these platform glitter jelly sandals were made for walking....

November 4, 2014 2:18 PM

How the Internet Changed the World of Fashion: from seapunk and normcore to vaporwave and health goth.
posted by Juliet Banana (36 comments total)

   So perhaps, similarly to how the ’70s claimed bell bottom pants as staple pieces of that era and chokers as the ’90s, we are just not yet aware of what popular pieces we wear today will define this age, given the fact that we are currently in it.

It's been kind of fascinating to watch this happen to the 80s and 90s, fringe looks or stuff that where micro-fads get blown up and become visual shorthand for the period even if no one actually wore that stuff.

(Also my prediction that 90s Nostgalia will completely overlook hipho is still true.)
posted by The Whelk at 2:24 PM on November 4, 2014 [9 favorites]

It's been interesting to watch something like Health Goth go from a fashion industry in-joke to being something that the cooler undergrads are wearing on campus this year.
posted by codacorolla at 2:30 PM on November 4, 2014 [7 favorites]

related - if delia's would just sell the items from their 1993 catalog again they wouldn't be going under.
posted by nadawi at 2:30 PM on November 4, 2014 [12 favorites]

Plaid, chukkas, and cardigans will define some of us?
posted by oceanjesse at 2:31 PM on November 4, 2014

So - "Health Goth" - pretty much goth with tracksuits as far as I can tell? So this guy basically. I completely forgot he and his band existed for about fifteen years, until just now.
posted by cilantro at 2:36 PM on November 4, 2014

Now is an excellent time to invest in gold (lamè pants)
posted by The Whelk at 2:40 PM on November 4, 2014 [5 favorites]

I just discovered that I've been normcore for years. I was into it before it was cool!

The alternative would be accepting that hipsters have been imitating my lack of style ironically. While that would be irksome, I don't see how the joke isn't on them.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:43 PM on November 4, 2014

But when do we start wearing robes?
posted by vogon_poet at 2:43 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

WHERE ARE THE FLOWING SILK LINED ROBES WE SO RICHLY DESERVE I mean what who said that
posted by The Whelk at 2:48 PM on November 4, 2014 [6 favorites]

As internet culture (and increasingly, by extension, all culture) becomes ever more self-eating and self-canceling, hyperconscious of its own is-ness, I have no idea where we go from here. Even in 5-10 years it seems as though all spectacle will run its course, and all non-spectacle too. Is this what the cultural singularity looks like?
posted by naju at 2:49 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

Here's an interview with Mike Grabarek and Jeremy Scott of the Portland based, alternative R’n’B duo, Magic Fades, who describe their aesthetic:

When I’m searching for images and ideas, a few keywords I might use are mesh, moisture-wicking fabrics, BioWare, body enhancement tech, prosthetics, shoe dipping, various fashion and performance wear brands, transparent clothing, chains and light weaponry, tactical gear, elemental aesthetics, corporal mortification, and rendered environments.

But from that origin, it's flattened out into dark + sporty.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:50 PM on November 4, 2014 [4 favorites]

But when do we start wearing robes?

Word! I saw some high schooler walking around on Halloween in a sith/grim reaper (who knows) robe and I couldn't help thinking, damn, there's a lot of grandeur to that look and it really doesn't require much effort.

I have this feeling that capes are going to come back in a big way sometime soon, but I don't know how to tell when or how to capitalize on this premonition.

cue somebody more knowledgable letting me know that the cape thing happened two years ago and I already missed it
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:51 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

"We don't follow fashion
Who needs it when you got style..."

-the Del-Lords
posted by jonmc at 2:53 PM on November 4, 2014

health goth

Whoo, boy.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:43 PM on November 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

The internet has nearly eliminated my need for pants.
posted by hot_monster at 3:48 PM on November 4, 2014

Here for the platform glitter jelly sandals!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:58 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's an interesting article, but IMHO it celebrates way-old trends and doesn't really touch any of the newer stuff. You know, stuff like GrimaceCore, Throat Fat, Funt Shot, Cuckle Bug, Belt Tornado, Classy Ape, Hip-Hop Baby, Fundle Buddle, Bubble Bobble, Barrel With Straps, Straps (No Barrel), Was (Not Was), Flesh Prison, Michael Gira Suggestion Email, Lemon Airheads, Thimble Stop, Airtight Latex Snuggie That You Fart In Until It Inflates Into A Sphere And Then A Mischievous Tittering Dauphin Atop It Threatens To Pop It With A Pin, Too Fat Power Ranger, One Single Pair Of Pants Shared By An Entire Generation, A Poet Cooing Words Around You Which Become A Gown Of The Finest Gossamer, Shitty Gossamer For Idiots, Garbage Fuck Stench Trap, Burlap Sheets With A Hole For Food But No Eye-Holes, Grubble Buddle, Brindle Stubble, Samsonite Suitcase, The Mixed Up Files Of Basil E. Frankweiler, and Teak.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:13 PM on November 4, 2014 [39 favorites]

Oh please, we're all so sick to death of you trying to make Teak happen.
posted by codacorolla at 4:16 PM on November 4, 2014 [20 favorites]

I'm scrolling though http://www.plaaastic.com/ based on the name-drop in the article and whoaaaaaaaaaaa.

Trigger warning: ED.
posted by Juliet Banana at 4:23 PM on November 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

ED?

Also, wasn't that the comically oversized visor of the Clipper dude's mistress?
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:28 PM on November 4, 2014

Humans wearing humans. The next frontier.

This guy is way ahead of the curve.
posted by mannequito at 4:30 PM on November 4, 2014

ED?

Eating disorder
posted by naju at 4:31 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here ya go MissPinkKate! (But I like these better!)
posted by IndigoRain at 4:31 PM on November 4, 2014

Is sticherbeast the account for Weekend Update's Stefon?
posted by lumpenprole at 4:39 PM on November 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

This whole "Health Goth" minute has been a weird one for me and a lot of my friends based in Berlin. It's uncannily similar to a certain sports-fetish-meets-minimal-techno fashion that a subset of the regulars at Berghain have been sporting for years. Just add gay sex, beards, tattoos and lots of piercings, and "health goth" would look like an average Sunday afternoon at Berghain…
posted by LMGM at 4:42 PM on November 4, 2014 [3 favorites]

But here in 2014, us millennials

I stopped reading...because, really?

The 20something's fashion of the time will just be whatever in the hell is the polar opposite to the mainstream. It is as it always will be. As the mainstream gap closes, the variety of self expression emerges.

Some get stuck in the groove. ex. Hipsters will always be around maybe. Although Their day has passed, there will always be those that refuse to change. Their groove is their bond, and like the hippies will never change.
posted by Benway at 5:41 PM on November 4, 2014

When will FutureGothMomCore's moment come? I need some new clothes.
posted by Kitty Stardust at 5:44 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm enjoying every microculture in music and fashion and film, no matter how obnoxious its practitioners are (yay steampunks! yay witch house!) but I can't wait til we start making up new words (or emoji or glyphs or whatever visual language markers we decide upon) for things and stop using prefixes and suffixes ( -punk -goth -wave -core -house) that tie things to a US/UK-centric past
posted by elr at 10:14 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cyberpunk promised me gangs of surgically enhanced JFK impersonators, chrome-gleaming glam-bikers and light-emitting leisure suits. But what do I get? Tracksuits and all of Germany looking like it's ready for a prolonged mountaineering expedition.

You lied to me, William Gibson!
posted by pseudocode at 12:39 AM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'd sort of like to see a weird amalgamation of what's going on in the Pacific Northwest in regards to working class, outdoorsman logger fashion (lots of guys with 40's style haircuts, local/US-made clothing, jackets and bags made for our autumn and winters, raw and selvedge denim, Red Wing boots, etc. (I am not sure how to describe or name this)) and some futuristic, maybe goth ninja, stuff. Molly Millions meets logger aesthetic.
posted by gucci mane at 1:03 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

All of this nevertheless feels like variations on a theme. Nostalgic wear always tends to look at the extremes of an era. Except that since the advent of the web, indeed arguably slightly before, the boundaries have pretty much ended in terms of movements and what people wear. Watching an episode of Horizon from the mid-90s this morning I was struck by how none of the clothes featured would look out of place now, even in the crowd and public candid shots. Perhaps I'm simply immune to the whole thing and just see clothes but I don't think the clothes people are wearing are that different to how they've been for the past couple of decades.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:14 AM on November 5, 2014

I felt like this essay, being written with a female gaze missed out on a few trends largely because those trends were catered largely to men and may not have been particularly visible in the Pinterest/Tumblrsphere that the writer inhabits. If there is one aspect of the Internet that has also rippled into fashion, it's the potential for one to sink deeper into a particular echo chamber of one's studiously curated media feeds that just recurse through the same aesthetic. If you're tired of seeing Clueless being endlessly reblogged, then I must say, blogger, heal thyself and find some new people to follow.

I'd sort of like to see a weird amalgamation of what's going on in the Pacific Northwest in regards to working class, outdoorsman logger fashion

I believe the current nomenclature for this is lumbersexual. Though also liked it when AskMeFi called this Fencepost.

Also, people rolling their eyes at the creative blandness that is health goth should be doing more to revive the TechNinja aesthetic.

(because tracksuits will always be pretty 'meh', even as a uniform. because uniforms are all about accessorizing with small pieces of distinctive flair, and what the fuck are you supposed to do with a tracksuit besides wear a different pair of sneakers everyday.)
posted by bl1nk at 5:19 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Long pants (aka trousers) were invented for horse riding. If you don't ride a horse, you don't need to wear them. You have my permission to embrace the skirt/robe/monopant look.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:57 AM on November 5, 2014

working class, outdoorsman logger fashion (lots of guys with 40's style haircuts, local/US-made clothing, jackets and bags made for our autumn and winters, raw and selvedge denim, Red Wing boots, etc. (I am not sure how to describe or name this))

"American Heritage" (throws up into mason jar)
posted by Juliet Banana at 7:22 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

Thanks for mentioning TechNinja. That was on the tip of my tongue as I was reading this.
posted by Monochrome at 2:01 PM on November 5, 2014

(throws up into mason jar)

Haters gonna hate.
posted by entropicamericana at 3:35 PM on November 5, 2014