ISSUE 3: Words On Clothes + Gen Z Nihilism in Fashion
Do you really like Metallica or did UO have a sale?
Like every self-respecting thirty-something-year-old woman, I am super down with the ‘band-t-shirt-under-a-blazer’ look. And why not - it strikes the perfect balance of sophistication and grit, saying ‘I am a grown-up, but a cool one’.
That said, this look can be problematic to someone like me. Someone who hates a hypocrite; someone who can’t stand a bandwagoner; a culture snob who covets my little culture things. Read: a late-stage hipster.
I’m not sure exactly what happened, but at some point in the last ten years, a handful of high-profile bands have made an absolute bloodbath of a killing on licensing deals. Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Slayer, Sublime, Blondie, The Ramones, and Def Leppard to name a few. Bands who once represented a critique of mainstream capitalist culture are now lining the coffers of Urban Outfitters, HM, Walmart, and that cheap kiosk near the food court of every mall on the planet.
Of course I can understand the chain of events here: bands get a bit older, maybe they don’t want to tour anymore, maybe they’re all dead and their families/estates see a way to keep cashing in on their late relatives’ corporal gifts. Fair. Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same.
(Note: The only band on the above list who doesn’t fit these categories is the inimitable Rolling Stones, who in their 70s and 80s are still bringing hoards of screaming fans to their knees. They must just be greedy.)
But from the consumers perspective? My god, the youth are eating this shit up. And why not, right?! They look cool, right?! *quiet crying*
The thought of wearing a shirt from a band I don’t actually listen to makes my skin crawl. I said it. Aesthetics be damned, there is a thorn of sincerity lodged in my brain and I can’t Pinterest board my way around it. I have tried.
But what’s actually happening here is more concerning to me than the deceptive nature of false fandom. It’s the distance I see growing between our associations, the chaos emerging from fashion’s unrelenting ability to make pointlessness look hot. Am I wrong to think that generations ago people meant what they wore? Maybe.
Don’t get me wrong, I love fashion for fashions’ sake. I have no issue with vapidity. Take the MET Gala: here’s a night where A-listers and influencers (or who Tina Fey labels ‘the jerk parade’) walk the red carpet in looks meant to shock and destroy, always dressing to a theme and it’s clear some choices are being made out of pure hedonism.
But it’s somewhere between Jarod Leto dressing up like Karl Lagerfeld’s cat Coupette and a high school junior sporting a Nirvana shirt that I get up on my high horse and scream ‘NAY’. Is it because I’m assuming Leto met Coupette and this costume was less of a stunt and more of a tribute to a diseased friend? Sweet…but doubtful.
It’s the blind endorsement that irks me, sure. Those bands haven’t earned using your body like a billboard. But because many of those bands are no longer promoting music, that point is basically null.
Perhaps its knowing that at some point those band names and the music behind them meant everything to someone. The iconography of one generation being reduced to a vibe for another. We want to believe that the significance of art we love is irreducible, but apparently it’s not. What means so much to one can mean nothing to someone else, and something about that - as an artist - doesn’t really sit well.
What do you think? Would you (or do you) wear shirts promoting bands or things you don’t actually care about?
I’d love your thoughts in the comments below. Sincerely.