Jul 9, 2022·edited Jul 9, 2022Liked by Saby Reyes-Kulkarni
Hey Saby. I hope you are doing well. It has been a long time since we first talked about this article. I have been thinking about it the whole time. This is such a big piece and there are many things I could imagine you and I digging into as a topic from this piece, but since I don't want to write a comment as long as your original article, I will talk about one thing. Music fashion.
I will start in the 80s with hip-hop because for me that was where I first realized that I wanted to wear certain things that my mom would never pick for me on her own. I had to say I wanted something and I needed her to agree that it was ok for me to have it and wear it. My parents were a bit strict in that way. I could convince them a fair amount of time that I wanted something but there were times that they would give me the hard "No" and there didn't often seem to be rhyme or reason to it outside of if something would be too expensive. Jordan's back in the day? No way. Not because someone may jump me for my shoes - I doubt they knew that certain styles were more likely to get you jacked than others - but why on Earth would they spend $100 on a pair of shoes for a kid? I could understand that.
Well, I am a very young kid in the 80s - ten years old in 1985 - and I love hip-hop. I love the music. I love break dancing. I love the idea of a DJ and scratching. And I love the fashion. It was colorful and creative and just so different than most people I was around. I never really saw myself as a rapper. I wanted to be a DJ but I knew my parents weren't going to spring for DJ equipment. They would have seen it as too expensive and why would I need two turntables? There's already one in the basement. Just play the records on that. I wanted to do graffiti but I am not even a teenager and my parents were not giving me an abundance of freedom for me to find a moment to do something like that.
So my option to be a part of hip-hop was breakdancing, and luckily I loved dancing. Watching what breakdancers were able to do was like watching magic. I wanted to do it, and got fairly good at it. But another thing I noticed was that the best breakdancers had a style of dress. So I wanted to dress similarly. Thus began my obsession with hip-hop fashion. I wanted the sweet shoes and fat laces, the name belt buckle, the track jacket, the Kangol, etc. I could convince them to buy some of it and it was enough to make me feel good and feel like I was a part of this thing I so enjoyed.
And that's really the thing about music fashion. Some of us aren't great artists and can't do the things we are experiencing through sound, performance, or artistic talent.. The only real way we can participate is to dress in the style. And there is an art to fashion. When you can put your own spin on what you wear it becomes active participation in this musical culture.
I agree that it also hits a point for a lot of people where you are just imitating what you see and there is no real art in that. However, as I got older the style of dress became a signifier. If see someone in sneakers with fat laces and a Run-DMC shirt, I can be assured that we can find common ground in hip-hop or at least starting with the group. If I see a punk rocker, I can talk about Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Milkmen. And sometimes music fashion may have told me to keep my distance, which is fine. At least I knew where I stood. But for me and I am sure for others, there was an excitement to getting a new piece that reaffirmed my love for this music and all these things around the music that I don't directly participate in, especially as breakdancing began to fall out of style in the area I lived in.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are folks who used this fashion in an intimidating way and that's a shame. When a style of dress develops in this sense, that means that there is a tribe forming for sure. And if someone is not dressed as part of the tribe then they can be misidentified as "them" instead of "us." It often feels like the ones pushing this narrative are the people who are often far removed from making the art. These are people who, similarly to me, find that their only way to participate is to dress the part. And if that person feels like they need to prove that they really are a part of the culture. It can lead to them "punching down" on someone who may be more involved in a different way. Maybe they could have connected over something else they have in common but the opportunity was missed because the focus was too narrow. Fashion alone isn't the only way to connect and identify with someone in this case, it's just the easiest.
Then you look at today. None of these signifiers mean anything anymore. Seeing someone in a Run-DMC shirt doesn't always mean they are a fan. You can buy that shirt at Target. You can buy it online. You can buy a used one at a thrift store. There used to be a time that you only got a band's shirt if you went to a concert. Now bands are brands and you can get it all over the place. Artists lend their sense of style to a major designer and anyone can dress like Pharrell Williams now. You don't even have to really know anything about his music. And I am not mad at that. He is still being creative and hey, make that money.
But, now you can see the styles from around the world in every subculture and we imitate people who are imitating. But instead of just dressing how we like, we are still holding on to the idea that certain brands and styles mean something, when in truth it rarely does anymore. The biggest thing fashion shows now a days is how much money we spent to look the way we do.
So I don't hate music fashion. I think there is something fun, creative, and to a certain extent, inclusive about being able to dress the part of something you love. The flip side is that it feels more and more like a rarity that the styles that subcultures take on are genuine. Instead it often feels like forced imitations and money grabs by brands, instead of the grass roots sense of style that has grown alongside almost every genre of music since music started being made in the United States.
I hope that made some sense. More importantly, I hope all is well with you and yours. Talk to you soon!
What an interesting response! I'd like to quote the whole thing in a new post where I rebut myself based on the points you raise. This is exactly the kind of response I'm looking for, where someone expands on my original points and comes at it from a different angle that prompts me to re-think.
Yeah, go for it. I will say that I just edited something because it didn't fully make sense the way I had it originally. The below line is what I changed it to:
"The flip side is that it feels more and more like a rarity that the styles that subcultures take on are genuine. Instead it often feels like forced imitations and money grabs by brands, instead of the grass roots sense of style that has grown alongside almost every genre of music since music started being made in the United States."
Hey Saby. I hope you are doing well. It has been a long time since we first talked about this article. I have been thinking about it the whole time. This is such a big piece and there are many things I could imagine you and I digging into as a topic from this piece, but since I don't want to write a comment as long as your original article, I will talk about one thing. Music fashion.
I will start in the 80s with hip-hop because for me that was where I first realized that I wanted to wear certain things that my mom would never pick for me on her own. I had to say I wanted something and I needed her to agree that it was ok for me to have it and wear it. My parents were a bit strict in that way. I could convince them a fair amount of time that I wanted something but there were times that they would give me the hard "No" and there didn't often seem to be rhyme or reason to it outside of if something would be too expensive. Jordan's back in the day? No way. Not because someone may jump me for my shoes - I doubt they knew that certain styles were more likely to get you jacked than others - but why on Earth would they spend $100 on a pair of shoes for a kid? I could understand that.
Well, I am a very young kid in the 80s - ten years old in 1985 - and I love hip-hop. I love the music. I love break dancing. I love the idea of a DJ and scratching. And I love the fashion. It was colorful and creative and just so different than most people I was around. I never really saw myself as a rapper. I wanted to be a DJ but I knew my parents weren't going to spring for DJ equipment. They would have seen it as too expensive and why would I need two turntables? There's already one in the basement. Just play the records on that. I wanted to do graffiti but I am not even a teenager and my parents were not giving me an abundance of freedom for me to find a moment to do something like that.
So my option to be a part of hip-hop was breakdancing, and luckily I loved dancing. Watching what breakdancers were able to do was like watching magic. I wanted to do it, and got fairly good at it. But another thing I noticed was that the best breakdancers had a style of dress. So I wanted to dress similarly. Thus began my obsession with hip-hop fashion. I wanted the sweet shoes and fat laces, the name belt buckle, the track jacket, the Kangol, etc. I could convince them to buy some of it and it was enough to make me feel good and feel like I was a part of this thing I so enjoyed.
And that's really the thing about music fashion. Some of us aren't great artists and can't do the things we are experiencing through sound, performance, or artistic talent.. The only real way we can participate is to dress in the style. And there is an art to fashion. When you can put your own spin on what you wear it becomes active participation in this musical culture.
I agree that it also hits a point for a lot of people where you are just imitating what you see and there is no real art in that. However, as I got older the style of dress became a signifier. If see someone in sneakers with fat laces and a Run-DMC shirt, I can be assured that we can find common ground in hip-hop or at least starting with the group. If I see a punk rocker, I can talk about Bad Brains, Black Flag, Dead Milkmen. And sometimes music fashion may have told me to keep my distance, which is fine. At least I knew where I stood. But for me and I am sure for others, there was an excitement to getting a new piece that reaffirmed my love for this music and all these things around the music that I don't directly participate in, especially as breakdancing began to fall out of style in the area I lived in.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that there are folks who used this fashion in an intimidating way and that's a shame. When a style of dress develops in this sense, that means that there is a tribe forming for sure. And if someone is not dressed as part of the tribe then they can be misidentified as "them" instead of "us." It often feels like the ones pushing this narrative are the people who are often far removed from making the art. These are people who, similarly to me, find that their only way to participate is to dress the part. And if that person feels like they need to prove that they really are a part of the culture. It can lead to them "punching down" on someone who may be more involved in a different way. Maybe they could have connected over something else they have in common but the opportunity was missed because the focus was too narrow. Fashion alone isn't the only way to connect and identify with someone in this case, it's just the easiest.
Then you look at today. None of these signifiers mean anything anymore. Seeing someone in a Run-DMC shirt doesn't always mean they are a fan. You can buy that shirt at Target. You can buy it online. You can buy a used one at a thrift store. There used to be a time that you only got a band's shirt if you went to a concert. Now bands are brands and you can get it all over the place. Artists lend their sense of style to a major designer and anyone can dress like Pharrell Williams now. You don't even have to really know anything about his music. And I am not mad at that. He is still being creative and hey, make that money.
But, now you can see the styles from around the world in every subculture and we imitate people who are imitating. But instead of just dressing how we like, we are still holding on to the idea that certain brands and styles mean something, when in truth it rarely does anymore. The biggest thing fashion shows now a days is how much money we spent to look the way we do.
So I don't hate music fashion. I think there is something fun, creative, and to a certain extent, inclusive about being able to dress the part of something you love. The flip side is that it feels more and more like a rarity that the styles that subcultures take on are genuine. Instead it often feels like forced imitations and money grabs by brands, instead of the grass roots sense of style that has grown alongside almost every genre of music since music started being made in the United States.
I hope that made some sense. More importantly, I hope all is well with you and yours. Talk to you soon!
Roger
What an interesting response! I'd like to quote the whole thing in a new post where I rebut myself based on the points you raise. This is exactly the kind of response I'm looking for, where someone expands on my original points and comes at it from a different angle that prompts me to re-think.
Yeah, go for it. I will say that I just edited something because it didn't fully make sense the way I had it originally. The below line is what I changed it to:
"The flip side is that it feels more and more like a rarity that the styles that subcultures take on are genuine. Instead it often feels like forced imitations and money grabs by brands, instead of the grass roots sense of style that has grown alongside almost every genre of music since music started being made in the United States."