Why!!!! Hipsters!!! Why!!!!!

[jamespowers]

New York City's first "vintage clothing" store officially opened in the early 1970s. The store's owner didn't use the term "vintage": she called her merchandise "experienced clothing".

Experienced is a word I would expect to be used in a house of ill repute not for clothing. :rofl:

 

[ButteMT61]

Many of us here couldn't care a rat's hiney about the label "vintage," and some of us actively dislike and repudiate it. It's a word that screams screams of cheesy marketing, smarmy irony, and trend-pushing -- much like the word "hipster" itself -- rather than any sincere appreciation for the Era. Death to "vintage."

You mean you don't like furniture that has been sanded and hit with a chain to look vintage? lol

 

[ButteMT61]

The pot is black, the kettle is black, meh...

 

[jamespowers]

The pot is black, the kettle is black, meh...

Is the pot being smoked to make it black?

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had them here long before 1970. We officially called them "second hand clothing stores" and unofficially called them "moth marts."

 

[LizzieMaine]

You mean you don't like furniture that has been sanded and hit with a chain to look vintage? lol

I'd rather sand the sellers and hit them with a chain.

 

[Paul Roerich]

We had them here long before 1970. We officially called them "second hand clothing stores" and unofficially called them "moth marts."

The difference between secondhand clothing stores and that first "experienced clothing" shop is that its owner carefully chose which items would go into it. Secondhand clothing stores tend to be less particular, because their customer base is usually broader.

 

[John in Covina]

Specialization to address the market niche.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The difference between secondhand clothing stores and that first "experienced clothing" shop is that its owner carefully chose which items would go into it. Secondhand clothing stores tend to be less particular, because their customer base is usually broader.

I always found the real difference to be about $30 on the price tag. I'd just as soon not bother with a "curated shopping experience" myself. Throw everything in a random jumble and let me find what I want myself. "Upscale," like retail, is for suckers.

Years ago here in town we had a place called "Milt's," run by this gnarled old gnome-looking guy named Sam. (Milt was his brother, who died in the war.) You never knew what you'd find when you went in there, from a pair of good shoes to a spare distributor cap for a forklift, but it was always worth looking, and it was always cheap. Sam followed Milt into oblivion many years ago, however, and there's been a dozen different overpriced "upscale" places in there since then. The current tenant is a "Women's Consignment Shop" with a twee name, which I've never bothered to go in because I can see from the sidewalk that it's nothing that interests me, at prices that really don't interest me. But every time I walk by it I think of all the great stuff I found at Milt's, when there was no such thing as "vintage."

 

[Paul Roerich]

I always found the real difference to be about $30 on the price tag. I'd just as soon not bother with a "curated shopping experience" myself. Throw everything in a random jumble and let me find what I want myself. "Upscale," like retail, is for suckers.

I see your point, but there is something to be said for time conservation. If a customer were looking for a specific "experienced" item and didn't have much time to hunt for it, then a "curated" (as in judiciously-stocked and well-organized) store would serve her better than a jumble shop could. She'd be paying the store's owner and assistants a higher price for having done the time-consuming 'dusty work' for her: the rummaging, sorting, cleaning, mending, pressing, measuring, and more.

 

[Paul Roerich]

We used to have places like "Milt's" in NYC, but they were the Hades version: often dirty, moldy, vermin-infested and chaotic, with clothes in jumbled heaps sprinkled with rat droppings, and with unfriendly owners who made the searches even more difficult.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Sounds like many of the current vintage clothing shops, and market stalls, in London!

The problem stores are those that are stocked with very carefully curated vintage gear, lovingly collected over years, but collected by a hoarder and left in piles to be eaten away by carpet beetles. Heartbreaking to go into one of those places … No 70s crud to distract the beetles, just piles and piles of 30s and 40s and earlier stuff. (Read: Midwest)

 

[Paul Roerich]

The problem stores are those that are stocked with very carefully curated vintage gear, lovingly collected over years, but collected by a hoarder and left in piles to be eaten away by carpet beetles. Heartbreaking to go into one of those places … No 70s crud to distract the beetles, just piles and piles of 30s and 40s and earlier stuff. (Read: Midwest)

Which brings up another point: vintage/experienced clothing stores, unlike many jumble shops, have the added expense of keeping out moths, carpet beetles, silverfish, mice, and more. The expense is passed onto the consumer, but I think that's fair.

 

[Rudie]

There's a fabric shop in Berlin called Fichu. The owner inherited his goods from his parents who were wholesale cloth merchants from the 1920s to the late 1960s. Twice a year he unrolls each bale to make sure there are no vermin or mildew. Suitings start at €150.00/meter.

 

[ButteMT61]

There goes the hipsters thread...now it's vintage, er, curated hipsters

 

[Paul Roerich]

Hipster threads. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

 

[herringbonekid]

It's the mass gentrification of working class neighborhoods that I despise.

there must be a US-UK difference in the definition of 'hipster'.

there are lots of young trendy types in the UK who wear lavender Wayfarers, tight jeans, beards and baseball caps but they usually don't have much money and shop at TopMan. the 'gentrification' of once rundown areas that began in the 80s was caused by middle class and nouveau riche types buying up housing while it was still affordable, and opening psuedo-artisan shops selling linen and candles. middle class: yes. hip: no.

also, most UK 'hipsters' who are into things like beards, full arm tattoos, tight jeans and piercings are into that style, no irony. if they were being ironic they would have moved on to the next ironic thing by now, but most UK 'hipster' style has been the same for about six years.

 

[ButteMT61]

What is the lifespan of the hipster, not literally, but socially?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

As yesterday was the 11th anniversary of 9-11, this picture, taken on the day of the tragedy, to me really sums up the whole hipster mentality. Even though two of the subjects of the picture have recently claimed that the whole thing was taken out of context, the body language speaks volumes. The photographer himself thought the picture so highly inappropriate that he didn't publish it until a few years later. Note the relaxed, nonchalant attitude of the "sunbathing" woman and you can well imagine the guy in the orange shirt thinking just how "kewl" the whole thing looks. It makes my blood pressure go up seeing these smug bastards (pardon my language) looking for all the world like they're at one of their rooftop parties while just across the river an unimaginable scene of death and destruction unfolds.

 

[HoundstoothLuke]

As yesterday was the 11th anniversary of 9-11, this picture, taken on the day of the tragedy, to me really sums up the whole hipster mentality. Even though two of the subjects of the picture have recently claimed that the whole thing was taken out of context, the body language speaks volumes. The photographer himself thought the picture so highly inappropriate that he didn't publish it until a few years later. Note the relaxed, nonchalant attitude of the "sunbathing" woman and you can well imagine the guy in the orange shirt thinking just how "kewl" the whole thing looks. It makes my blood pressure go up seeing these smug bastards (pardon my language) looking for all the world like they're at one of their rooftop parties while just across the river an unimaginable scene of death and destruction unfolds.

Or they're discussing the events unfolding behind them and what the future would hold then. The woman in the middle doesn't to me look like she's relaxed and with a nonchalant attitude, but turning to listen to the man in the dark t-shirt. Same for the man in the orange t-shirt. It doesn't seem he's thinking it's "kewl", but rather listening to the others and watching the towers.

But then, it's just a picture and freeze frame of a split second. Who knows what they were doing just before or just after.