The first reasonably warm day of the year feels like waking up with a start from a nap you hadn’t realized you’d been taking. What? What’s going on? How did I get here? Where is all this light coming from? Is that the sun? Why am I so happy all of a sudden? Oh my god is it spring?! Daylight Savings Time is basically a pointless annoyance but in this first glorious week the afternoons stretch into bright eternities and we can almost ignore the melting piles of frozen garbage piled up on the curbs. Ah, springtime in New York.
Anyway, pedestrian traffic the past few days has been outrageous. Everyone wants an excuse to be outside and free from the heavy confines of their winter coats. Woolen hats are all but extinct. Hair is free to wave in the balmy breeze, or to reach towards the heavens in a thick coat of shellacked hairspray. Punk, like the spring, has risen from the grave. It is also smiling and has just bought some bread. Vandalism and anarchy are tiring! Sometimes you just need a nice snack and some sunshine.
I’m always totally delighted to see anyone repping hard for their subculture in public, especially when that subculture is associated with such striking fashions. Maybe it’s a symptom of getting older and not being so concerned about what my clothing choices say about me beyond “that person looks both sharp AND reasonably clean,” but I don’t think I’ve noticed any major fashion-heavy new subcultures appear in the past few years. How carefully do teens dress to match their music tastes/general life philosophy these days, or is that more a relic of previous decades? Why does the idea of “punk” as a fashion motif keep popping up every few years and getting tacked onto other styles? The spirit of punk may be long dead, but its stylistic impact is still clinging to life outside the Amy’s Bread on Ninth Avenue.
Follow The Art of Style by Kit Mills. For more of Kit’s work, check out their website.
