Come as You Were: The Return of Grunge

Grunge fashion is back, doncha know?

Yeah, yeah, we've been hearing about the return of grunge for ages, but apparently, the fashion houses are ratcheting it up a notch these days. In yesterday's Style section, the New York Times featured an article about grunge fashion that really went deep into the way early 90s trends are finding their way into high fashion: "Subversion in myriad forms was being commodified on the catwalks....in recent months, the era of Nirvana, Starbucks and heroin chic has been exploited with a rarefied twist."

Ugh, don't you just hate pretentious fashion mumbo-jumbo?

So, despite the fact that actual grunge fashion was basically about wearing old flannel shirts you bought at the thrift store, patching (and re-patching) your ancient ripped jeans until they could be patched no more, and then finishing off the "look" with Doc Martens (usually the only new item in the whole ensemble), various high-end designers, such as Helmut Lang, Dries Van Noten, Jil Sander, 3.1 Phillip Lim, and Saint Laurent are co-opting grunge styles.

Designers have always looked to the past for inspiration. In the 90s, flared hippyish pants (stolen from the 70s) were in style, while more recently, fashion houses tried--and failed, thank god--to bring back 80s day-glo.

But with the resurgence of grunge era fashion, it's the first time that the clothing of my young adulthood--the styles I (supposedly) wore when I was first on my own and trying to find my place in the world--is being co-opted by the fashion houses.

Not surprisingly, they are getting it completely wrong. The fashions they are copying--the layered, plaid, flannel shirts, the ripped black outfits--are what people think was worn back then. But it wasn't really. Maybe the icons of the era--Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, etc.--wore stuff like that, but normal, everyday young women sure didn't.

Here is the heroin-chic grunge look as romanticized by 3.1 Phillip Lim:

Note the plaid shirt tied around the waist, the ironic (or is it meta?) T-shirt, Doc Marten-esque clunky black boots, and short skirt. A short skirt in the early 90s? Uh-uh, wrong.

In reality, girls just weren't this cool back then. Mostly we wore ill-fitting floral prairie dresses with tights and Doc Marten rip-offs. Or overalls. Let's not forget the lovely Farmer Jane look that was so popular then. Our jeans were stone-washed and high-waisted, and our hair was full of split ends.



Here is what the early 90s actually looked like:

These are authentic photos of actual young adults living the dream in 1991. The photos were taken in Missoula, Montana--where many kids from the Northwest went to college, bringing their "grunge" fashions with them.

(Interesting story: the guy with the long hair was from Spokane, Washington, played guitar, and actually KNEW the dudes from Alice in Chains. He had been in Montana for a while and was living without TV, so when I informed him that "Man in a Box" was on heavy rotation on MTV, he almost pooped his pants.)


Do you see any plaid flannel? No. Do our outfits scream HEROIN CHIC? No. White shirts, jeans, sandals--that was pretty much it.

We wore old clothes because we couldn't afford to buy new ones. We all definitely had Doc Marten-type shoes and even a plaid flannel or two, but it's not as if we dressed like Kim Deal every day of the week.

When I see the models strutting down the runway wearing their fake-grunge get-ups, it makes feel like I'm mis-remembering the era.

Was it really that sexy and dangerous? Did we really have such a laconic, jaded, f-off approach to life? Did I miss something?

No, I didn't miss anything. Because I was living it. It just didn't actually look like that. Besides, it was the music that was interesting, not the fashion.

Regardless of how much over-priced designer plaid flannel is bought by the naive masses, the feeling of excitement upon hearing, for the first time, a brand-new song called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is never coming back.

In Defense of Beards

No, I'm not referring to ladies who pretend to be gay men's wives....

I'm talking about that most hipster-ish of all the hipster accoutrements currently taking over much of Brooklyn and maybe even (still) pockets of Manhattan.

Beards have gotten a bad rap over the past couple of years. Yes, hipsters abuse the privilege of being able to grow facial hair, but hey, you gotta hate the playa, not the game. Beards--in and of themselves--should be appreciated, not reviled.

Personally? I love 'em. So imagine my surprise and joy when I opened the Times last weekend and gazed upon the face of one of the finest (and by finest I mean hottest) actors of my generation--Jake Gyllenhaal--covered in lovely scruff. Ooo-la-la!

My appreciation of facial hair certainly hasn't always been the norm. Throughout my tween and even teen years, the celebrities I idolized were the stylish, coifed, boyish ones (Shaun Cassidy, John Taylor of Duran Duran, C. Thomas Powell, Matthew Broderick). Unthreatening, vanilla...in some cases, even feminine. 

Thirty years later and
that pretty face still
makes me swoon.

When I finally grew up enough to look beyond the celebs and began setting my sights on actual boys, my tastes were still of the sweet and unassuming variety.

No, my beard-love did not develop until I was well into my twenties. My appreciation of male hirsuteness in general began during the Grunge Era with the lovely, long locks many dudes sported during that glorious period. Ahhhh, those were the days: ponytails, flannel shirts, Converse, skateboards, and Alice in Chains.

But, as they say, all good things must com to en end. Kurt Cobain shot himself, Layne Staley OD'd and his stinky body wasn't found for days, and Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell chopped off their waves. The dark days of the Boy Band Era had arrived. 

Suddenly there was male-pattern-frosted-tips-syndrome sprouting up everywhere, and you couldn't turn on the TV without seeing dudes dancing In (perfect) Sync with one another.

I'm sure I would've LOVED these guys if I'd been 15 when they hit it big, but as I was approaching the big 3-0, the little boy thing just wasn't working for me anymore. The older I got, the more I appreciated a more masculine visage.

Lucky for me I lived in Manhattan instead of L.A. because the frosted hair look never really played out in NYC (except maybe on Wall Street, a neighborhood and demographic I avoided like the plague).

Then Jack White--bless his warped little soul--came on to the scene, and all that polished nonsense disappeared as quickly as BB Mack's career. (Note: I kinda, sorta met BB Mack once.) 

A few years later, Jon Hamm--one of the hottest of the hirsute horde--began gracing our TV screens with his studliness. Manly Men were back.

And so were beards.

That was, what, five years ago? So far, they aren't showing any signs of fading away. I think what I love about beards is how they bring focus to the eyes--by far, my favorite facial feature. And, of course, they are very masculine...and they are a little intimidating sometimes, which can be fun.

It's like the 70's are back, but instead of stopping half-way there with mustaches (Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds), dudes are finally going all out.

Maybe in the next year or two mutton chops will come back into style for the first time since 1860. 

Hey, a girl can dream.

Mariah Carey Is Trying to Ruin Your Christmas (Again)...and Other News

-- Mariah Carey has another Christmas album coming out (pictured left). Great photoshopping: she hasn't been that skinny since 1991!

-- Tom Cruise's favorite lesbian gets hitched. 

-- Pearl Jam frontman finally marries his baby-momma (and millions of women say, "Awww...")

-- Why you'll never catch me buying any L.A.M.B. clothing. My eyes are now bleeding.

-- As if Mondays don't suck enough, it turns out I'm older than The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Happy 40th!

-- Cousin Eddie is at it again! Sharing his gene pool with this whack-job can't be helping Dennis's career.

I'm Still Alive...Just Breathe

One day last week I was in my car listening to our excellent local, independent radio station (shout out to 107.1 The Peak!) when Pearl Jam’s newish song, “Just Breathe” came on. Listening to this pretty song got me thinking about Pearl Jam’s impressive catalogue of songs and their longevity--I (and my fellow Gen Xers) practically grew up on them. 

Despite this, the rock band that has come to define Gen X is Nirvana; along with a handful of other Seattle bands (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Mudhoney to name a few), they ushered in the Grunge era and gave voice to the alienation and insecurity of their generation. Nirvana’s music and lyrics certainly did capture the “what the hell am I doing with my life” feeling most of us had in the early 90s, but I have to argue that, because Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994 (when he was only 27), thus ending Nirvana’s reign as the voice of Gen X, they shouldn’t be our defining rock band. Because, unlike the rest of us, Nirvana never had to grow up. Sure, Dave G. and Krist N. have aged, moved on, and even started families, but that doesn't count, because we didn't get to see how Nirvana would’ve handled the death of Grunge, Napster, ITunes, or the rise of the horrendous boy band era. Kurt Cobain never had to cope with turning forty. I wonder, if he was still alive, if his daughter Frances Bean would hate him, too.

To me, the band that best defines Gen X is Pearl Jam. Though Eddie Vedder wasn’t as tortured as Kurt Cobain, both bands were Grunge, both came out of Seattle, both wore plaid shirts. Pearl Jam even had a cameo in the classic slacker film, Singles; that’s about as Gen X as you get. The difference is that the members of Pearl Jam have grown older together, have had to change with the times, and are still putting out decent, relevant music. In the 90's, they even challenged the increased corporatization of rock-n-roll by boycotting Ticketmaster and selling tickets to their live shows themselves. 

As I listened to the words of “Just Breathe” it became clear just how “mature” Pearl Jam has become. I’m not a schmaltzy person by nature but I found myself almost getting choked up: Yes, I understand that every life must end, aw-huh. As we sit alone, I know someday we must go, aw-huh. Oh, I'm a lucky man to count on both hands the ones I love. Some folks just have one, others, they've got none, uh-huh.  In his twenties, Eddie Vedder was singing about being alive; now, like the rest of us Gen Xers, he's coming to terms with the fact that his life is probably more than half over. His voice is deeper and more gravelly than it was twenty years ago. He sounds like a man who has been through hard times and has learned from his mistakes...a man who realizes one's worth is best measured by the amount of love--not money--in one's life.