Hell looks

[imomus]

The BBC website today tells us that creative people are luckier in love. "If you are hoping to improve your love life, it may be wise to develop artistic traits, researchers suggest. The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have."

But Jani, one of the Finnish youths caught by the roving cameras of Hel-Looks, a fabulous and appalling website documenting the street style of Helsinki, has a much more direct approach. Never mind writing poetry, "to get girls a boy needs to have J-P Gaultier perfume, a foundation and a good hair cut."

The fact that Jani is wearing a bad suit, bad shoes, a bad shirt, and has a terrible haircut is all part of the riotous amusement provided by this website, which provokes as many genuine questions as bellylaughs. It's understandable, if a bit depressing, that so many Finns are wearing H&M, the Ikea of the garment trade. It's grimly predictable that many of them would be goths, like Saana and Emilia, who "like skulls and tattoos! The more tattoos you have, the better. Except on the face." And sure, anyone who's watched Aki Kaurismaki or seen the Leningrad Cowboys knows that Finland loves 1950s American style, just as anyone who's seen the documentaries of Mika Taanila can predict that 70s hippy style will figure too.

But why are there so many Hanoi Rocks fans in Finland? And why are so many Finn-teens wannabe Japanese? Iiris "dreams of a trip to Japan". Iines is "a manga and anime freak" and dresses in Gothic Lolita style, like many, many other teenagers here. Mia is dressed in the retarded toddler style familiar from Shoichi Aoki's FRUiTS. In fact, this whole website, and this way of photographing street fashion, wouldn't be possible without Aoki's influence.

Of course, they're not really trying now, but back in the 90s the Japanese did these styles so much better than today's Finns. Flick back 8 years in the archives Shift keeps of Girls on the Street and you'll see that. Japanese teens in 1997 looked totally 21st century, whereas Jenni and Aaron ("we don't want to shock – we just want to broaden the minds of Finnish people"), in 21st century Helsinki, look horribly, terminally, criminally 1997.

I can't help thinking that cities and their styles are quite closely tied to economics, and that there's a pecking order, with global cities like New York, London and Paris inevitably sporting more creative street fashion than second division provincial cities like Helsinki. That said, I did find some nice looks in Finland. I'm into the beardy look sported by Juuso or Matu. I like Heikki's credo: "My style is incoherent, cheap and ethical. I only buy second hand." And I like the girls who dress in what I'd consider specifically Finnish vernacular styles, like red-booted Susannah or Aleksandra, who roots for "homespun designer labels".

Enhancing versions of the traditions of your locality, rather than copying the Japanese styles of the last decade, is the way to dress in a fresh and contemporary way, it seems to me. I hardly even look at street fashion photos from Japan any more, so grey and boring have they become. Let's hope that, on the theory that hemlines follow the stock market, the fact that the Nikkei has just topped 15,000 will bring a bit of colour back to the streets of Daikanyama. Otherwise, where are the Finn teens of 2012 going to get their inspiration?

Comments

[eptified.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. It just cut through all my guilt, all at once. I think there is something inherently heartwarming about scandinavians.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

It saddens me to say that we have the same issue here in sweden. If I didn't already know that those two photos are taken on finns I would've believed that it was swedes!

What do you think of this dressing style? (http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d111/Cap_scaleman/fashion1.jpg)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think you need horn-rimmed glasses or something, those ones clash with the look.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, of course we scandinavians have a boring, uniform way of dressing. We don't exactly have access to fashion like you do in Paris or Berlin, and most people don't design their own clothes. Bland manga and lolita goth is in now, and one of the few things being imported. That is disturbing, but no more prevalent in Helsinki than in the rest of Europe, I suspect. Alexandra in the picture, by the way, may look homespun but is just slavishly buying the same trendy clothes from the same hip labels as everybody else. She would be wearing fashion goth if they started selling it in Myymälä2.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, your fashion writing has made my internet-surfing morning far longer than it should be and i haven't done any of the chores i'm meant to do...and now i feel an unignorable urge to head down camden to buy some sparkly legwarmers. Thanks. Seriously, write about style and clothes and aesthetics and trends more often! it's rarely analysed, usually just commented on without humour, probably because it's seen as a frivolous subject and i guess those who write about fashion usually only write about fashion so their thoughts are yawnsomely narrow. There's room for much more humorous and thoughtful fashion writing, and although i strongly believe that the fashion industry is as superfluous and pointless as it is wonderful (though i saw the most stylish clothes all year this summer worn by people in vietnam whose annual income is 1/10th of mine), i still find myself almost academically analytical about what people wear and about what my style is on a certain day. Trivial? Probably.

But never mind! what's with the gothic lolita obsession in helsinki? it has to stop over the age of 15 but they all seem to have 'found' it as the way to express themselves. All of 'em...this is trend not style, hopefully they'll be embarrassed out of it before long to start being more elegant and thinking about what suits their bodies (like some japanese can do so perfectly), but at least a lot of the helsinkians seem to be making their own clothes.

by the way have you been to h&m recently? seems to me that there must be one inherently talented designer there whose classically stylish, perfectly fitting, just 17 circa 1993 (the golden age of tomboy style) creations somehow manage to sneak into the stores along with the rest of the j-lo inspired dross. so do not underestimate it!

eli

[dzima.livejournal.com]

If the fashion is not up to scratch, maybe the architecture in Helsinki (http://www.architectureinhelsinki.com/) is better?

punk muslim

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

"I'm a walking contradiction because I respect the muslim traditions, but I mix traditional clothing with punk style. I'm sure there are no other muslim girls with a similar style in Finland"

or anywhere

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The BBC website today tells us that creative people are luckier in love.

It tells us they get more sex. That might be because they're unluckier in love, and hence have more, shorter, relationships...

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

Well, judging from this site, I still think that the Finns are a more attractively dressed bunch that what I see most of the time in London in Shoreditch and elsewhere. Moreover, the clothes look like they've had a wash and press in the past week. I expect to see designer trousers soon in London that feature piss stains and the like added at considerable expense.

And I was about to write "of course, Hanoi Rocks were from Finland" but, ah, now I get you. Mind you, better Hanoi Rocks style than Saxon or similar...

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

Yes, everybody in Shoreditch dresses just rubbish, but the same goes for London in general, and just about the whole of England - unless you count the bling thing.

Johnny Foreigner always tells me:

"What's wrong with The English - they don't look like anything anymore."

While I'd like to be able to say it's indicative of a mass unconscious refusal to keep re-booting the tyrranical cultural power-pack of the Anglo-American pop axis of evil - the truth is, the English have, at least for the time being, given up the ghost and now wish to be invisible/dead.

I dress more-or-less exclusively from H&M - but this is mainly because of my girlfriend. I've become like an old Yorkshire farmer whose wife buys their clothes for them, and who would never enter into as base and vile an establishment as a clothes shop.

I don't actually believe in clothes anymore, not for the same reason as my contemporaries, though. I believe that the true mensch lives and dies by his actions and his own personal charisma, to which cloth is but a mere distraction.

suomi

[cheapopulance.livejournal.com]

i lived in finland for 5 years. there always seemed to be this very conscious effort to be a stylish, usually resulting in a uniformed militia of h&m doppelgangers.

the finns often gravitate toward austere lutheran minimalism, or rebel against it with death metal and goth get ups (or maybe just a reaction to the long dark winter).
japan is the steroetypical motherland of beautiful simplicities. it seems natural that a counry where design easily takes precedence over art would look to japan for inspiration.

i agree with you, i think finland's cultural heritage is rich, with the best food and candy in the world, wonderful clothing like marimekko, saunas, and of course the kalevala, could and will be fodder for those less taken to shopping and more interested in creating.

[reggie-c-king.livejournal.com]

I have to second the voice that commended your fashion journalism. More, please. It interests me no end.

I fear Belfast is so far down the list of cities that it explains the appalling dress everywhere. I think that Finns dressing as if it were 1997 is better than Belfasters slavishly dressing as if it were 2005. At least they are showing some consideration on the matter, if not being pro-actively creative about it.

My ladyfriend and had once thought of attempting a small Fruits-type experiment here, but soon realised it would as accurate, but less time-consuming, to take one picture and photocopy it one hundred-fold.

[(Anonymous)]

It's weird how you wrote this, after I was thinking only this morning about your writing on style and fashion and how wrong you are...

An example; you deride morbid greys and blacks and ""fashion goth"", but fail to understand that goth is now "cute"... Hello Kitty with a knife in her face or Yoshitomo Nara, cuddly Kenny from South Park, Camden Teenagers doing the frilly 'classic goth' with little black heart-shaped handbags...

Goth no longer indicates how deep you are, but how light!

[iamcoreyd.livejournal.com]

My good friend Jeremias Hiekka in Finland tells me about this. I think it's hilarious, like every awful subculture of the US amplified. I think a reason that they all have such an odd fascination for the foreign is that they really don't have any immigrants come into the country.

[nato-dakke.livejournal.com]

you're looking in the wrong place for color. If all of the designer boutiques in japan have desaturated their designs over the past few seasons it's because the low end places like Uniqlo have done exactly the opposite. Bright, easy to match and play with colors are all you see inside there. In fact, black is relatively rare at uniqlo.

Considering this, I wonder if lack of color is not becoming a socioeconomic indicator, as in "only the poor would be caught in pink, green and orange this season."

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

well hello nate, aren't you supposed to be busy with your studies?

this is an interesting observation - Bourdieu isn't sleeping.

Hel Sinky

[tassellrealm.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hel_(goddess)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/article-lkj-04-03-06-f.htm

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Please, if there is a supreme being, get me out of Minnesota.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

And yes, I am suggesting a latitudinal correlation.

[soisaysthis.livejournal.com]

"Enhancing versions of the traditions of your locality...is the way to dress in a fresh and contemporary way"

but doesn't your self-proclaimed "fashion muslim" style conflict with this notion?

while it is clearly not happening with the people in these photos, can't people dress fresh and contemporary by enhancing versions of the traditions in other people's localities? isn't that what most of those fruits styles were doing?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You're right, my fashion muslim thing is not what I'm advocating here, but there are many ways to butter a parsnip (and I certainly don't wear that fashion muslim thing every day). Actually, some of the Hels-kids are doing this rather successfully, like Juulia (http://www.hel-looks.com/?p=image/archives/2/20051107_01/) working the Mongolian look.

[silencezero.livejournal.com]

the simo and wili picture (http://www.hel-looks.com/?p=image/archives/1/20051122_01/) was taken at the wolf parade concert here in helsinki last week.

when i walked into the venue and saw them talking to a photographer i knew a few days later it would turn up on hel-looks.com as they had the perfect hel-looks..erm..look. but the overall style on the site would be representative of a very small percentage of the people here.

dw

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

WHO DARES ROUSE THE SLUMBER OF WHIMSY? ROWRRR!

(oh goodness, where to begin...)

Authenticity is an affectation, too. In fact, it is the most selfish of all affectations, because one lends no pleasure to anyone else when one acts, speaks and dresses in a mundane way.

Provincialism is no excuse for aesthetic laziness; in fact, provincialism can be quite liberating from the sometimes stultifying "scenes" in larger ciities. Nick touches on this when he says "Enhancing versions of the traditions of your locality, rather than copying the Japanese styles of the last decade, is the way to dress in a fresh and contemporary way, it seems to me." And I agree. Since most of us are provincials, it seems wise policy for us to create our own litlle aesthetic microclimates and enjoy the luxury of "getting it wrong."

~W

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

You assume that authenticity is inherently mundane. I agree that, typically speaking, authenticity is rather banal. However, authenticity is certainly capable of as much magic as artifice.

The difference is most often in quality and quality is most often a result of intent. Authenticity lacks intent because it is the default value, but it doesn't always lack quality.

By the way, you have been very LJ-active as of late. It is certainly a pleasure.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Some of these 50's characters remind me of the stilyagi of Stalin-era Russia, who would make ties from cigarette packaging, make their own clunky leather shoes, use curling irons to flip up their hair in the back and chew a wad of parrafin wax to affect the nonchalance of chewing gum. They would refer to each other as "Joe" or "Bob", and smuggle in old hot jazz records and copy them onto x-ray prints.

[slime-slime-sly.livejournal.com]

WOW tell me more about that please!

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I was being chatted about (http://brightshiny.thejetsetjunta.se/?p=27) in Scandanavia over the summer, so perhaps we may be complaining about how tiresomely "Whimsyish" Helsinki has become in 2012. Or not.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

So many fashion muslims! The only thing I have to compare is my own man-skirt tableau: Siamese Fantasy with Waterfowl. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/lord_whimsy/77910.html#cutid1)

Playtime over; back to edits.

~W

Re: punk muslim

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

In Muslim countries, being a fashion Muslim and going out without a male relative usually results in some sort of severe punishment, does it not?


Maybe that's why there aren't as many Fashion Muslims around as there could be.

[dr-deadmeat.livejournal.com]

Enhancing versions of the traditions of your locality, rather than copying the Japanese styles of the last decade, is the way to dress in a fresh and contemporary way

Urban Morris Dancer for the discerning Middle Englander in Spring/Summer 06!

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I was really disappointed to find out that the person in the picture was an unfashionable straight man and not a ultrahep boydyke.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Oh, he's not hurting anyone--I actually feel bad for him, being unwittingly held up to ridicule.

Besides, like Logan P. Smith once said, "One cannot be both fashionable and first-rate."

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I think Matu (http://www.hel-looks.com/?p=image/archives/18/20050724_08/) looks awesome, like an exact cross between Will Oldham and Mike Love. Gone gay.

Very interesting post, momus!

I didn't see a problem....

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

I thought both examples were kind of cute, but eh, perhaps that's why I live HERE! (My husband's family are Finnish damit) ;)

Graphic Design

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Nick,

My name is Jean-Baptiste Petitpas, a French photographer and graphic designer. A couple of weeks ago I e-mailed you a couple of cover mock-ups for the new record that you are working on. Just wondering if you received the files and what you thought of them.

Merci,

Jean-Baptiste

www.jean-baptistepetitpas.com

Momus the artist

[(Anonymous)]

Just read on artnet that you had been selected for the 2006 Whitney Bienniale. Congratulations! Make sure to get a postcard made to go with the piece, that's where the money is.

Lord Archibald

FinnFashions

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder what you would make out of the Finnish "pissis" style:
http://phinnweb.blogspot.com/2005/09/pissis.html

pHinn
http://www.phinnweb.org/