If I mentioned the words 'Von Dutch' to an American, I would get a reply involving spitting and distaste. It is so unbelievably unfashionable in the US that it's... unbelievable.
When Skinny came back from California, before I'd even noticed its existence, she scowled at a shop window displaying the latest imported clothes, ie Von Dutch. "Euck," she said, "I think I'll be sick if I see anymore bloody Von Dutch. If you get caught wearing it in the States, you may as well have leprosy."
Time went on, and I started to notice more and more trucker hats. You know, the ridiculously large ones with the mesh bits? There's a guy who gets on my bus with a flowery one, I pity his parents. And they were at ever-increasingly precarious angles. One gust of wind, and they'd've all been chasing their caps down the street.
Before Von Dutch's spores landed, stupid cap angles had only been associated with wannabes and emos. Proper emos I have no problem with, but it's when you start getting into the realm of wannabe emos that you need to fear. They are disturbed human beings.
So I sat back and watched, as I usually do, as Von Dutch grew in popularity. Ripped jeans, Converse All-Star trainers and blazers became more common as people slipped into this trap of American rejection fashion.
And the crown they all wore? The Von Dutch cap at a dodgy tilt.
I've told my fellow anti-fashionists about this, and they laughed at the gullibility of people. But what we all worried about, as self-confessed Jimmy Eat World fans, was that even an awful genre like emotional hardcore had been turned into a fashion.
It
is quite satisfying, when people admire my dungarees and ask where I got them from, to which I tell them honestly,
"Oxfam, 99p."
Long live second-hand clothing.
