Great piece in the NY Times by Jake Bernstein on women djs as fashion trendsetters with a focus on such DJ’s as Justine D, Beverly Bond and DJ Lindsey.
Some interesting angles here about blogs but mostly I’m fascinated by what most people would consider mundane, the process in which people all start dressing exactly like someone well known, whether locally or at the pop star level:
Like others in the growing contingent of female D.J.’s commanding the dance floor and building cults on the Web, she [Justine D] has an avid following. Scores of young women have picked up on her sound, and with it, her style, a graphic amalgam of black shirts with white bib tops and slinky halter dresses accessorized with tattoos and cataracts of cola-tone hair.
"I did have several female club-goers ask me, ‘How does it make you feel that everyone is dressing like you now?’" Ms. Delaney said…
"When you go into a club and the D.J. is wearing something, it almost gives it idol status," said Frannie Schultz, 21, a college student from Brooklyn. Ms. Schultz, who mingles high style and low in deference to idols like Leigh Lezark of the MisShapes and Roxy Cottontail, noted that on the Lower East Side, epicenter of the downtown club scene, style is "centered around the promoters and the D.J.’s."
"If you see a girl who is D.J.-ing, wearing a certain shirt or brand of shoes," she said, "it makes people want to buy that item."…
"A lot of these girls are just novelties," said Alisa O’Connor, 21, of Brooklyn, alluding to the D.J. who flaunts glitter and angel wings to distract from the fact that she is playing prerecorded CDs. But "if she is a good D.J.," Ms. O’Connor said, "I’m going to respect her for what she wears."
This is a powerful process that works both in these localized trendsetter milieus and on a larger scale with pop stars. Straight up, the fact that people are actually proud to be dressing like someone else because they like some other thing they do that isn’t fashion related is something I have to accept as an aspect of objective reality that will always baffle me.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t consider how to monetize it like any good hustler or con artist, even if I only play one of those in the hip hop blogosphere.
Here’s my big plan inspired by this NY Times article and today’s Dilbert:
Ok, so here’s the deal.
I’ve been following urban wear and street wear trends via blogs long enough to be able to keep up with new developments as closely as needed. I’ve also been in Raleigh, NC for a couple of years now noticing how slowly this stuff works its way from initial appearances on blogs and in videos and into the general public’s consciousness.
What I think I can do is combine the Dilbert concept with the easy ability to keep up with breaking edge fashion online and leverage the music industry cliche of the old guy wearing what the kids are wearing to effectively organize the brand destruction of any new brand. But instead of being the old guy who’s following the trends, I’ll be the old guy who’s wearing what the big city trendsetters are wearing before they become local trends.
What’s obvious is that I can keep up with breaking edge fashion as well as any of the local trendsetters in this area, which would be considered a reasonably up to date and forward thinking region of mass America, simply by mail ordering stuff and hitting NY once a quarter.
If I then get a bunch of other old guys to join me, we could just start showing up at the mall in fashions most of the local kids haven’t started registering yet and make them look uncool before word hits the local scene.
If I continued to expand on a national scale, not only could I effectively make it impossible for any targeted brand to break out of the trendsetter scene, I could then begin a reverse process of making the trendsetters look uncool and destroying their careers as well.
Dig This:
What would happen if Bun B shows up on MTV wearing a hoodie that the majority of the kids watching first saw at their local mall on some old white guy?
Fantasy?
Or a new level of the game about to emerge?
Either way I’m loving this idea and may start playing around with it locally just to make the kids uncomfortable and see what theater emerges.
"Yo, Hector. Nice hoodie! I saw your grandpa wearing it down at the Food Court last week! No, seriously, dude. Sorry."
Ultimate Goal:
To get paid not to wear a brand, just as companies pay to keep their products out of embarrassing movie placements.
Interested in funding such a startup?
You know where to find me:
clyde(at)prohiphop(dot)com
Update:
I was just picturing my great aunt and her friends from the retirement community getting off the bus at the mall all wearing Gino Green hoodies! The more visible the brand, the greater the destruction.
I think my great aunt might actually like some of the more colorful hoodies and she’s got a birthday coming up!
Sicker yet, in a good way, would be to engage in such tactics while wearing bootleg editions of the brands you’re destroying.
