Supermarkets and style

[imomus]

The big supermarket for the downtown Friedrichshain area is Kaiser's on the Warschauer Strasse. It's my local Berlin supermarket, and I must say that of all the cities I've lived in, and all the supermarkets I've frequented, it has the youngest and most "alternative" clientele. Last time I was in there I saw a crusty-hippy-punky-squat girl tasting one grape from each packet. She must have eaten a whole packet's worth right there at the fruit counter. It was a kind of grape taxation, and she clearly felt entitled to it.

Supermarkets I have known: my last two London supermarkets were Tesco Metro in Covent Garden and the Barbican Safeways. At Tesco Metro I always thought the Filippino check out girls were the coolest-looking people there, young and beautiful and fairly natural-looking, while the customers, mostly local shop and office workers, sported naff clothes, semi-celeb tans, and over-styled, highlit, trickledown hairstyles. At the Barbican Safeways you'd see some pretty students from the nearby Guildhall School of Music: rather serious and conservative young people carrying violin cases. In New York I frequented the ultra-smelly Hong Kong Supermarket on the corner of East Broadway and Allen Street. I was often the only non-Chinese in there, and loved the cheap and dirty exoticism. (Typical basket: weird spicy salads containing marinated peanuts, Corn Flakes, chick peas, oranges, milk, a copy of the New York Times.) In Paris my favourite supermarket was Tang Freres, a huge oriental supermarket in the 13th arrondissement, though I'd usually just buy food from the local alimentation in Montmartre. In Tokyo I haunted Sunday Mart, where the Meguro Dori meets Yamate Dori. That was tidy, domestic, noisy (lounge muzak clashed with the Sakana fish song) and hideously expensive. This last time in Tokyo I found a much nicer supermarket hidden behind a narrow shopping street in Nishi-Ogi, filled with musicians with spiky dyed Men's Non-No haircuts.

Back to Berlin, and Kaiser's. Here are some snaps I shot of customers (including me) when I was in there yesterday evening:



Berlin sometimes seems like a museum of youth culture styles we invented in Britain: punk, goth, Spiral Tribe crusty. In Britain there's a perpetual dialectic between alternative lifestyles and the money system, which means that within a couple of years any given subcultural style will have been turned into a big business club scene, and then, shortly after that, will be the soundtrack and the style of a bank commercial, and, just after that, will be utterly naff, dead and unmentionable. But in Berlin it seems that punk, goth, industrial and rave looks are adopted for life by people who live them as permanent subcultural styles, entirely apart from the money system. Nobody hypes them up, buys them out, and flogs them dead. The styles are "timeless and eternal", the visual corollary of a life of protest and tolerated companionable deviance. Their adepts resemble post-protestant monks and nuns who've taken lifetime vows ("I will own two big dogs and make sculpture out of junk"). It's touching but also somewhat appalling.

So while I find the looks on offer at Kaiser's interesting, I feel like I could never quite admire them or want to copy them. I don't share the conception of style of these subcultural Berliners. Their looks seem very retro, very flashbacky to me, although they'd probably think me superficial for saying that. I mean, this girl with her shaved head, long Orthodox Jewish forecurl (the hairstyle Devendra Banhart wore when he was at SFIA, apparently), tartan mini-skirt, yellow tights, trainers... she looks like a Turkish Modette or a post-punk art student from 1981. As for the guy with the blue-striped eyebrows and the blue-tipped hair, I fully expect to see him next on some rave-carnival wasteground breathing fire and juggling with fibre-optic skittles. Very 1988! And very Berlin (though in fact he turned out to be English).

As for the bloke below, the one with the eye-patch, well, it's clear that he takes his style from thrift shops, from Asian people, and from the very elderly. For instance, he probably thinks the coolest person in Berlin is either his Japanese girlfriend or the 94 year-old lady with the short mannish hairstyle who lives next door. In fact, he probably just moved into a flat vacated by another guy with a Japanese girlfriend, and probably just sent his friend news of that old lady next door, and got a reply that said: "Great to hear things are working out in the new apartment; and funny that story about seeing your neighbor, Mrs. Pankow, with the bathroom door open. I love that woman. Sometimes Kaori and I would say hello to her and she would come to the door with a robe on that exposed at least one of her breasts. Very free I guess."

Comments

[bardot.livejournal.com]

i like to dress for the supermarket (housedresses and such). sometimes i wish i could dress like this (http://sugarpusher.com/wendy/lj/mar05/produce.jpg) for market more often.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I was formulating an answer, but your decolleté made it go clean out of my head.

yum

[(Anonymous)]

"Typical basket: weird spicy salads containing marinated peanuts, Corn Flakes, chick peas, oranges, milk, a copy of the New York Times."

On a first read I took the ambiguous serialization the funny way.

Re: yum

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Stir slowly over a low flame, sprinkling in the New York Times section by section...

[fraisinette.livejournal.com]

The girl in the yellow tights didn't happen to be American, did she? She looks exactly like a friend of mine who's wandering the world avoiding an inevitable slide into academia.

[depechenick.livejournal.com]

the supermarket is the last great ritual of modern society.

those shoppers look awful. prime specimens of the sickness of post-industrial "civilization". what am i looking at, a fucking cartoon show?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

what am i looking at, a fucking cartoon show?

Many people do seem to aspire to be manga characters these days. Check out Garnier's Manga Head (http://www.garnierbeautybar.co.uk/manga/index.asp).

[queersolitude.livejournal.com]

i frequent the trader joe's on santa monica blvd (between la brea and fairfax) in west hollywood.

clientel is a hybrid of various (youth) subcultures, "LA stereotypes", orthodox jews, eastern european immigrants (a lot of them elderly) and latin american immigrants.

i've yet to come across any ill behaved children.

[amohongos.livejournal.com]

Nobody hypes them up, buys them out, and flogs them dead.

This is an interesting theory, but I don't think I agree with it. Berliners don't live in a void. They see American and British TV, watch American movies, etc., so they must know that the styles you saw at the grocery store are outmoded and corpratized elsewhere in the world.

[(Anonymous)]

having lived in Berlin for quite sometime, I have to agree with momus - young berliners are mostly either a very cheap imitation of MTV stereotypes (the most horrible fake tans youve ever seen) or punks/alternative dudes who dont even own tvs that let them know about that stuff. Film theaters are usually out of their budget too and all that imagery is difficult to see on the streets.
The best thing about it is that even if the rest of the world has forgotten about electronic dance music you will always find some place in berlin to get wasted on E and dance to techno with bald people. It doesnt feel like that will ever change, not in a hundred years

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

That looks like a rather large package of toilet paper in your basket.

You're the only of the three who seems to be buying real food. The guy with the special eyebrows seems to be picking up some booze on his way to a party, and the neon-glo lady seems to be after some junk food and ice-cream (?).

[aidaho.livejournal.com]

i want your jacket.

[la-aquarius.livejournal.com]

Funny how the market's a fashion show. I've taken up with bourgie places like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, just for health's sake. But I do see the beautiful people, some generic and others genuinely so.

If you're in the L.A. area, let me recommend the TJ's in Silver Lake. You'll have to endure the current trucker hats, Ugg boots and knit ponchos galore, but some of the women and men wearing them are quite stunning.

[queersolitude.livejournal.com]

consumer reports recently gave trader joe's high ratings on low prices, quality and service. and also from personal experience, most of their stuff is cheaper than any other mainstream market that i have come across, other than jon's.

whole foods is significantly more expensive than trader joe's (produce at least. although, i am not too familiar with whole food's prices since i do not regularly shop there).

[(Anonymous)]

In a recent copy of Vogue, it mentioned geek boys are the latest accessories to have thanks to Seth Cohen from The OC…are Japanese girls the equivalent for ‘design orientated’ guys?

uhmmm i don't mean this comment to be rude, just observation... i am sure the guy with the eye-patch loves his gf very much. Plus, Asian girls are just too adorable! :)

On a different note, check out that GIANT Haribo stand…….*drool*

Jane

[depechenick.livejournal.com]

wow. i just realized i actually went to that exact supermarket during my very short visit to berlin last summer. I was only there for a couple of days, en route to athens and back through berlin to new york. i didn't see anyone too interesting in there, though.

during that trip i noticed that berliners tend to dress individualistically at the expense of looking ridiculous. athenians on the other hand tend to dress attractively, but at the expense of being conformist.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Mediterranean cultures—and I'd include that whole tranche of peninsulas from Greece to France—tend to avoid the extremities of subcultural style, and I think it's because these tend to originate in Protestant and Post-Protestant cultures (the US, UK, Holland, Germany) and be an expression of "protest" values, a permanent "reformation". French, Portugese, Spanish, Italians, Greeks tend to be much more family-oriented and, as you say, conformist, either Catholic or Greek Orthodox culturally, Classical-Catholic rather than Romantic-Protestant.

Japan is unusual in that it has wild styles and conservatism side by side, and that wildness is never subcultural in Japan, it's never protest against the social order. Marxy has a recent post about Tenkou (http://www.pliink.com/mt/marxy/archives/2005_05.html), the "forced conversion" that happens when young Japanese style kids "go straight" and knuckle down to their first real job.

[pansy-burke.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's still an outcome of The Wall's break down.
In the end of the 80s there were no more punkish people visible on the streets of Berlin.
Then after The Wall came down it was a big punk revival and some kind of parallel society in eastern and western Berlin. Especially from Poland and Russia came tons of punks, living in the squatted houses of east Berlin in the very early 90s.
Nowadays it seems to be more mixed. That eastern retro style has influenced the entire city.
Now both exist at the same time: the white trash Aldi punk and the fashion victim banker punk. I'm not sure which on is more boring...

[automatique.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you don't mean the Barbican Safeways?

That's where I used to hang out when I was a student at the GSMD... with the rather serious and conservative young people carrying violin cases who are all called Rachael, by the way.

It became a Somerfield last year, I think, maybe a Morrisons.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. It was a Safeways when I shopped there between 1997 and 2000.

[trickybrkn.livejournal.com]

the candy for sale in Friedrichshain seems that same as New York City.
the fashion in my local supermarket, is a mix of old Italian Ladies in house coats and FuBu while you listen to the Thompson Twins or Howard Jones.

innit.

My favourite supermarkets..

[mara1.livejournal.com]

are the chinese supermarkets. Noodles everywhere and those funny little dragon lollys...cant wait to move back to Edinburgh so i have access to them again. Yum.

[sweetnessss.livejournal.com]

I like to watch people at supermarkets. I like to peek into their shopping baskets to see what they want to buy, to imagine their lives. Actually I've always wanted to photograph this. Maybe invent a memory game like.. "Match the shoe to the groceries" - as we all know that shoes say a whole lot too.

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Last time I was in there I saw a crusty-hippy-punky-squat girl tasting one grape from each packet. She must have eaten a whole packet's worth right there at the fruit counter.

This reminds me somewhat of an episode of The Golden Girls:

Dorothy: Eating grapes at the supermarket is illegal, but you still do it.
Rose: I have to test them.
Dorothy: One is testing, Rose, fourteen is brunch.

In other news, my bank balance may decide the retailers I visit, but I'm sure that if I were wealthy, my parsimonious sensibilities would still have me attending the more... economical shops.

Currently all my clothes are purchased in Oxfam or the Heart Foundation, my food is purchased in LiDL (how did I ever manage without it?) or pound-shops. Occasionally, I visit Tesco to browse their own brands (I purchased "Tesco 35mm Film" a few weeks ago for £1!) and I sometimes peruse the "Reduced to Sell" stalls in Boots to find lunch for 75p. I also bring a flask of tea every day to my art class. My grandmother was a great washer of brains, in case you hadn't noticed... And possibly a communist, now that I think about it.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

So that's why all my thirty-something goth friends like Germany so much...

I like the Neue Stadten (sp?) myself, where you can still find hordes of unreconstructed metallers with glorious manes in bandshirts and tight jeans.

Warsaw, Poland

[porandojin.livejournal.com]

While in Warsaw please avoid all kinds of supermarkets ... the only ones i can reccommend are those old communist-era leftovers held by cooperatives




but not for actual shopping just to see cool pavillon late-modernist architecture and angry looking staff with big hair and vivid makeup ...

to buy any kind of food please do choose local open-air food market- there are old people in their fab clothes, and just every example of east-european population and it is a bit like fellini's roma experience ...

Re: Warsaw, Poland

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, we shop at one like this in Berlin, unfortunately it's only on Saturdays (at Boxhagener Platz market). A bit further afield is the Maybachufer market, Tuesdays and Fridays in Kreuzberg. Frabjous garb there.

[ohtedium.livejournal.com]

You can find a lot of other people similar to the second man pictured at Burning Man.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Wait, I'm the second man pictured!

[lepinktrash.livejournal.com]

i am the other non-asian in the 'Hong Kong Supermarket', although they have changed the name and reduced the size of the aisles to a one-way shopping experience.
Actually, where i live now (montreal, outremont quarter), i'm surrounded by haisid jews. i'm the only non-kosher item in the 'le cacherie', or, the only one without a six-figure income in 'the four seasons'.

there is a bakery in china town 'golden happiness' that produces even better pastries than 'cheskie's' (le four du juif).

[lepinktrash.livejournal.com]

oh, and i have a striped brown coat siamese to yours, unless someone is playing a trick, and we are sharing the same brown jacket. that would be unbeleivable.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(Looks at label.) Alexander's Wide World of Fashion. Made in Poland. Bought in a YMCA in Detroit.

[(Anonymous)]

That looks disturbingly like a jar of ready-made tomato sauce in your trolley. Surely not!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

No no, we trample all our tomatoes by foot for several hours a day. Humanely, with a vet standing by in case anything should go wrong.

[pinkfoils.livejournal.com]

I live in a suburb really close to Los Angeles, so I'm within a 5 mile radius of 7 rather polished, modern Japanese supermarkets, 1 huuuuuge overall Asian market [there's an entire aisle the size of an American supermarket aisle for noodles alone], 2 African markets, 4 Vietnamese markets, 1 Middle-eastern market, some small Indian markets I have yet to visit, and of course, numerous Mexican meat markets. It's rather nice to be able to completely avoid the after-work crowds at the American markets, pushing their frozen food-filled carts to the registers like zombies.

Though I'm in the suburbs, so you won't really find too many young, interesting people. Mostly children and parent/grandparent types. Unless you're at the Japanese bookstore, flipping through the magazines with the other Non-no-influenced Japanese girls, which I'm sure you would be, were you condemned to living here! [I've carved out my geography here, and it revolves mostly around that very bookstore and other non-hellish places, so it's not too bad, but I still wouldn't wish Southern California upon anyone]

Barbican Safeways

[(Anonymous)]

It went - Safeways, then Morrisons, then Somerfield. It doesn't seem to have changed otherwise, though - IE, it still sells Warburtons bread, which is the main thing. I'm off their tomorrow, and I'll let you know if there's been any more changes. Maybe.