I’ll keep it short: a couple of things have inspired me today. First up, it’s that kid above, lifted from this slideshow from Idea Books of Watanabe Katsumi’s book Discology, which seems to be nothing but images of new-wave Japanese club kids acting up for the camera. Which makes it incredible. I’d seen Katsumi’s other Kabukicho tribe shots in Gangs of Kabukicho and some other underground imagery in Shinjuku: the Story of a Band of Thieves (other people’s copies, never mine), but this was a new one to me and that kid sitting cross-legged with the v-neck overall with this bootleg, “BE HUMBLE YOU COOL FUCKER” Snoopy patch sewn onto it. Does sewing a badge onto something negate effortless cool? That’s kind of an effort — he looks cool regardless.
The second thing is this 1993 MTV News piece on hip-hop fashion uploaded from the considerable Crates of JR with a trip to Union and an appearance from Alyasha Owerka-Moore talking about Phat Farm (which, with the likes of Alyasha, Eli Gessner and Paul Mittlelman on deck to set it off, was pretty desirable around the time this segment was broadcasted. Nothing says 1993 like giant light blue jeans (laugh all you like but Supreme are taking it back for their 20th anniversary), lots of flava talk and Young Black Teenagers.
GWARIZM 