Freaky Friday
February 19, 2014 11:32 AM   Subscribe

 
Great spoiler. So true! This is really fun.
posted by cccorlew at 11:37 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


The only thing wrong with this is that there aren't more of them.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:38 AM on February 19, 2014 [59 favorites]


Yes, I want more! Everyone looks great.
posted by rtha at 11:38 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


I'm 21 and I dress like a 70 year old man. I can't wait until I'm 70 so I can dress like a 20 year old!
posted by Conspire at 11:39 AM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


This is genius. More would be wonderful. It would be especially interesting to see this with more international subjects ( across the world - hope that makes sense).
posted by Faintdreams at 11:39 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm 21 and I dress like a 70 year old man. I can't wait until I'm 70 so I can dress like a 20 year old!

Yeah, I think my family might have done this naturally around the time my grandfather started only wearing sweatpants and I bought a bunch of cardigans.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:42 AM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


It would be especially interesting to see this with more international subjects...

Funny you should say that because after his makeover, Hallway Grandpa (in the tanktop and black pants) looks straight-up like any one of the old Dominican dudes I see around Brooklyn.
posted by griphus at 11:43 AM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


Some people have really adorable grandparents.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 11:47 AM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


If you are a grandpa:

1)Look at your grandson's clothes.

2)borrow/steal/buy them.

3)Look Dope/Profit.
posted by The Power Nap at 11:47 AM on February 19, 2014 [21 favorites]


When my very proper and staid grandfather passed away, I was in my 20s. I got first dibs on his ties and suits. Awesome! I still wear a few of the ties and would the suits if I hadn't gained **ahem** a couple of pounds. I am a year or two away from letting my sons wear the suits. Not sure if they are cool enough yet.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:51 AM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


Fantastic. Sometimes the switch looks better than the original.
posted by Mchelly at 11:53 AM on February 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


I was kind of... meh at first (photographers, eschew the goofy navigation), but this pairing won me over!
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:57 AM on February 19, 2014 [14 favorites]


I love Hallway Grandpa in the madras shirt and straw hat. I think that kid totally forfeited his claim on that outfit (and by his expression, I think he knows it).
posted by maudlin at 12:02 PM on February 19, 2014 [16 favorites]


Heh, one of my most-commented on outfits is something I ninja'd from my mum. I love the couple at the beach!
posted by divabat at 12:06 PM on February 19, 2014


I was kind of... meh at first (photographers, eschew the goofy navigation), but this pairing won me over!

Well, the fact that he found Singaporean David Bowie certainly helped.
posted by phunniemee at 12:08 PM on February 19, 2014 [25 favorites]


I'm totally getting a "you kids and your music today" vibe from that guy but instead of "turn it down and get off my lawn" it's "that's it, I'm starting my own fucking band."
posted by griphus at 12:09 PM on February 19, 2014 [15 favorites]


Yeah, that was a nice fun break between clients for me... thanks... smiles all around!
posted by HuronBob at 12:10 PM on February 19, 2014


Almost everybody looks better after the swap. There may be a lesson here.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 12:17 PM on February 19, 2014 [7 favorites]


That was awesome. Gave me a big smile today.
posted by arcticwoman at 12:19 PM on February 19, 2014


Not to pee in your cornflakes, but I am relatively certain the photographer only posted the ones that came out charming.
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:26 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


JohnnyGunn-- the sons, or the suits?
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:27 PM on February 19, 2014


I was kind of... meh at first (photographers, eschew the goofy navigation), but this pairing won me over!

Proof, as if it was needed, that everyone looks cool in a leather jacket.
posted by tommasz at 12:28 PM on February 19, 2014


Proof, as if it was needed, that everyone looks cool in a leather jacket.

If you want to keep believing that, you should definitely never Google Buzz Bissinger.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 12:34 PM on February 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


Not to pee in your cornflakes, but I am relatively certain the photographer only posted the ones that came out charming.

As much as I'd like to see my grandma in galaxy print leggings and a denim mini skirt (which is what I'm wearing today because I reject adulthood), I don't think there's any amount of navy blue elastic waist polyester pant and seashell applique t-shirt that will make me look charming.
posted by phunniemee at 12:34 PM on February 19, 2014 [8 favorites]


Those are great!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:37 PM on February 19, 2014


I want to be friends with all of them!
posted by galvanized unicorn at 12:39 PM on February 19, 2014


I wish my grandpa had been taller -- I could have inherited more of his clothes!

Also, I have yet to see a photographer's website that is easy to navigate.
posted by cubby at 12:45 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Very cute. But, man, everybody in that series was a pretty sharp dresser. That helped.
posted by mondo dentro at 12:47 PM on February 19, 2014 [3 favorites]


Off to pull my waistband up to my nipples.
posted by arcticseal at 12:52 PM on February 19, 2014 [5 favorites]




They're purposefully imitating the other person's before-pic posture, right?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 12:58 PM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I was kind of... meh at first (photographers, eschew the goofy navigation), but this pairing won me over!

Unless this one is just ordered differently than the others, I think the "after" pic looks more natural. Possibly because I never see anyone under 55 wearing leather, and I have a bearded friend who wears hippie skirts.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:04 PM on February 19, 2014


I wear my grandkid's clothes
I look incredible
posted by Parasite Unseen at 1:06 PM on February 19, 2014 [36 favorites]


Wait, that jacket isn't even leather. Never mind.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:10 PM on February 19, 2014


Almost everybody looks better after the swap. There may be a lesson here.

A lot of the younger folks in this wear clothing that's somewhat too twee for their age; swapping it with oma or opa lends the clothes some dignity, while their clothes do the same to the folk they're swapping with.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:16 PM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I think the lesson here is that rock 'n roll clothes look best on men who are thin and wrinkly and worn-looking, so you can wait until you're old to wear 'em or take the shortcut (aka drug abuse.)
posted by davejay at 1:20 PM on February 19, 2014 [4 favorites]


I had a horrifying vision of having to do this with my mother in her purple velour tracksuit with rhinestones and fanny pack phase and I had to lie down with a cold towel across my forehead.

Not that I have the remotest speck of personal style, but oh dear.
posted by sonascope at 2:18 PM on February 19, 2014 [12 favorites]


As many have noted, the thing that struck me most was how good the older people looked in younger clothes. A good lesson. As a not-quite-sixty-year-old, I need to keep this mind.
posted by vac2003 at 2:20 PM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


Lovely. Beautiful. But ... I don't think those are the actual pants at http://www.qozop.com/xt10nk30js8ta2x28wgg7vfr4xufcs -- same style, but larger no?
posted by anothermug at 3:16 PM on February 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


> The only thing wrong with this is that there aren't more of them.

Take a look at Art Opening (photos of doors).
posted by nangar at 3:16 PM on February 19, 2014


I had a horrifying vision of having to do this with my mother in her purple velour tracksuit with rhinestones and fanny pack phase and I had to lie down with a cold towel across my forehead.

I, on the other hand, would pay several dollars to see that.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:08 PM on February 19, 2014 [6 favorites]


My grandmother died last May, just before her seventy-ninth birthday. She was a tall woman, but somehow begat mostly petite (female) descendants. My aunt and I are both nearly as tall as she was, but my aunt lives in Florida, so I ended up with my grandma's coats.

I got a calf length three button charcoal gray cashmere blend Lord and Taylor coat, vintage unknown, a '90s era bright red Calvin Klein wool peacoat with tortoiseshell buttons, and a lightweight, belted, wonderfully rustle-y black London Fog trench that I strongly suspect is from their 1980 collection.

In the past several months of wearing these coats, I have gotten more comments on them than I ever have about any of my clothing to date, and I dress in a fairly distinct manner and my personal style has often been a subject of conversation.

I bought her some skirts a few years ago. They were hippie layered tissue weight things that all the kids were wearing, and she remarked kindly on mine, so I bought her a couple. She reported back that she got complimented like crazy whenever she wore them.

tl;dr: Trade clothes with your grandparents. It might just work.
posted by Athene at 7:02 PM on February 19, 2014 [10 favorites]


*googles Buzzy Bissinger*

Damn you, Joey Buttafoucault, I was walking around thinking Bissinger was cool!

Somewhere before I hit Singaporean David Bowie (SINGAPOREAN DAVID BOWIE GUYS I cannot get over him) it occurred to me that even the young people were wearing pretty eccentric clothes. So I came away with this message from the project: How do we really know what's cool or stylish? Is it who's wearing it, or what it actually is? Will it look different tomorrow as people carry their style into old age with them? Great way to make this point about fashion.
posted by gusandrews at 7:17 PM on February 19, 2014


Trade clothes with your grandparents. It might just work.

Yes, but having your grandparents buy you clothes strangely does not.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 7:56 PM on February 19, 2014 [5 favorites]


Because they're buying it for their mental image of 'kids these days', not themselves.
posted by divabat at 8:19 PM on February 19, 2014


My mother, alas, is a fashion Stalinist, in that her response to our mocking reminders about her purple velour tracksuit with rhinestones and fanny pack phase, or her giant Bea Arthur Golden Girls floppy ankle length cardigan sweater with shoulder pads phase, or even her frameless glasses with lenses the size of saucers in the shapes of cut gemstones phase is to loudly deny that such things ever happened in an increasingly angry tone. All of the atrocities disappear in the dead of night to the Siberia of unfashion, and the photographs are all disclaimed. She's arrived at a fashion cul de sac from which she intends never to depart, and it's both dull and devoid of the right length of skirt, which she claims no longer exists.

I might have inherited my father's clothes, except that all his casual clothes were like lace because he didn't believe in the concept of ashtrays, and embers from his Parliaments had to find their own way. His short sleeve button-down daywear shirts were spangled with a planetarium scene of burn holes, but you rarely saw skin because statistics meant shirt holes and undershirt holes were normally asynchronous. In business life, he was natty, and had a closet full of tailored Brooks Brothers three-piece suits which I was offered after his death.

My father, it seems, was awfully short, and he preferred highwaters, so when sitting with his legs crossed (knee-to-knee, mostly, like civilized businessmen), you saw skin above his sock.

On me, well—I could have become a Fatty Arbuckle impersonator, or possibly a pseudo-Alexei Sayle, but even with better-fitting trousers, I dunno.

My grandfathers were both dead long before I was born, and skinny as rails, so, alas.

I could have traded styles with my grandmothers, though, if not their tiny, tiny clothes. My Georgia grandmother wore a regular uniform of polyester pantsuits from Belk in lurid post-sixties colors that highlighted the extreme makeup choices that led her best and closest friends to tell ten-year-old me that my grandmother was the salt of the earth, but it was a shame that she painted herself up like a Jezebel hoah. She pulled the built-in waistbands tight enough to keep her breasts from flowing through, picked out shoes to match, and it was a look, but I don't think I could pull it off.

I could, in some version of my world, adopt my other grandmother's aesthetic, because it was pure 1961 madness. She wore catseyes, her hair up in some variety of hive, and wore outfits that would have seemed perfectly appropriate on the QE2 before it was retrofitted to destroy its astounding space age formica and button-tufted vinyl interiors. She would go out in jackets of lurid upholstery brocades that she made herself, dancing at the Fontaine Rouge up the street in gold lamé slingback mules, and got a wild hair to redo every upholstered surface in her paneled basement lounge in bristly nylon leopard fur, right down to her teddy bear, which she dressed in a leopard suit with a matching leopard hat that made him look an awful lot like Idi Amin.

She wore glittering tissue lamé scarves whilst bowling in Baltimore basement duckpin alleys up on Belair Road, arrived in church like Jayne Mansfield (but with her head), and otherwise was full-tilt full-time in what I now recognize as a precursor to Baltimore drag queen style, with clip-on earrings heavy enough to require C-clamps, almost.

The only thing is, the pictures tell on her, and when you look back to the few, sparse photographs of her life at ten, living in a shack on Colgate Creek, long since buried by the shipyard, when she'd already been working in an ice cream box factory for two years to help support the family, how bleak they look—

The photos look an awful lot like that from 1910 to the late fifties, like a sturdy, plain-looking woman in mostly homemade outfits who'd worked her whole life for family and scrimped and saved and struggled and, when her children were grown and she had some time to just be, to be a person, in the world, living a life—her husband came down with cancer and swiftly died. It makes perfect sense, in retrospect, that she'd just find a way, and in the sixties, she put her hair up, bought bolts of the most glamorous polyester fabrics Blank's had for sale, and bloomed like a strange, exuberant orchid.

I think I may not become a drag queen any time soon, but I like to think that, after a lifetime of living a schlubby, bland, and mostly styleless existence of jeans and t-shirts and khakis and office-approved polo pullovers, that one fine day, just like my grandmother, I'll just say "well, fuck it," and dress like every day is cocktail hour at a hotel designed by Morris Lapidus.

"Joe-B," she told me, pointing out a staircase in one of her snapshots from the trips she took when she started to travel, "You see that beautiful staircase there?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I saw that and wanted to walk down it like Loretta Young, and you know what's up there?"

"What?"

"Nothing at all! It don't go to nothin' at all! But I dang sure looked like Loretta Young comin' down that staircase to nothin'!"
posted by sonascope at 5:50 AM on February 20, 2014 [28 favorites]


Half the time, I just come here for the sonascope comments.
posted by xedrik at 7:39 PM on February 20, 2014 [3 favorites]


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