Fashion for all: Why doesn’t a hippbist?
In 2007, the New York Timeout - an influential magazine about life style, city and citizens (and not only) - came out with an article about the "new" generation of ego-centrists, non-ambitious posers who do not create anything new. Click-on, as it is now called, the title put on the cover, and the peremptory statement “Why a hipster must die” played a certain role in the fact that a whole stratum of young people (from the conditional 15 to 40) who have access to the Internet, received like shameful stigma. The word "hipster" began to replicate - as if fearing to miss the emergence of a new cultural stratum, the phenomenon of "hipsters" began to write publications all over the world. In Russia, the word "hipster" has become popular thanks to the cult column of Yuri Saprykin "On difficult ground", published in the journal "Poster".
Ostromodnye attributes of the time - Ray-Ban glasses, Polaroid, Moleskin, red April77 jeans and glasses without diopters instantly hit the list of the main signs of the hipster. But then there were questions. If you buy books in the "Republic" - are you a hipster? And if you wear colored leggings for running? And if Wes Anderson is your favorite director? The answer to everything is yes, naturally. The concept of "hipster" initially turned out to be so blurry that anyone could be brought under it - there would be a desire. Under certain circumstances, it was possible to call the hipster (or rather, call) both an office worker, and an unemployed guy from the outskirts, and a householder with three children. Over time, the word retained for itself only negative connotations, it was customary to speak of hipsters at least ironically or condescendingly.
“And now let's see what the charges are against the hipsters. They are narcissistic and insincere. They judge others by the models of iPods and brands of glasses. They consist of ponts and a desire to outbid. Nothing like? After all, the same thing is being said today about the “hi-pbists”, whom some of the publications have already dubbed “new hipsters”.
If you believe the Urban Dictionary, a hi-passer is one who is "obsessed with hyip in fashion and will do everything to get the desired hyip." It is believed that the main obsession of the hipbists is things from a certain set of brands (mainly with subcultural roots - like Stussy, Supreme, Stone Island, etc.), which can later be resold on the Internet much more expensive than retail, due to their limitations. , exclusivity or inaccessibility in stores. The very definition of a hippbist is associated with a publication of the same name with a huge audience - Hypebeast, which has an offline magazine, website, store and radio. It is noteworthy that the first ironic video, making fun of the "highbike" and the love of limited sneakers, was released in February 2007 - almost six months before the sensational issue of hipsters Timeout. Why did the loud talk about hippbists start right now?
Names often arise from a misunderstanding of the modern agenda: marketers and journalists want to streamline and divide young people at least on some basis. So there are "hipsters", "Hipbists", Hels-goths (adherents of sports and Gothic), gopkorschiki (outdoor clothing lovers and "tourist style") and so on. But nowadays pure subcultures are becoming obsolete as a fact. It is difficult to imagine that once a “rapper” could be called a person listening to, and not performing, rap. Today everything is mixed up, there is too much information, and it became shameful to be inspired by one thing for teenagers. Look at how the main rapper of Russia looks like: he wears gothic T-shirts and sings Marilyn Manson on the air. He doesn’t look like a stereotypical rapper, because that stereotype itself has faded and died.
Since the 1980s, any new generation has been scornfully called "consumer" - supposedly teenagers are not interested in anything, they just like to buy and buy. And today, such a teenager, handing him under the wrapper of a "high-hippist," is also presented as a kind of stupid and gnawing monster, whose sole purpose is to post a selfie in a new Hoodie by Sav Empt. First of all, this myth is inflated by the media in pursuit of repost and likes. So there is already a lot of arrogance in the very term "highbird". Fashion is not serious, the real intellectual is not interested in it, fashion is not for the smart, the smart should not hang out, but be carried away by the high. Funny, but there is nothing more unfashionable than these arguments. Fashion is not a thing in itself, it does not fall from the heavens, but is taken from the public air, rethinking politics and public mood — perhaps making it faster and more metaphorical. In this sense, the current generation is just “digging deeper”: on the intuitive level, he is interested in the history of fashion, its connection with art (hence the love of Raf Simons) and architecture, new and old heroes - and all this, as they say, clothes".
“Choose big TVs, washing machines, cars, compact disc players, electric can openers”, - the main character of the book and subsequently the movie “On the Needle” made a diagnosis of conditional youth twenty five years ago. Since then, the factories have not closed, moreover, unmanned vehicles are about to appear, public discourse has turned towards equality and respect for diversity, and flights into space will soon be available not only to scientists, military and multimillionaires. Do not forget that this is all due to those who were once also called the generation of empty and worthless.
It’s hard to argue with the fact that streetwear and sneakers today is a big deal. Due to the flow of information, what is becoming a hyip today will not be tomorrow. And it was street brands that turned out to be the most sensitive to change. Thanks to the drops and exclusives, their things do not have time to get bored like the rest. The spinners and the Calvin Klein collection went out of fashion even before they were included. For six months, the result of the enormous creative work is probably so boring to the new generation of visuals (first they saw the new collection in the online broadcast, then in the VKontakte repost, then in the advertisement, then in the The xx music video), , they do not even need them hypothetically. And this is despite the fact that, unlike the series of changing creative directors, Raf Simons has a huge credibility on the part of the VKontakte generation.
Adolescents are simple: design skills lose to merchandise T-shirts, and the news about who will become the new Versace designer can be interesting only in the context of the potential assignment to her of Virgil Ablo, the creator of Off-White. So it should be - in ten years the archaic system that exists today cannot exist in principle.
Most teenagers barely read the media, preferring the VKontakte public to them, and yes, they are interested in fashion - simply because it has become mainstream. She is everywhere, and you can’t hide from her just like that: you went to see a cap in an online store — an advertisement for this cap, and this store will haunt you to the end. Sneakers, as well as street brands, whose drops were once only for “initiates,” are all worn today - from Yana Rudkovskaya to these very schoolchildren. One may laugh at the fact that Philip Kirkorov is a high-hippbist, but he is. And what does it mean? That there are no highpists, this is a fictitious subculture, under which they are trying to lead everyone at least interested in the modern agenda and fashion. You can again draw an analogy with hipsters: hippbista is all, that is, hippbista is nobody.
Photo: Kappa, Undercover, Lazy Oaf, Off-White, Stussy, MadeMe & X-Girl, Uniform Experiment
