But then....I popped into Son of Stag as it was only 2 shops away from Eastmans pop up shop just off Brick Lane. they had a Stetson Philadelphia straw hat for going on £300. Now I would not pay that but I had balked at the same hat in a Brighton Hat shop who were selling at a similar price so guess the UK retail for the hat had to be somewhere close.
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Freewheelers at Son of Stag
- Thread starter breezer
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Americanaaa Mark
A-List Customer
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I want that leathertogs jacket they make but for the price I would expect custom measurements and I don't think their largest size is big enough for me
They have a custom service but the upcharge is 100k JPY if I remember correctly...
What is your size?
Americanaaa Mark
A-List Customer
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like a 44 but japanese 44s tend to run small and 46s will have slightly odd measurements.
that would make that jacket like $3500~
that would make that jacket like $3500~
It's the centinela that you looking at, correct?
I couldn't find the right size at their store, but they have different versions of this jacket. So hoping on of them would fit
Americanaaa Mark
A-List Customer
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yup. love it. need it with like a 46'' chest and 20'' shoulderIt's the centinela that you looking at, correct?
I couldn't find the right size at their store, but they have different versions of this jacket. So hoping on of them would fit
Even 'Superdry'(yes I know it's English) comes out as what a certain online translator would translate as Waterproof, which most of their products arn't. How about the title of those Rin Tanaka books? Mr Freedamn, and a couple more quirky clothes stores such as 'Oscar and Jesus' , 'A bathing Ape'(hoodies and things). Even Son of Stag sounds like a country or field sports store but isn't. And Real Mcoy? Though a well respected company here Real Mcoy sounds like someone is trying hard but just on he edge. A bit like saying "We make the most authentic out there today"(but are in fact nowhere near)
Just my thoughts on a sunny but freezing November morning
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Edward
Bartender
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Plausible.
Well, I'm not much of a one for the bashing either, however, given the placement of SoS and that a huge chunk of the market for the pricier repro workwear in recent years has been the hipster community, I don't think it's unfair to suggest that's who is buying it. Certainly they arem ore prepared to pay the price of new stuff, in my experence, than much of the vintage crowd who will whine about not being able to buy pretty much anything for almost nothing, just because they were able to do that in charity shops twenty years ago when they gotg started on it. (Unless they're trying to sell on ebay, in which case you'll just get a lot of whining that everyone expects something for nothing, interspersed with - on the women's market - sniping at the better-known repro brands. I've seen some very bitchy uses of the term "Collectif Massive".) Bravo the hipsters, I say, for keeping this stuff available - hopefully one day somebody else will make it affordable!
Ha, yes. Except I have to steel myself before go in; sometimes I just can't face the inevitable sense of being judged, and that "can I help you? What are you looking for?" Means: "£you can't afford it, fatboy - don't waste our time!" Which, to be fair, says far more about me than it does them, but yeesh, yes.... the 'brand tax' that attaches to 'made in USA' or 'made in Japan' without adding anything in relation to quality and content is phenomenal. I get the economics of it all, but if you don't value manufacture in a certain place in and of itself, it does make for crazy retail.
Just wait til you hit China..... one of my favouritesin Beijing used to be a novelty store called "Bomb Plastic!" The same street now has a bar called The Drunken Slut. (Though the latter may be less cute Chinglish and more a deliberate comment, as the Chinese really do look down on Westerners who go to bars in order to drink and get hammered. The Chinese don't do pubs: instead, they go to a rstaurant and get sociably drunk around the table after dinner.)
Another favourite was a training shoe shop I saw in Krakow - Rue Florianska, in the old town - in July 2000. It rejoiced under the name "Athlete's Foot".
Then there's that coffee liquer, Tia Maria. "After dark: Tia Maria". Translate it into English, however.... "After Dark: Auntie Mary" doesn't quite ring the same.
Oh.... I also recall the story I heard about Seat, the car brand that is now part of the VW group, if memory serves. THey liked to name their cars with words ending in 'a' - odften drinks, or places in Spain. The Seat Ibiza, for example. I am told that they came very, very close to releasing a model in the UK market under the name the Seat Tossa.
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sorry I don't get it....who are the hipster community? Surely we would all fall into that community? I like to keep the H word in its original context and not use it as a general term to look down ones nose at other folks. Surely The Fedora Lounge, of all places, should be free of this attitude.
Edward
Bartender
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It's a very identifiable thing in my end of London, and an accepted tribal term - I'm not using it in any means as an insult here. It's certainly true that there's a crossover between the vintage interest group and the hipster interest group - for which I'm very grateful, as I've indicated in the past, as "vintage" people alone re in no way abig enough demographic to keep a lot of what we like alive. Sure, look even at Aero - hugely popular in these parts, but if their total custom was from people who are full vintage, full time, they wouldn't be anything like as big as they are, imo. Simply an issue of market size....
FWIW, the dividing line between hipsters and vintage folks I know is usually that hipsters will raid the past for inspiration as opposed to wanting to copy clothes and outfits exactly as they were worn back then; equally, hipsters often do so with a sense of irreverance or irony. I know quite a few hipsters and see more, living in the area I do. I don't fully get it a lot of the time (particularly those for whom everything is very studied and who find no joy in it all), but I'm a middle-aged, old fart - I'm not meant to get it. Personally, I very much welcome the presence of their irreverant view of vintage being around as it can sometimes help to remind those of us in the "vintage" tribe to be a bit less precious or blinkered. I know what you mean about the "original" use of the term, though to be honest in today's world I think you're probably fighting asim8lar battle to that guy who wanted to return the swastika to its original meaning and reclaim it from the Nazis!
sorry but I just don't buy these distinctions, or dividing line......most of us here like vintage clothes, but most of us do not dress exclusively in period clothes - we raid the past for what we like. So they guy who works a white collar job - but enjoys wearing red wings, selvedge denims and and an A2 on the weekend - is he authentic or a so called hipster? I'm not in the US navy but I love my RMC N1 and navy watch cap.....I'm not a scuba diver, but I wear a dive watch...... We all have different tastes and different motivations for doing what we do.....and I steadfastly refuse to categorise other folks with a pretty meaningless term.
smoz
One of the Regulars
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If you like a sherry for an aperitif you could opt for a Tio Pepe (Uncle Pete).
Edward
Bartender
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Absolutely your prerogative. The word has, however, entered the language with a meaning most people will recognise and broadly be able to identify. THe hipsters I know are mostly pretty indifferent to it, really. (Except or the one or two who affect to hate hipsters, of course, but we had that all before with the goths as well.) I find subcultures fascinating - the intersectionality between then even moreso.
In terms of wearng stuff that you're "not", that was never the point of the hipster thing; they're about sending up what they wear. So an A2, say, would be a deliberate nod to The Great Escape as asatricalcomment on modern pop cultue, that sort of thing. Very different to what folks round her think in the main. Which is fine with me - it'd be a dull world if everyone thought the same.
run the irony bit by me again...thats the bit I don't understand.
dudewuttheheck
I'll Lock Up
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The thing is... Freewheelers make INCREDIBLE products. In fact, they make some of the best leather jackets in the world out of the most expensive leather.
Even in Japan, Freewheelers is extremely expensive. I own many items from them, but do not own a leather jacket due to how expensive they have become.
They didn't used to be this bad, however. Only about 3 or 4 years ago, their jackets were around $1,000 cheaper in Japan than they are now. I think they became popular enough that they started really raising the prices. Even I don't think they're worth the price anymore which is very unfortunate. The weird thing is that a lot of their other items are priced around the same as equivalents from other brands.
Even in Japan, Freewheelers is extremely expensive. I own many items from them, but do not own a leather jacket due to how expensive they have become.
They didn't used to be this bad, however. Only about 3 or 4 years ago, their jackets were around $1,000 cheaper in Japan than they are now. I think they became popular enough that they started really raising the prices. Even I don't think they're worth the price anymore which is very unfortunate. The weird thing is that a lot of their other items are priced around the same as equivalents from other brands.
Edward
Bartender
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Mn, not something that would be my bag now, though I do recall spending several years pairing dress military jackets with bondage trousers and other bits of militaria while certainly being in possession of certain views which would not be welcomed in the military, so I suppose that came close.
It's a sort of celebration of kitsch, after a fashion, I guess, but more conscious than that. Wearing a t-shirt for a rubbish eighties heavy metal band, or listening to them, because you think it's rubbish and that makes it funny..... I guess like enjoying a tv show ironically or whatever. Like fancy dress as a lifestyle, almost. Parts of the hipster thing are about an ironic mockery of by indulging in certain forms of consumer capitalism, though it becomes so materialist in itself before long that it turns into what it seeks to lampoon. I doubt any of the current crowd would necessarily acknowledge it, but U2 did it very well with the Popmart stuff back in the 90s. It can also take the form of being a tourist in other people's lives: the Cretan girl in Pulp's Common People would fit right in there. The Charlie Brooker sitcom Nathan Barley skewered that form of hipsterism* very neatly, albeit about ten years before anyone outside of certain corners of London would have twigged to it.
I don't much get it myself, but then hey.... they're not hurting anyone, so.... Aside from providing, in part, another market for stuff we like which helps keep it available, they do tend to be early adopters as the acceptable face of gentrification. A lot of people thnk theyr'e against gentrification, but in reality they're just nostalgic for the early days of gentrification when intersting thngs arrvied in an area and it stopped being stabby.
*It seems there are many forms to it and the aesthetic is often evolving too. Here in the UK, they've mostly been into the eighties kitcsch for a long time.
Thank you Edward for your considered reply. At the start of this thread I drew attention to Son Of Stag selling Freewheelers navy watch caps for £150, and S4rmark replied that it was the hipsters who would buy them. This all leaves me very confused...........people can wear whatever, but its how they feel or think about those garments that defines them as hipsters, not the clothes themselves....am I right?
As far as I can tell, when someone chucks out the H word to describe other people, they are talking about upwardly mobile people who like much of the following:
craft beer
coffee
tattoos
bicycles
vinyl & cassettes
film cameras
typewriters
skinny jeans
not wearing socks
and generally those folks who are fashion conscious
I'm sure there's more, but I'm pretty sure I would fall into the H bracket......I've drank Turmeric Latte in Fiitzroy and PBR in Brooklyn.....I ride a bicycle and wear selvedge denim, own vinyl and often frequent charity shops and flea markets in search of vintage items.....my name is Breezer and I think I might be a hipster!
As far as I can tell, when someone chucks out the H word to describe other people, they are talking about upwardly mobile people who like much of the following:
craft beer
coffee
tattoos
bicycles
vinyl & cassettes
film cameras
typewriters
skinny jeans
not wearing socks
and generally those folks who are fashion conscious
I'm sure there's more, but I'm pretty sure I would fall into the H bracket......I've drank Turmeric Latte in Fiitzroy and PBR in Brooklyn.....I ride a bicycle and wear selvedge denim, own vinyl and often frequent charity shops and flea markets in search of vintage items.....my name is Breezer and I think I might be a hipster!
One thing I don’t understand is the opposing arguments used for leather jackets and other clothing by many members here.
That is the: “I must have a top tier, highest quality jacket” vs “I buy cheap jeans etc and $2 watch caps because they are just as good or because buying expensive clothes are crazy”.
My brain cannot compute this thinking! Speaking personally, I obsess over everything and regard all my clothing as important as my jacket. Perhaps this is because I am not a “jacket enthusiast” specifically...?
While I wouldn’t spend £150 on a watch cap from son of a stag, it is simply because of that shop’s crazy mark up - I did spend ¥8000 on a real McCoy’s one and have worn it for years without regret.
That is the: “I must have a top tier, highest quality jacket” vs “I buy cheap jeans etc and $2 watch caps because they are just as good or because buying expensive clothes are crazy”.
My brain cannot compute this thinking! Speaking personally, I obsess over everything and regard all my clothing as important as my jacket. Perhaps this is because I am not a “jacket enthusiast” specifically...?
While I wouldn’t spend £150 on a watch cap from son of a stag, it is simply because of that shop’s crazy mark up - I did spend ¥8000 on a real McCoy’s one and have worn it for years without regret.
