Why Being Too Cool Is Uncool?!

Looking like a billboard for ALL the trends in fashion & pop-culture might make one come across more as an ignoramus who doesn’t know the basics, and talks in words like ‘on fleek’ and ‘all the things’, and ‘feels’, and ‘turnt up’ and all of that, rather than a savvy ‘cool’ person who knows their shit.

You’ve seen those kids around town. Every town’s got them. They all shopped and dressed at the same time in the same place, they look cool, but somehow off. Trends are fighting with each other on their backs, clothes are wearing them instead of the other way around. There’s uniformity. There’s properness. Cheesiness. Blandness. They all have hats and caps, and mirror shades, and coloured nails, and rings, and distressed jeans, and text tees, and the same hair, and the same makeup. and that know-it-all-walk that’s meant to be swag. They all laugh and giggle at the same time, and the rest of the time they’re all practicing their poker faces. Because it’s so not cool to smile. Doh.

It’s like a scene from a cheap American teenage high school film, with very very pretty girls and too-cool-for-school-boys. Whatever. Hair flip.

Oh and of course they all have ‘cool’ hobbies all of a sudden like photography, brewed coffee, cooking, vinyls and the rest.

Don’t get me wrong though. There’s no fashion sin in the trends above, but can we get a bit of personality with each one? Can we see a new approach? No? Oh ok.

I think the moment you’re referred to as being cool you should reconsider everything before throwing your hands up in the air shouting Amen. Just saying you know.

I’m probably growing older with all this, cause I do sound a lot like my mum a few years back. OR it’s my job –  constantly on the prowl for new stories, way too connected to pop culture, trends, and the coolness of the kids these days, that’s making me long for two things: simplicity or over-the-top.

(1) Either a perfect effortlessness and simplicity that’s got nothing whatsoever to do with fashion or IN stuff, au contraire it’s minimal and clean on the outside, but deep and intense on the inside. I adore people who do their thing, like if white is in they’d still be draped in black, and if Kanye is running the world they’d still root for Hendrix. It’s people who never seek style or coolness but they end up being icons.

(2) Or an extreme, over-the-top way of expression like the ones the past has blessed us with. Watching ‘Vinyl’ made me realise how politically correct we all became, and how that is a great thing but how it killed a certain amount of creation and authenticity in us. The bit that’s raw and most genuine. We’ve become blasé and shit scared or just ignorant towards what we can do. In terms of cool nobody in the world will ever top David Bowie, The Beatles, Jane Birkin and Gainsbourg, Woody Allen, or Benicio de Toro. 

I mean I can see Benicio in his L.A. house listening to the latest Billboard hits, and googling hot trends 2016 to figure out what he’ll wear when he goes out to drink the new cool drink and eat the new cool meal in town. Or he’ll juice.

Right.

Okay… I ain’t saying we’re all saints here. God no! It takes a brain, a few balls, and some personality to not eat it all up like a starved ignorant though, but THAT’s another story.

We’re all guilty of a few and we all have out consumer pleasures (I’ll always be obsessed with bling and short modern poems aka #QOTD, and God knows I have too many sins to cary alone ), but to know when to sit one out, when to go all in, what to pick, and how to make it your own – that’s where it gets tricky, and where the line between cool and uncool blurs. And we’d better pray we’re on the right side here.

There are women who are cool with no trend existing on them whatsoever. It’s in the way they laugh or talk, or how strong and sexy they are, the things they know, the struggles they own, the talents that shaped them and so on.

And then there are women who can drape themselves in the funkiest things and crowd decades of trends on them and look unbelievably cool. Hello Rihanna.

Then there are those who change their looks to moods and style crushes but they always have their foundation. No matter what they wear, how different all is – you’ll know it’s their style. Hello massive bloggers.

It’s common knowledge some copy, some are. Hello history.

People watching over the weekend made me realise a few things: apparently everyone wants to be cool, and the fastest way there, is ditching your heels for ‘cool’ shoes. My husband and I were having dinner on Saturday, and everyone around us looked so cool he said. I agreed. Actually I was bombarded by the girls in hats, and checkered shirts, and distressed denim (is that still in btw? which is a weird Q considering, but I suspect the answer for them mattered, if you know what I mean), brogues and tennis shoes, and sneakers, and coloured bags, and bold lips, and jackets and dresses, and… oh my God my eyes are exhausted I thought. It was great at first, but then it felt weird, as if I’d fell into this massive bucket of coolness and trends, with a price to pay: boredom.

You might as well slap a fucking uniform on all of them and it’d be the same thing. Of course this goes further, I have no doubt about it. (yes my cynicism developed as did my age).

Below are some dope pics to put us on on the right track of cool. I mean we’re killing the word here (my bad, I take the fucking blame for this one), might as well let it die in the glory of the scroll.

Amen.

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So where’s the cool-uncool line? It all comes down to attitude and realness. If you feel what you say, if you pick your picks on what you love, if you have fun and not care what mortals think, if you understand what you read, if you’re heart dies a little on that song, or your feet beat the beat, if your clothes are a prolongation of your moods, and soul, and mind, and ideas, if you don’t try, if it comes to you easily – chances are you couldn’t care less about the issue, or how you come across. And that is dope.

Truth is some have it, some don’t.

xoxo.