Skulls or skirts?

[imomus]

I was probably trying too hard and overdressing wildly, but I set off to my meeting with the editor of Vice wearing the brightest colours my suitcase could muster, and a skirt. When you've been living out of a suitcase for weeks you start wearing stuff backwards and upside down just to make something new out of the same old clothes: the "skirt" was my Malay robe tied at the waist, the T shirt a nice one Mumbleboy gave me the other day.



My ultra-colourful ensemble was a sort of "fuck you" to the boringness and machismo of New York these days. It was a "fuck you" to the policemen who closed the Deitch party down last week, a "fuck you" to the gays in the West Village who never dress flouncy and girly any more, as if their feminine side has become somehow shameful, and a "fuck you" to my own inner cowardliness and desire not to stand out. (But remember, when people in New York say "Fuck you!" they really mean "Have a nice day". When people in LA say "Have a nice day" they really mean "Fuck you!") I also had a secret agenda: I desperately wanted to get into Vice's famous Dos and Don'ts page. I didn't care if I was a do or a don't, but I imagined the text reading something like this: "You gotta admit, it takes cojones to walk around New York City dressed as a gigantic flower. Sure, leather and studs is fine for the fags in the Village, but este hombre es muy macho!"



Perhaps I was just following the advice of a poster I saw on a Chelsea wall, a poster that said "Practice more failure" (a theme echoed in one of my Vice pieces, "Wrong is the new right"), but my garb felt so right and yet totally wrong. Right because it felt cool in the sweltering New York heat, as fresh as a yukata, loose around my limbs, non-toxic, reminding me of my sento spree last summer. Wrong because I was dressed for the wrong town. (And nobody at Vice batted an eyelid or made a single comment, let alone reached for a camera.)

While my crazy neo-hippy-femio colours and the unthreatening, childish imagery on Mumbleboy's t-shirt might have gone down well in Tokyo, they don't compute here in New York, where black is still the thing to wear. You wear black clothes, and you wear headbands, and you wear skull motifs. That's what Jesse and Phiiliip were wearing when I lunched and dined with them. It's what New York has always worn, really, from Lou Reed through Suicide and Richard Hell through The Strokes, right up to today's Williamsburgers. Black, black, black. Skulls, skulls, skulls. Of course, you can wear anything nutty here, and people just ignore you and tolerate you as a nut, one of millions of New York nuts. But if you wear black and skulls and a headband it computes.



Jesse gave me a copy of the new Vice and there were about a hundred skulls scattered through its pages. He told me the headband fad was down to Devendra Banhart, but while Devendra has adopted robes and Indian colours, it seems to me that his fans and followers are making some kind of bizarre blend of Electroclash, which many of them were into before they jumped onto the anti-folk bandwagon, and the softer hippy-folky thing that's come along since. They've picked up some kind of 60s rock look from Devendra (the headband hippy bit) but not the Indian bit. Which seems a pity. Dress Indian, America!

By the way, if you're an anti-folk fashion victim Jesse recommends a group called Tower Recordings, some of whom happen to be playing tonight (under the name PG 6) at Cakeshop at 152 Ludlow Street. Maybe I'll see you there. I'll be wearing my new skirt, bought at the Sally Army on Bedford Avenue for $3.48. As a concession to glum old New York, it's grey.

Comments

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

Who was it (someone famous) who once said that pink is the navy blue of India? Let's amend that to "pink is the black of India" or even "black is the pink of New York"!

[cutup.livejournal.com]

Momus. You rock.

[automatique.livejournal.com]

Yes, wearing skirts is fun isn't it! I've not dared do it in public since I wore shirt, tie and a black sarrong with white lilies printed up the front. On the bus. Going up the Isle of Dogs. Two old women looked at me with such malevolent anger burning in their eyes, I thought I may be smitten by god there and then.

Arriving at my destination, I was then told by my "friends" that I resembled Penelope Keith in "The Good Life".

[wrighter.livejournal.com]

an obvious influence from the lovely ladies of Grey Gardens.
heh.

[ex-roughandt782.livejournal.com]

neither big or little edie would have ever worn something as innocuous as a grey skirt, even if they were of the opposite sex. *yawn*

i tend to think that those with true style dont need to talk about it or defend it as much as momus does in this post.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

http://www.imomus.com/dailyphoto280503.html

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

that is a very nice outfit!

but i am a very poor judge of mainstream-underground "fashion". i'm just a synesthete with hippie parents. i do have skulls on my wallet...but they're splashed with lime green and smiling.

i felt out of place at shows/my old station for ages, and maybe i look ridiculous all the time...but it's too hot to wear all black and "computing" is sort of...boring. but then i'm my own primary audience and would probably be laughed out of Vice.

oh well. back to San Francisco today anyway.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

If you have a moment to answer an inquiry, what is anti-folk?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, Google is your best friend here. But I'd just say anti-folk is what young people today call folk. And I'd say it started with the Moldy Peaches, but some definitions could go all the way back to Beck.

[glowingwhispers.livejournal.com]

If I was a man, I'd wear skirts too. I find that there's something incredibly freeing about not having anything rubbing between your thighs. Plus, skirts are far less fussy than dresses.

My fashion trick? Always buy two identical skirts with elastic bands. That way they are (1) not see-through when layered and (2) you can always switch them around if I spill. Perhaps this second event happens all the time (read: hand-eye coordination flake) but you'd never know.

Out of curiousity, is the eye patch more a medical or fashion necessity?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I adopted the eye patch at the point in my acanthamoeba keratitis treatment when I had irritating, confusing double vision. Now the eye is blind and looks a bit milky-googly, so I keep wearing the patch largely for aesthetic reasons. I try to make a virtue out of necessity.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

lovelovelove your dancing skirting pictures. very sexy.

(my eyepatch is all jealous costuming for the local goth prom. because everyone secretly wants to be pirates.)

[josephnoh.livejournal.com]

anti-folk is terrible, well not the Peaches, just that one guy named Joie of Dead Blonde Girlfriend

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be repetitive as I know I've asked you this before. Where did you get the orange head covering? I remember it having a special name and I believe you said it was from Japan, but have since lost the email when my old computer died a month back.

The outfit is beautiful. It would fit in well at my workplace as there is a group of us with firm philosophical beliefs that color, especially in its most vibrant forms, must have a rightful place in daily life to counteract the greys of cubicles and generic office decor. If only I had pics of my friend saaremyrene (that is her lj user name). I believe she would make you proud.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

it's very hard to imagine.... Wait, it's not, they do that here aswell, that people walk around with dark clothes in this heat!! Damn, do they want to die or warm up from the winter? We're in the middle of summer!!

the devil in skirts!

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

but then being scottish you are used to wearing skirts! the comedy army in "carry on up the khyber" were called: the devils in skirts! (which of course they weren't at all, what with charlie hawtrey garding the pass!)

so momus is the new charlie hawtrey of india

[aairplane.livejournal.com]

i HIGHLY recommend the "furniture music for evening shuttles" lp by the tower recordings. it came it sometime in the mid-to-late 90s and is super ahead of it's time. there's this super rad, spacey cover of the mutantes song "delmark-q" on it!

[trayce.livejournal.com]

The irony is, black AND skirts on men work so well in the goth scene, here in Melbourne anyway. You can look fabulous in a long wraparound number or miniskirt and fishnets (if you think you can get away with it) and no one thinks you're making a drag statement at all. One of the blokiest men I know looks fabulous in a short skirt and tights on his pins.

[(Anonymous)]

Goths!!

I'm off...

Angelblood.

[peripherus-max.livejournal.com]

The black/skulls thing in Brooklyn always makes me think about Angelblood. Ever heard of these guys, they're... well, check it out:

"Angelblood was formed in NYC in 2000. Gnarled chants and incantations alternate with ethereal floating singing, conjuring the images and emotions of pagan ritual, blood sacrifice, and the quest for redemption. Dark metal undertow set to melodies of an earthy folk bent, a unique, swaying, dirge-like atmosphere --- interrupted by the growl of the hunter-wolf, the bellow of the slain beast. Not only a band, Angelblood is also a performance art group, with dark motifs and ritualized action. In all its incarnations, Angelblood is characterized by a raw, almost desperate approach to art and life. A rebellious attitude of refusal and iconoclasm, coupled with a sense of pathos and reverance. Artists Rita Ackermann and Liz Bougatsos sing in the band, backed by Brian Degraw, Dave Nuss, Matt Heyner, and Anders Nilsson. The members overlap with No-Neck Blues Band and Gang Gang Dance."

Re: Angelblood.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Brian Degraw is the skullmaster general! He's a key figure in this whole skulls thing that's going on. Oh, which reminds me, I totally forgot to mention one of the other memes doing the rounds in New York just now: Morrissey and The Smiths. There are Morrissey and The Smiths evenings at Sway (DJed by, surprise surprise, Brian Degraw), The Smiths were playing in the cafe where I had lunch with Jesse Pearson. "This Morrissey and The Smiths thing is getting ridiculous," said Jesse, as "How Soon As Now" played.

[foxysquid.livejournal.com]

This wasn't, by any chance, you in Overheard in New York yesterday, was it?

Construction guy #1: Hey, pretty boy! Whatcha got under that skirt?
Guy in skirt: Your girlfriend's fantasy.
Construction guy #2: Oh, shit. He got you there, dude.

Ah, well, it could very easily have been another guy in a skirt. Anyway, I do wish more men would follow your fashion example.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Bravo, Nick--real men are peacocks, not mildew.
(Stands and salutes, with fan.)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Jorge's new series of imaginary folk dresses might prove an inspiration to the people of Goth-am:



http://www.jorgecolombo.com/folklore/

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

as kraftwerk put it:

"i'm a momus and i'm looking cute
but when i'm in new york i'll be misunderstood

i may turn 45
or even older,
with time

but therefore stay no boylie?
that i'll call a crime!"

momus, you are a garden.

ps
anti-folk is a strange term.
the wire called it "new weird america" in an article about a year ago or two. ain't better. but tower recordings, six organs of admittance, jack rose, charalambides, jackie o'motherfucker are worth your time to hunt & listen, when the banhart feels a bit worn off. from there, you may go to will oldham, current 93, acid mothers temple, keiji haino, the one ensemble of daniel padden, angels of light, eugene chadbourne, sun city girls ...

[transient-poet.livejournal.com]

Is your installation/performance piece still running. I have a Rumanian friend who I really think should see it if it is. Thanks. BTW, I love the orange and pink head and neck thing.

[invent-this.livejournal.com]

Nick, you are incredibly stylish.
Love the orange hood.
Maybe the orange hood could replace those horrible backward baseball caps.

A girl can only dream.

[azzy23.livejournal.com]

I've scanned through my page 3 or 4 times now, and everytime I see your icon I giggle.

Overheard today

[jedhed.livejournal.com]

Was this Momus?

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/002034.html

[autokrater.livejournal.com]

yeah..i get upset with the head band fad.i always thought of headbands as a workout type thing...like my silver glittery one.
people like black cause it's safe..
it matches with everything
it's a unisex color
it's totally boring.
i agree with you and admire your balls for going all out like that.
last night i was watching this program about leigh bowery
and the stuff he would wear to parties..it got me so heated about how everything has become boring and drab.
think about the patterns of the 60's,70's and 80's..
trendy men's clothes in the 60's/70's
the average man wouldn't be caught dead in a flower pattern button down shirt with ruffles or tight corduroy pants.
once the 90's grunge/alternative scene came,a t-shirt and jeans was the basic outfit..dark colors were in and bright colors were disgusting..
me and my friends have been buying late 80's/early 90's clothes lately..
like the most horrible clothes/color patterns of all time..
when i went to l.a i expected there to be people standing out a bit
but it was just hipsters in bootcut jeans/denim
same in new york
after watching the leigh bowery thing i took a bunch of photos wearing a plastic bag,fake blood,a heavy winter coat hood on my face and spandex..
when i read your post i realize even more how i don't belong here
l.a or new york i will still be bored,nothing too wild is ever worn and everyone is not as open as we like to imagine they are

[theskycankill.livejournal.com]

Pg Six is just one member of Tower Recordings. His album Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites has been on a constant spin in my house for the last year. I hope you enjoy the show. I just saw him play at a house in North Philly and it was a very nice experience.