The best thing I've read in weeks.

Like the rest of you Im looking forward to 2007, looking forward to change, looking forward to success. I read something this afternoon on my favorite blog site( honyee), yes yes people I am also addicted to this blog craze, but this one is my favorite. Part of the change Im looking forward to is a change in myself, having a over all better attitude on things( not like my attitude is bad now, but always room for self improvement) but just worrying more about myself and not what others do. Yes I said it, I am also guilty of putting too much thought into others, especially into my industry, the fashion one. Now this update won't be for some, but the ones its for, and I know all of you, please read the following. It comes from Paul Mittleman who happens to be the Creative Director of a brand some of you might know called Stussy . He hits it right on the head with what he last wrote. So play close attention.



"2006 was the year of the "“Cool Guy" I am not sure who the "“Cool Guy" is? It is the guy who stands in line waiting to buy something cool? I thought people that stood in line were generally not cool, like is it cool to wait in line to go into a club? Were the people who stood inline for a PS3 cool? I saw a few street wear lines over the past two weeks, the people in them seemed fairly board and distant. I guess if you stood in a line all night it is a fair way too feel. After I see a line I like to look on Ebay the next day and see if the cool guys were cool, or just businessmen? After a year of watching lines I think they are both. Well maybe more on the business side, I am reserving my verdict if they are cool. Or not? Maybe, it is a new social situation, the line that is.

So where are the “Cool Guys” going next year?

Is this what happens when the underground goes mainstream? I think we have a street wear "Tipping Point" on our hands. Street clothing has socially evolved into a style norm for people around the world. Though the use of the conduits of the web, music, magazines and the other various routes of information exchange the memes of the street have modified once again but into what could be an Apocalypse. Is this a foreseen end or just a limit declaring a new beginning? Could this be repositioning of our collective creative consciousness. It is an end of Time, but end of whose time? My intuition tells me that not all times move at the same pace, could current trends wane at a different rates than new movements excel and grow?

I moved to Los Angeles about six years ago, shortly there after everyone in LA looked like the cast from Jackass. Allover people resembled Johnny Knoxville, Trucker caps, cowboy shirts, vintage rock tees were everywhere; I was from NYC and like saying what the fuck???? No one dresses like this back home. I remember DJ AM use to run vintage concert tees, now he seems to like Neighborhood on other refined gear. And let us not forget Pharrell and his truckers... I have no problem with either of them, or what they wear or have worn, they are just being used here as significant movement markers representing how memes work in a social structure. Style does change, what were once cool floats down stream ever so fast. Only waiting for new ice to melt away from the mountaintop. New ice will hopefully bring fresh water, and if this global warming thing is true we should have lots of melted ice in the near future.

Fast-forward 2007.

Poof, now you cannot leave your house with out seeing an all over print zip hoody from hell. Even sometimes if you have a privileged moment you can spot the very so rare and elusive double zip hoody wearer (that is when you spot someone wearing two hoodies at once). I cannot lie; A Bathing Ape has made lots of great hoodies. I would venture to say they have created this category. Or have they created a potential void in which street wear might never recover from? What happens when kids do not want hoodies? Tee shirts can change; graphics and ideas move all the time. Caps can move from truckers to New Era and on. But when brands are built on a single garment category look out when it stops. This lack of diversity can kill a small company or even a culture. Our culture. We might not all like each other, but we are all in this together. When and if a people donÂ’t buy our gear small companies will close. Then shops will close. Then where will we shop? The Mall? Will we all have to get real jobs? No fuckin way, the mall is now full of more printed hoodies, and trust me they look worse than the ones on the street and if I wanted a real job I would of went to college, oh ya I did go to college, but I never wanted a real job.

Sitting here I am fully aware of my age, my distant temporal gap from the youth and that I am about to design Spring 2008. Will I design all over print hoodies again? Maybe? I have just started thinking about it so I am not sure. What I do ask myself is what will all the younger brands design? More hoodies? Than I ask is this because they like them? Because they sell? Or because they are relatively easy to make and are really just an extension of the graphic language of a tee shirt graphic and a new vehicle to sell a brand identity? Maybe street wear in this age is not really about clothing design, but about the social recognizing of your clan. It like most fashion is in the end is just plumage.

Lets put this all into cash and keep it simple, I will round off the numbers to make it flow. If you sell 100 hoodies for $100 each that'’s 10g's, not bad, kinda like crack. 100 tees at $35 you make $3500, ok but not killin it. So have zip hoodies become, hmmmm, lets say a good source of revenue? Now, if they fall out of fashion and I am sure they will, all of our rap music friends will be fine. They can make $$$$ selling records. Now even toy companies have clothing lines????? Come on, vinyl figures have fallen off so did some one say: "“hey I have an idea we will make Printed Hoodies and caps too match". Good idea. Maybe the NY Times can write the same article they wrote last year twice about the rage of the printed hoodie. Hoodies are fine, I design them, I sell them and I wear them (well I wear black solid ones). One the bright side, hoodies replaced track jackets and that is a good thing. I do not really like track jackets and an all over printed track jacket could be way more disturbing than any printed hoody.

I seem to rant and I have been called caustic. However, this is written for all the small companies and people who want to design. It is up to you to change the game and keep it moving. We are in murky waters. The future of this culture is up to you. We look forward to what you do next year and in the years to come. A mixture of creativity, commerce and good luck can take us to a new place. Things change when people want change. It is up to the consumer, the man on the street to move it along. All us companies await your cues. Your desire to explore new areas or stand still will frame this next chapter. Time might look forward and back all at once, but youth will move on always being influenced by the past and the present. It is not normal for youth to be of the moment.

In 2012 Mayan calendar ends, it is their Apocalypse. The Mayans read this as not an end, but a new beginning. An end to the world that was once what it had been. Here by allowing a bridge to a new unknown epoch. Perhaps 2006 was the end of street wear, as we knew it. Could 2007 be a new start, a fresh beginning? In this new time will we seek modification, variation, mutation and diffusion of our social creative evolution? Who will advance to the next plateau? How will creativity and commerce survive this rapidly developing technological milieu? What will inspire us in the year(s) to come? I guess we will find out tomorrow. Or some time soon after that.

Thank you 2006.

A happy and healthy New Year to all.

PS
I do not think only the youth can change this future, I think that new ideas can come out of anyone at anytime.
The trick is just to know where to look, how to listen and when to move." Paul Mittleman