bedroom. I stared at the 12 year old facing me, complete with fishnet t-shirt and long-sleeved, red matching knit undershirt beneath, blue sweat pants with the corporate logo from my father’s company hidden beneath Bruce Jenner-style shorts. My socks were pure off-white, another product of my dad’s dresser, and the shoes: pink and purple Vans. I was a rainbow of fruit flavors. A costume designer for… Continue reading
The Breast Revenge
By Zac Elston
Two months ago my wife and I opened a Body Piercing Studio here in Arlington Va. Now I’ve always loved the stories my wife has to tell from this ‘get me through college’ career choice. Working in the ‘scene’ industry, she comes home with a new adventure story everyday. I think my new favorite hobby is bringing her to parties and letting her silence a room full of wine tasters with “Hey, didn’t I pierce your dick?”
In the beginning I was happy to just be on the side-lines. I knew she had a weird job, but… Continue reading
Coed Naked Lacrosse
Vaguely absurd “attitude” T-shirts such as “Coed Naked Lacrosse” were familiar on college campuses during the ’80s, often tailored to the particular school or local geography.
“Surf the Schuylkill” at the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, referred nonsensically to the waveless, polluted Schuylkill River flowing nearby. In 1990 two University of New Hampshire grads bought the Coed Naked trademark and unleashed it on teens.
By the 1993-94 school year the shirts (and even cruder latecomers like “Big Johnson” and “Butt Naked”) reached fad proportions and were the subject of dozens of ACLU lawsuits across the country as schools deemed the… Continue reading
Fluevog – British Columbia, footwear company
Vancouver, British Columbia, footwear company founded in 1970 by John Fluevog (b. 1948) and Peter Fox, the partnership split up in 1980. Since then Fox has flourished as a mainstream designer and Fluevog has found renown as, among other things, an early proponent of the platform-shoe revival.
The colorful, outlandishly impractical Fluevog shoes (made in England, often with Doc Martens-made soles) have long been favorites with club kids, but they reached national renown in 1991 when one scallop-heeled model was worn in videos and photo shoots by Deee-Lite singer Lady Miss Keir.
Designers Anna Sui, Byron Lars, and Betsey Johnson… Continue reading
Hairstyle – Dreadlocks
Hairstyle dating back to the ’20s and the founding of the Afro-Caribbean religion Rastafarianism. Rastas outlawed the combing or cutting of hair, citing the biblical injunction of Leviticus 21:5: “They shall not make baldness upon their head….” The name dreadlocks was adopted to mock nonbelievers’ aversion to the look; the term was popularized internationally by the 1975 Bob Marley song “Natty Dread” (“natty,” in this case, meaning “knotty”).
In the ’80s, significant numbers of non-Rastafarian blacks began wearing dreads as fashion, and by the early ’90s, trend-conscious whites followed suit. Those unable to grow the right kind of hair can… Continue reading
Headgear “do-rag”
Tennis star Andre Agassi in a do-rag
Headgear so named because it is used to cover up a hairdo. Originally the provenance of older black women (as on Aunt Jemima product boxes), the do-rag is fashioned from a square of material (usually a patterned bandanna) that is folded, tied behind the head, and stretched over the forehead.
Common among prison inmates, the do-rag acquired fashion currency in the late ’80s and early ’90s through its use as an insignia among feuding L.A. gangs (Crips-blue, Bloods-red). Its outlaw cachet was appreciated by would-be macho types and hairdressers.
Number of View :250Don’t Panic – Leave Chelsea Alone
Apparel company founded in 1990 by former stand-up comedian Skyler Thomas (b. 1963) after his “Nobody Knows I’m Gay” T-shirt became a hot seller at that year’s L.A. Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration.
Thomas has since shown an aptitude for unleashing media viruses: “I Can’t Even Think Straight” and “Closets Are for Clothes” were hits in the gay world before he broadened out in early 1993 with “Leave Chelsea Alone.” This noble defense of beleaguered first daughter Chelsea Clinton reportedly prompted a note of thanks from the president himself.
Thomas conceived the “Bad Hair Day” hat as well as jewelry,… Continue reading
Doc Martens – Footwear of individuals
Footwear uniform of young individualists worldwide. Doc Martens shoes were invented in 1945 by Claus Maertens, a German doctor who needed a comfortable shoe after a skiing accident; Maertens formed a rubber sole from a tire and heat-sealed it to an upper, trapping a cushion of air.
Patented two years later, the Maertens design found favor as an orthopedic shoe among older women; on April 1, 1960, “Doc Martens” were first produced under license in England by R. Griggs & Co. The company’s original, eight-eyelet 1460 model boots-still a staple today-were adopted in the ’60s by English skinheads, who coveted… Continue reading
Black Dog
- The Black Dog catalog (The Black Dog Tavern Company, Inc.).
Logo from the well-weathered restaurant on the New England resort island of Martha’s Vineyard; faded-color T-shirts bearing the understated Labrador silhouette have become a kind of Hard Rock Café insignia for the upper classes.
Most versions of the shirts state the year of vintage in antique type on the back, the better to separate ancien from nouveau; earliest models date from 1980, with a large mail-order business started in the early ’90s through classified ads in the likes of Rolling Stone.
In 1992 Vineyard residents Helen and Paul Hall successfully… Continue reading
Birkenstock – The footwear dynasty
Unsightly orthopedic sandals invented in 1965 when Karl Birkenstock, the scion of a German footwear dynasty, combined his company’s molded sole with a suede-lined cork foot bed and straps.
Birkenstocks were first distributed in the U.S. in 1967 and were favored mainly by Deadheads and crunchy types (health-food stores were one outlet) until the early ’90s.
They then went overground with a vengeance, appearing on the feet of designers, celebrities (most famously those of Madonna and Keanu Reeves), and runway models who were swept along with fashion’s supposed swing to New Age values.
The New York Times reported that the… Continue reading