i'd say ~99% of celebrities period might serve as the entry point to the unswaggy valley (as relates to clothes) since very very very few celebrities have good style. drake is an interesting figure unswaggyvalleywise, since he is both enormously popular and also historically very good at identifying trends (musically mostly i.e. regional talent) early
re: chrome hearts it's so far outside either my or erin's interests we can't really speak to it... obviously there's a rich history there i haven't dug very far into. the fact that $4,000 chrome hearts levi's are week in week out the top selling item on grailed seems like a pretty high cookedness indicator though
Certainly makes the job of a celeb stylist tough to navigate without tripping into the valley.
Drake is fascinating for that exact reason. On one side, he's a translator that helps so many smaller artist cross the chasm to the masses. On the other side, he's called a culture vulture. It certainly keeps him toward the edges of culture for a pop star.
- i like my fitzcarraldo edition of the netanyahus by joshua cohen, didn't even realize those are a "thing" but gather from your question (and am not surprised) that they are
- hilma af klint *posters* pretty unswaggy valley
- this is jonah not erin speaking but i think she would broadly agree with me that any and all "status" bags are cooked
I was with u so completely until the cybertruck ... However, I do not know how to drive and my ideal car is the isetta.
I really enjoyed this and have been reflecting on it and what I enjoy in public/private and why. It reminded me of a line from the hearingthings.co review of mahashmashana: I’d like to say I understand the hatred of Misty’s music, but to me, it’s like hating the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen because there’s a loud bee buzzing around it.
This post really made me think about the way my community interacts with local makers.
I live in a small Northern community where people wear jawns like mukluks, Inuvik parkas (iykyk) and beaded earrings with strong roots in local Indigenous communities. Many of us are from elsewhere and cop pieces as gifts from the maker, at Christmas markets or at the local craft store. The bandwagon is encouraged and healthy because these heirlooms are a part of our local culture, and it's a little flexy: "I know a beader" screams clout. It's also a deliberate choice to avoid mass-produced equivalents that had to be hauled up here from, at best, a maker down south. But I feel like sometimes people will take it too far. Picture a white guy in high-top canvas boots with fur tassels, a handmade winter jacket and a fur hat. He is, and looks like, a dork because the people whose culture he's borrowing very rarely actually dress like that anymore, often for the opposite socio-economic reasons that let him buy all that merch.
Without discouraging collecting hot pieces, at what point do too many slappers, which rock individually but weigh you down with cultural insensitivity when combined, overload the acceleration to Mach 5+ and force a crash-landing in the Unswaggy Valley?
Kapital is a contender for this…I was lucky enough to visit Tokyo this month and dropped by their shops. Their work and vision is incredible but both spots were full of very annoying menswear bros that really turned me off of the label. I don’t really like hypebeasty corners of the menswear ecosystem, and it was clear that the folks who care about drops, exclusivity, and blowing loads of money on clothing for the sake of the expense were all over Kapital’s shit.
There are some deep heads who will tell you Kapital is a kind of cult “canonized classic” impervious to the hypebeasty hordes but the phenomenon you describe is tough to deny
As a shy kid who found home in a dirtbag, fringe sport during the early 2000s, this post helps me get why I mourn rock climbing these days. Falling in love with something’s spirit and being sold a product form different relationships, and if you care you’re gonna feel that core shift
You do a brilliant job of capturing the dynamics of taste, but it leaves me asking: why does what we love have to align with what others think? And who decides what’s “cool” or “wack” in the first place?
The idea that our connection to something—whether it’s music, art, or a pair of sneakers—can be soured by who else embraces it feels like we’re letting someone else define us. Shouldn’t the ultimate measure of taste be how it resonates with you, without needing external validation?
Otherwise, this whole cycle of deep cuts, canonized classics, and the Unswaggy Valley just reaffirms that it’s all cosplay anyway: a performance rather than a reflection of who we are. And most of us aren’t Daniel Day Lewis (see I just had to spend a moment thinking of an example that signaled “I know stuff”)
Maybe the real move isn’t navigating these dynamics but stepping outside them entirely. Quiet confidence that doesn’t care who’s paying attention.
no such thing as stepping outside the game...our identities are always--in part--a performance.
we are fundamentally social beings; is there a way to exist in a social space and not perform yourself?
I don't know that there's a stable "who we are" that remains unchanging in the face of shifting contexts
and I think we get caught up in the negative connotations of the word performative--it isn't innately negative to perform imo (there are definitely cursed ways to perform identity, but there's also plenty of space to do it blessedly)
I appreciate your reflection. I think your last sentence is spot on around enjoying the things you love confidently without regard to what people think about you, but it still doesn't contradict the idea that things you love can become tainted in your own eye due to evil/cursed people getting into them and kinda "appropriating" them as status or cultural signifiers while draining them off their original intent.
Think of some small producer who cares about the quality of their materials and processes and likes their customers knowing and caring about these things too. Imagine they start trending around finance bros or some other rich and uninterested consumer demographic who buys it as a status symbol on some "quiet luxury" wack shit just because it was trending somewhere. That is depressing to me as it kinda drains a lot of the meaning of those pieces and makes them into just an expensive object of consumption. Same with art or cultural practices or spaces with an important political or social resistance element: seeing some random consulting bros pull up and shallowly consume (rather than deeply participate) can feel desecrating and fucking sad.
So to go back to the original point, I think if you're really into something, wear it and love it and don't give a damn about how you're seen by others, but if you look around and you feel like something you love is being appropriate, corrupted and diluted, I don't blame you for feeling bummed out and maybe have your perception of that things tainted.
Thought provoking read. Great comments from others.
I'd ad - clothing and items as we allow them to describe our person, is often about tasks. Farming, sailing, playing basketball, being punk, etc. When you participate in that task you are often exposed and utilize those items which allow you to benefit from the task. "I am a farmer, I wear overalls." Tasks may form our identity and form our relationships. It's what gives our lives meaning and builds our character and makes it worth it. Being passionate and dedicated can never enter the unswaggy valley. The passion shines through the object. It exists despite the object.
When a task becomes popular, it invites newcomers. New comers might take to it, and it's that community which must decide how to welcome new comers. But new comers may also be dilettantes, or braggadocios, or dismissive of known culture.
That's what is unswaggy - to desire a community, but fail to engage with it, to never participate, to have superficial passion. To wear a leather motorcycle jacket, claim to be of that crowd, and not know where the clutch is.
There is underneath this a desire by all people to belong. Social media and clout culture suggests you can belong through assembling the totems of a life worth living, whilst never engaging. I see those who ride these trend waves as people who have yet to find their own task. Their own sense of self.
As they say on Antiques Roadshow, buy what you like.
Great piece! Reminds me of Georg Simmels 1904 sociological writings on fashion. He describes the social aspects of fashion and how the elites adopt a certain fashion to distinguish themselves from the masses who in turn start imitating it in an attempt to erase external distinctions of class - and thus the circle continues. This also makes the dynamics at play at least somewhat older than mass consumption in the 50s I guess.
Great read. My favourite is when something becomes cool, widely available, then the interest tapers off leaving it for the real heads. A perfect example for me is long sleeve tees. Always been a huge fan, but they were borderline unavailable to cop in the late 2000s, especially in Australia. Then, they hit the zeitgeist hard and everyone was rocking graphic LS tees with writing on the sleeves. Now, no one really fucks with them but they’re still available and I can rock them on my own with out feeling like a goober. Same with post-hype restaurants that are still doing the thing that made them popular, just minus the heat of the zeitgeist and popularity. It’s a fine line, but sometimes if you hold out for long enough, things become rockable again
This is spot on as usual. I wonder what role social media has in entwining the artist and their audience.
Thanks to this, The audience itself has become a currency for creators (it’s what gets bands record labels, and brands investment) - and brands have more overtly become currency for their audience (now everyone signals more than ever due to insta).
Two decades ago these things would be very engagement and geographically limited, and far less overt and in your face. But today, even if you never listened to Brat you can see it’s in the unswaggy valley. Now, the quarter zip is a symbol of tasteless finance-adjacent bros in San Francisco and London and many others.
I guess what I’m saying is that the way we interact with culture has caused some metaphorical erosion that has not only widened the unswaggy valley (the amount of things you can fit in there), but it’s deepened it too (the depths of how much something can be unswaggy have never been deeper)
that's a really good point. it's funny, i delayed listening to led zeppelin for years because kids at high school whom i didn't particularly feel an affinity for wore their t shirts -- so this dynamic has been in place for a while, but you're right that "fan culture" has become an entirely different beast in the social media era
insightful, vulnerable piece...
big love for this year's LA CHIMERA.
some words from initial watch:
Lady Italia sees
a tree split
to two branches
forming a Y,
a dousing rod
held at center
with two hands,
a boy’s head stuck
firm in the ground
with his two feet
wavering in the air.
Great framework
Where do you think Chrome Hearts sits?
And do specific celebs serve as the entry point of Unswaggy Valley, for example Drake?
i'd say ~99% of celebrities period might serve as the entry point to the unswaggy valley (as relates to clothes) since very very very few celebrities have good style. drake is an interesting figure unswaggyvalleywise, since he is both enormously popular and also historically very good at identifying trends (musically mostly i.e. regional talent) early
re: chrome hearts it's so far outside either my or erin's interests we can't really speak to it... obviously there's a rich history there i haven't dug very far into. the fact that $4,000 chrome hearts levi's are week in week out the top selling item on grailed seems like a pretty high cookedness indicator though
Thank you!
Certainly makes the job of a celeb stylist tough to navigate without tripping into the valley.
Drake is fascinating for that exact reason. On one side, he's a translator that helps so many smaller artist cross the chasm to the masses. On the other side, he's called a culture vulture. It certainly keeps him toward the edges of culture for a pop star.
Any chance I could get a quick react to a couple of items? Fitzcarraldo editions books, Hilma af Klint posters, Loewe puzzle bag
ha no strong feelings , but
- i like my fitzcarraldo edition of the netanyahus by joshua cohen, didn't even realize those are a "thing" but gather from your question (and am not surprised) that they are
- hilma af klint *posters* pretty unswaggy valley
- this is jonah not erin speaking but i think she would broadly agree with me that any and all "status" bags are cooked
Unfortunately real hilma painting is not in the budget at the moment :/
Fitzcarraldo editions is one to watch I think…
I was with u so completely until the cybertruck ... However, I do not know how to drive and my ideal car is the isetta.
I really enjoyed this and have been reflecting on it and what I enjoy in public/private and why. It reminded me of a line from the hearingthings.co review of mahashmashana: I’d like to say I understand the hatred of Misty’s music, but to me, it’s like hating the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen because there’s a loud bee buzzing around it.
This post really made me think about the way my community interacts with local makers.
I live in a small Northern community where people wear jawns like mukluks, Inuvik parkas (iykyk) and beaded earrings with strong roots in local Indigenous communities. Many of us are from elsewhere and cop pieces as gifts from the maker, at Christmas markets or at the local craft store. The bandwagon is encouraged and healthy because these heirlooms are a part of our local culture, and it's a little flexy: "I know a beader" screams clout. It's also a deliberate choice to avoid mass-produced equivalents that had to be hauled up here from, at best, a maker down south. But I feel like sometimes people will take it too far. Picture a white guy in high-top canvas boots with fur tassels, a handmade winter jacket and a fur hat. He is, and looks like, a dork because the people whose culture he's borrowing very rarely actually dress like that anymore, often for the opposite socio-economic reasons that let him buy all that merch.
Without discouraging collecting hot pieces, at what point do too many slappers, which rock individually but weigh you down with cultural insensitivity when combined, overload the acceleration to Mach 5+ and force a crash-landing in the Unswaggy Valley?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6WDq0V5oBg
Kapital is a contender for this…I was lucky enough to visit Tokyo this month and dropped by their shops. Their work and vision is incredible but both spots were full of very annoying menswear bros that really turned me off of the label. I don’t really like hypebeasty corners of the menswear ecosystem, and it was clear that the folks who care about drops, exclusivity, and blowing loads of money on clothing for the sake of the expense were all over Kapital’s shit.
There are some deep heads who will tell you Kapital is a kind of cult “canonized classic” impervious to the hypebeasty hordes but the phenomenon you describe is tough to deny
If renata Adler on the left, then Joan Didion in the middle and Susan Sontag on the right.
As a shy kid who found home in a dirtbag, fringe sport during the early 2000s, this post helps me get why I mourn rock climbing these days. Falling in love with something’s spirit and being sold a product form different relationships, and if you care you’re gonna feel that core shift
The line can be hard to find in some cases but that’s an important distinction !
You do a brilliant job of capturing the dynamics of taste, but it leaves me asking: why does what we love have to align with what others think? And who decides what’s “cool” or “wack” in the first place?
The idea that our connection to something—whether it’s music, art, or a pair of sneakers—can be soured by who else embraces it feels like we’re letting someone else define us. Shouldn’t the ultimate measure of taste be how it resonates with you, without needing external validation?
Otherwise, this whole cycle of deep cuts, canonized classics, and the Unswaggy Valley just reaffirms that it’s all cosplay anyway: a performance rather than a reflection of who we are. And most of us aren’t Daniel Day Lewis (see I just had to spend a moment thinking of an example that signaled “I know stuff”)
Maybe the real move isn’t navigating these dynamics but stepping outside them entirely. Quiet confidence that doesn’t care who’s paying attention.
no such thing as stepping outside the game...our identities are always--in part--a performance.
we are fundamentally social beings; is there a way to exist in a social space and not perform yourself?
I don't know that there's a stable "who we are" that remains unchanging in the face of shifting contexts
and I think we get caught up in the negative connotations of the word performative--it isn't innately negative to perform imo (there are definitely cursed ways to perform identity, but there's also plenty of space to do it blessedly)
I appreciate your reflection. I think your last sentence is spot on around enjoying the things you love confidently without regard to what people think about you, but it still doesn't contradict the idea that things you love can become tainted in your own eye due to evil/cursed people getting into them and kinda "appropriating" them as status or cultural signifiers while draining them off their original intent.
Think of some small producer who cares about the quality of their materials and processes and likes their customers knowing and caring about these things too. Imagine they start trending around finance bros or some other rich and uninterested consumer demographic who buys it as a status symbol on some "quiet luxury" wack shit just because it was trending somewhere. That is depressing to me as it kinda drains a lot of the meaning of those pieces and makes them into just an expensive object of consumption. Same with art or cultural practices or spaces with an important political or social resistance element: seeing some random consulting bros pull up and shallowly consume (rather than deeply participate) can feel desecrating and fucking sad.
So to go back to the original point, I think if you're really into something, wear it and love it and don't give a damn about how you're seen by others, but if you look around and you feel like something you love is being appropriate, corrupted and diluted, I don't blame you for feeling bummed out and maybe have your perception of that things tainted.
brother challengers rips fr though
I thought it was cool yah !
I keep waiting for Common Projecrs to come back. Are Koios and the rest of the look alike doomed to unswaggy too?
i had never heard of these, a google image search suggests to me that they are an extreme no-go...
Thought provoking read. Great comments from others.
I'd ad - clothing and items as we allow them to describe our person, is often about tasks. Farming, sailing, playing basketball, being punk, etc. When you participate in that task you are often exposed and utilize those items which allow you to benefit from the task. "I am a farmer, I wear overalls." Tasks may form our identity and form our relationships. It's what gives our lives meaning and builds our character and makes it worth it. Being passionate and dedicated can never enter the unswaggy valley. The passion shines through the object. It exists despite the object.
When a task becomes popular, it invites newcomers. New comers might take to it, and it's that community which must decide how to welcome new comers. But new comers may also be dilettantes, or braggadocios, or dismissive of known culture.
That's what is unswaggy - to desire a community, but fail to engage with it, to never participate, to have superficial passion. To wear a leather motorcycle jacket, claim to be of that crowd, and not know where the clutch is.
There is underneath this a desire by all people to belong. Social media and clout culture suggests you can belong through assembling the totems of a life worth living, whilst never engaging. I see those who ride these trend waves as people who have yet to find their own task. Their own sense of self.
As they say on Antiques Roadshow, buy what you like.
Great piece! Reminds me of Georg Simmels 1904 sociological writings on fashion. He describes the social aspects of fashion and how the elites adopt a certain fashion to distinguish themselves from the masses who in turn start imitating it in an attempt to erase external distinctions of class - and thus the circle continues. This also makes the dynamics at play at least somewhat older than mass consumption in the 50s I guess.
true -- could go even further back to sumptuary laws too !
Great read. My favourite is when something becomes cool, widely available, then the interest tapers off leaving it for the real heads. A perfect example for me is long sleeve tees. Always been a huge fan, but they were borderline unavailable to cop in the late 2000s, especially in Australia. Then, they hit the zeitgeist hard and everyone was rocking graphic LS tees with writing on the sleeves. Now, no one really fucks with them but they’re still available and I can rock them on my own with out feeling like a goober. Same with post-hype restaurants that are still doing the thing that made them popular, just minus the heat of the zeitgeist and popularity. It’s a fine line, but sometimes if you hold out for long enough, things become rockable again
100%
This is spot on as usual. I wonder what role social media has in entwining the artist and their audience.
Thanks to this, The audience itself has become a currency for creators (it’s what gets bands record labels, and brands investment) - and brands have more overtly become currency for their audience (now everyone signals more than ever due to insta).
Two decades ago these things would be very engagement and geographically limited, and far less overt and in your face. But today, even if you never listened to Brat you can see it’s in the unswaggy valley. Now, the quarter zip is a symbol of tasteless finance-adjacent bros in San Francisco and London and many others.
I guess what I’m saying is that the way we interact with culture has caused some metaphorical erosion that has not only widened the unswaggy valley (the amount of things you can fit in there), but it’s deepened it too (the depths of how much something can be unswaggy have never been deeper)
that's a really good point. it's funny, i delayed listening to led zeppelin for years because kids at high school whom i didn't particularly feel an affinity for wore their t shirts -- so this dynamic has been in place for a while, but you're right that "fan culture" has become an entirely different beast in the social media era