Not quite there yet.

[franceslievens]

The bandana-wearing, thick-lipped black citoyen who gets on the bus, decides to occupy the seat opposite of where I'm sitting. Does it show my prejudice that I notice his thick lips? Or am I right in assuming this man breathes clichés? His low-cut V-necked vest reveals a well trained smooth chest, adorned by a big cross*. When he tilts his head just slightly, he reveals long braided hair, held together with his bandana. This guy could be the prototype of the black fashion-victim, but not quite. His vest isn't neatly tucked into his trousers. Furthermore its a knitted vest, and not some smooth silken shirt he's wearing. It's a try, but he isn't quite there yet. Like so many inhabitants of this city.
Walking through the streets I notice how the yuppies aren't hard-core, the punkers reveal themselves to be filthy anarchist slobs, and the hipsters are wearing last months H&M sell-out clothes. This isn't a city for the hipsters, for the perfect members of a subculture. Instead it are the in-betweens that thrive here: Muslims wearing Nike-sneakers under their djelabba, and an adidas-hoodie over it, while their fathers wear the djelabba-with-suit-jacket combination; teenagers that are only as hip as last months video-charts; yuppies showing off their second-newest mobile phone. Brussels seems to be the province of the big cities, where we are collectively one step behind with fashion, and aren't quite able to muster what's to wear and what not.

Until you take two steps further, to another part of town, where the ladies are fashionistas who know how to accessorize and the men communicate using their blackberries. Or are these the international inhabitants of the capital of Europe?

*I can't help it, but notice it doesn't sizzle and burn.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I think some people aspire to living the cliché like the girls dressing like Paris Hilton complete with the vacant smile or the boys with their ghetto style with oversized basketball shirts and a permanent sneer. Sometimes they seem to be doing that because they want to belong to a group.

It's just that the girls aren't daughters of very rich parents and the boys aren't really from the ghetto. I might laugh, but for them it is very serious. Where I see a wanna-be, they see themselves as followers of fashion.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

That's only part of it. H&M does provide the means to look like paris Hilton (a cheap plastic version that is), and you don't notice it's the cheap version unless you come up really close.

The other thing is there is some ort of "in betweeny" who actually lives in between the subcultures, who's neither, and in that being nothing, becomes another (less fashionable) subculture.