Redeye - Redeye April 13 2005

Recently I’ve been called out. I’ve been told I make excessive references to choking, stroking and other forms of sexploitation. And I guess I must sheepishly concede and recede the point ... just not till next week. Because this week we’re talking about fashion, the ultimate form of sexploitation.The Trafik Tradeshow, an independent showcase of contemporary fashion (a seemingly vast majority being jeanswear), took place the weekend of Fri.-Sun., April 8-10, at the Mason Murer Fine Art gallery. While there are reports of the Atlanta AmericasMart allegedly participating in some unseemly strong-arming against the young Trafik Turks, I’m choosing to concentrate on the weekend’s fashionable aspects.

Trafik brought in fashionable DJs - including San Francisco’s Marques Wyatt of Om Records and Vienna’s Rodney Hunter from G-Stone Recordings - to fashionable venues - Shout and Halo, respectively. In attendance were also editors from national publications including BPM Magazine and Complex. And the fashionable brands were many: Triple Five Soul, Steele, 575 Denim, Lee, Project E, Fresh Prints and locally based Carpé Denim (whose trio of owners also acted as Trafik producers). They were all featured during an early evening fashion show Sat., April 9, at eleven50, hosted by MTV VJ Quddus and attended by Cee-Lo, among others.

Despite all that activity, my weekend tale began at the eleven50 runway show, because I chose to be fashionably late ... by a couple days. But that’s just how deep I roll. And because griping about the state of fashion is perpetually in fashion, I’m going to take this opportunity to poke a little well-meaning fun.

You know how when someone tells you they like your outfit and you throw some false modesty by saying, “What, this old thing?” Well, that phrase is becoming increasingly appropriate, as the hot thing seems to be adding more and more distressing to jeans. I love some comfy, lived-in pants, but sometimes looking at all the different holes and washes applied to “new” jeans, I wonder if maybe I am buying someone else’s hand-me-downs. But as someone who wears jeans until they rip naturally, then wears them for two more years, and as someone who enjoys putting his private - matters - out on display, I can only complain so much that I can now buy jeans with increasingly easy access.

Turning my eyes to the eleven50 crowd, I noticed almost every man wore a blazer. Somehow, as increasingly ripped jeans and “vintage” T-shirts have become a conventional club look, the blazer has become the instant means to dress up the dressed down. And during a semi-recent night out drinking, two friends took the trend to its inevitable end with the “invention” of the Blazziere (pronounced as a cross between “blazer” and “brassiere” if you go looking for one at imaginary department stores worldwide). It amounts to the male push-up bra-meets-support hose. Hiding the tummy and broadening the shoulders, the Blazziere contributes self-confidence if your get-up-and-go got up and went.

Now a couple more jabs before I go. For you dudes with polo collars flipped up, it looks like a storm blew from behind and you just didn’t bother to correct yourself. Would you walk around with a permanent boner? Seriously, collar up is like wearing a rain-dappled fedora indoors; it just won’t do. And women, stop tucking your pants into wrinkly leather mid-calf or knee-high boots; the puddles aren’t that deep. Finally, women with those hobo-style gold lamé shoulder bags, you look like my Jewish grandmother. Lamé reads like lame for a reason, even if it’s worn like scoop-neck chain mail to show off your tanning-bed-bronzed tittays. (Oh, my collar just popped up.) Seriously, Delia’s is now selling that shit. When a 13-year-old is in on it, it’s out.

And the 13-year-olds can at least plead ignorance about the stupidity of ’80s fashions. Anyone born in 1979 or before has no excuse for re-accepting a bunch of failed fashions. It’s only a matter of time before satellite bangs and florescent biker shorts come back. The only thing you should embrace from 1984 is Nancy Reagan’s catch phrase: Just Say No!

Keep one RedEye open. And send all comments, questions, observations and invitations to redeye@creativeloafing.com.