Chilli - you are so right. (don't think I've ever responded to a comment before!)In the eighties (and I'm sure the 70's and 60's too) image of youth was so important, not only as identifier to other clan members, but as a two fingered salute to parents, and authority symbols - the poacher becomes gamekeeper - We are those parents now!
I spent countless hours around the '85-'87 period just getting my enormous quiff hairsprayed just so, and I had the most perfectly shaped Captain Kirk pointed sideburns. Clothes weren't something you just put on , they were carefully selected and chosen. (I had a beautiful vintage red Hawaiian shirt covered in pineapples <remember Flip? - branches in Newcastle, Sunderland , and Middlesborough>, that looked most excellent with a black suit, and Chelsea boots and oh those Chelsea boots I got in Newcastle on my 21st birthday, so pointy, so very pointy) - Well before I explode in a cloud of nostalgic dust, I'll continue. Before the teenager was "invented" in the mid fifties, you would simply go from school uniform into a pipe and cardigan combo at 16, ie dress just like your parents. Sadly the same thing is happening today, albeit with slightly trendier (but essentially dull and conformist) parents. Dad these days probably has at least one tribal tattoo, and goes out on a friday with a £100 short sleeve shirt to show the ladies, whilst Mum has probably a lovely tattoo too (wasn't that a stones album?) but has shed the twinset for whatever trendy Mums deem er.... trendy.
My point is that outside of chav (seemingly unisex) sportswear (ugh) youth is pretty bland and undistinguished - there will always be conclaves of die hard mods, goths, punks etc (and forget Emo - goth for wussies!) We need the 21st equivalent of punk to outrage us and divide us from our kids - it's for their own good!
- Of course this is all narrated from inside a mid life crisis, by a man who still owns five pairs of Converse, and has at least one Thundercats T-shirt.
Kettles and pots of a dark hue spring to mind!
“See, what you're meant to do when you have a mid-life crisis is buy a fast car, aren't you? Well, I've always had fast cars. It's not that. It's the fear that you're past your best. It's the fear that the stuff you've done in the past is your best work.” - Robbie Coltrane
1 comment:
I used to love flip...there's a huge one in glasgow, but it doesnt seem the same somehow. Maybe all the really special vintage stuff got bought up and is lying unclaimed in the back of our wardrobes. My best purchase ever were a pair of vintage pvc ankle boots in a chequerboard pattern...bought in Montreal in 1983. I wore those until one literally fell off my foot ...and even then i kept the one that was whole for ages after.
v proud i've inspired a very excited blog ...you almost sounded animated there !!!
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