Trendblog 2009!

The other day I ran across this article on the New York Times website. If you don’t want to click the link which is perfectly understandable, it’s about how every guy under the age of thirty is now dressing really classy. Um, what? That prompted me to start the following two-item list:

The List of New York Times Trends That Weren’t Actual Trends, 2009 Edition

1. Young Men Dressing Up Like Old Men Because of Mad Men

Some bozo at the NYT is convinced that we’re all glued to our TV sets watching Mad Men and that we love the show so hard that we’ve started dressing like Don Draper and Don Draper’s Employees, as I believe they’re called. Don Draper and company, if you were wondering, are the most sartorially superior sons of bitches on earth.

Besides the impeccably dressed Tyler Mills, I can’t really think of anyone who adheres to the Mad Men aesthetic. The notion of every guy in Chapel Hill running around dressed like they’re trying to close a deal with Lucky Strike to have their cigarettes advertised at elementary schools is so preposterous that when I first considered it, I chortled so heartily that in my fit of upper-class amusement I spilled my aged cognac right onto my J. Press herringbone jacket, which then leaked into my Brooks Brothers shirt and damn it all if it didn’t bleed right on through to my Armani slacks, which were made out of the tears of a unicorn that an old British man had hammered into the softest fabric known to man. How did my cognac avoid my tie, you ask? Because I hadn’t put it on yet – I still hadn’t decided whether to tie it in a Half Windsor, Full Windsor, or a Quadruple Windsor (which looks the best but if you do it wrong you explode from all the Bad Fashion Vibes).

Point is, nobody dresses up like it’s Mad Men except for special occasions. Maybe it's just that I don't get it because I live in North Carolina and not New York, The Capital Of All That Is Cultural, Fashionable, And Generally Good, and therefore am not as with it as I should be when it comes to what the kids are wearing these days.

In other news, look at Tyler's rope belt. Isn't that stellar?

2. The Hipster Potbelly

This alludes to the idea that this summer, hipster bros (or “coolsters,” as New York Times called them in an adorably desperate grasp for both an acceptable synonym and a hold on the rapidly shifting parlance of our times) made a conscious effort to cultivate a bit of a potbelly as a fashion statement, and goes on to say that this is (a) a way of rebelling against traditional standards of beauty, and (b) Barack Obama’s fault because he’s so trim.

Now let me be the first to say that I am one of the leading proponents of doing things ironically. But you cannot have an ironic potbelly. That is not a thing. Instead, let me offer an alternate explanation of this “coolster paunch.” Ready?

Hipsters are young. Lots of young people like to drink. If you drink a lot, it will make you fat.

The

End

Merry

Holidays.