I just returned from seeing a band that a friend of mine is in at Pop In, a drippingly hipster bar in the 11th. The show was fun, but one of my American friends put it best:
"In America, people who dress like hipsters still have their own identities."
France? Not so much. Pop In is way too much of a scene for me. It's like a bizarre underworld where everyone looks like they're aiming to resemble Garth from "Wayne's World" or Kate Moss, or in the most awkward of French hipster fashion decisions -- a little bit of both. Not to mention the fact that the place is literally packed with these hipsters. As in, you can't move two inches without getting hipstered, or at the very least caught on someone's super-long bangs. They make mine look pretty tame.
The whole time I was there, it was all I could do to keep from making snarky comments while we nursed our cheap beers and tried not to stare too much. You know. "Oh, I should have brought my yeti costume too."
It was a fun night, but the scene was so artificial, and in the end it was the sweet non-hipster company that made it that way. Maybe everyone is as preoccupied with self-presentation as the French hipsters, but I don't know. I sort of doubt it. I mean, I don't wear a costume every day, at least not a Kate Moss Wayne's World one. And there was something so creepily fake about everyone there. I'm looking forward to singing earnestly along to Britney Spears or smiling sincerely over silly things like pain au chocolat to get the hipster out of my system.
I will never be that cool.
Thank God.
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After revisiting latfh.com ('look at this fucking hipster', one of the funniest photoblogs ever) I have to say that you're right: if two hipsters with the same idea/look is rare enough to be a special feature ("look at this fucking love connection") then at least they have creativity going for them.
ReplyDeleteSadly though, the wookie costume comment highlights my biggest issue with hipsters: it will just never work as a costume, because you can't go over-the-top enough for people to KNOW it's a costume.
Yeah... It's kind of like just throwing together ugly things, the uglier the better, and then posturing so that you just seem cool enough to dress awful.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, hipster costumes don't really work. Because even if they're extremely ugly, they could just be extremely hip.
I was actually kind of surprised that hipsters even exist here, because Paris is supposed to be fashionable and ahead of US trends and I associate hipster apparel so much with Smith and Seattle. But they do, in droves. Oh well, I guess I have a soft spot for American Apparel t-shirts, so I shouldn't be too hard on them... :)