Nemises

Hipsters are lame.  Not only do they take everything cool, they make us civilians feel dumb for having liked whatever it was they stole in the first place.  Example A: PBR. Was just a good ol' cheap beer 'til hipsters started drinking it. Then I didn't want it anymore.  Example B: Tecate. The current cheap beer of choice, so amazing especially when you can get it in a can at a bar for $2.  This however brings up the paradox of hipsterdom.  Once hipsters adopt something it is in high demand and becomes readily available everywhere so as to make hipsters shun it for becoming to popular all thanks to them. 

Other examples include, plaid, the color purple, Ray Bans and Clarks, all of which I have loved for a very long time but now feel I

 can no longer love because of their prevalence in the hipster community.  Which also means I have nothing to wear.  

This brings us to my secondary nemesis of long standing (The second of 2 nemises if you will).  All of the things I have listed above are available at the dreaded UO—except the beer of course (though I'm sure their creative team is developing a way to market that as we speak).

My relationship with UO goes something like this:

I find something cool that I love and want to buy like these amazing dunks (left) that seem to be available only at the Nike Sportswear boutique.  I make plans to buy them.  Then they appear on the UO website.  I can no longer buy them. 

Sometimes, however, I am not so lucky.  Some

times I scour the Haight for some amazing wrestling boots which were all the rage in Europe at the time but were too cool for the US by far .  I find some bad Asics (below).

I buy them.  2 months later guess who stocks them in stores? I can no longer wear them for at least 3 years (speaking of which, time's almost up! Hooray, time to bust those puppies out again).  Side-note: Have you seen the Onitsuka Tiger Snow Heaven 72? Hilarious.

Another of my fave items: minnetonka mocs are also demoted to recluse-wear (in house) because I stupidly bought the ultra-cheap-most-common-version(brown) from a DSW-like store in Sacramento instead of buying the one's I really wanted(white).

Sometimes the item in question does not even exist yet, but is solely in my head.  I don't take credit for high waisted jeans coming back but I sho' know I wanted 'em before they were available to buy...

Best case scenario: I buy the item on sale from the dreaded store.  This has not happened to date but I keep checking just in case.

Item of note these days: a wrap cardigan with a navajo rug pattern on it.  Unmentionable store had one that was nice but it was on sale for $59.99 which seems like a pretty non-sale price to me. 

I also hate buying things from that store because the quality is so inconsistent.  One pair of amazing jeans from there, another from the same label, same size, completely huge and mom-butting.

The thing I hate the most though, about hipsters and UO alike is that competitive feeling I get when I see something I wanted or someone wearing things I think of as part of my individual style. I feel the need to point out that I saw the trend first, or was wearing it in 1983 (before I was born, by the way) or whatever little detail I can think of that will prove that I am different from the masses. 

  Which is why I love this article in the Times: The Fashion Report of 1920.

Redwings and a Filson jacket

are definately what I need to be rocking.  But I'm sure my nemesis will come out with them next week...