As THIS video testified recently, I’m living in an area of London which only the following adjectives could even hope to describe (and fail miserably in doing so): trendy, edgy, cool, even, as my mum loves to say “hip, hop and happening" (cue almighty inner nausea cringe).
Does anyone else find it utterly enthralling that their parents’ 1980s wardrobe is now the epitome of urban street chic?
Round yonder where I live the streets thrum with life, and people who would get beaten up outside of Watford for wearing “vintage finds” (read. hideously expensive retro clothing/mum’s cast-offs) spill onto pavements in a tangle of artfully clipped hair.
I’ve seen more quilted jackets than at a Pony Club Rally and more Barbours than at a shoot being paraded about recently. Checked shirts, beloved of country-sports shops, now appear on every corner. Oversized floral jumpers and lurid knits sag above skin-tight leggings and beneath bed-head hair swept into a knotted headscarf. Don’t even get me started on those little brown boots being stomped about by every hipster from Hoxton to Holborn. Mum was rocking those bad boys way back in school-run time in the 1990s. Now Primark will do you a replica pair for sixteen quid. Shocking.
Thus, in true bargain hunter style, we’ve gone native. The return home was not merely an excuse to say au revoir to the parents before moving proper. It was simply a field trip to the greatest vintage emporium known to man: Mum and Dad’s wardrobe.
A quick rummage has already turned up a very-now camel blazer, aforementioned (still repulsive, sorry Mum) brown boots, delectable cotton and silk shirts from China (banned from moving) and hoards of jumpers in a rainbow of colours and spectrum of sizes.
Whilst I may be struggling to get to grips with the local fashion, delving into the nightlife hasn’t been nearly so traumatising. I can’t describe how refreshing it is not to travel by car for 40 minutes in order to find a flash of neon and a buzzing atmosphere, and the fact that our local hotspots are the main destination for many a South Easterner makes it all the more to savour.
Last week my housemates and I trundled off to see one of my favourite DJs, Alex Metric, take a break from the decks and perform with his band in a step in a new direction at the Hoxton Bar and Kitchen (doesn’t the word Kitchen make you instantly hungry?). I may have taken agin the drinks prices, but it was worth it for some awesome people watching and a soundtrack to die for – Luther Vandross, Prince and the Cure boomed out of darkened corners.
Alex Metric was headlining the Iceland Airwaves night, a precursor to the festival which happens in Iceland during October each year, and hence topped a line up of fresh, Icelandic acts. I always love any performers who enjoy interacting with the crowd, and Retro Stefson did just that, whipping the scenester crowd into an enthusiastic mass despite their tender age. Think Arcade Fire colliding with Alphabeat on a volcanic rock in the North Atlantic and you have some idea.
I think this below video might just about sum them up.
How immense is their knitwear?
In contrast, Alex Metric’s performance was more intense (that's squeezing his eyes shut and clutching the mic instead of teaching us Icelandic dance routines) it was still pretty good - especially when he shoved his indie efforts to one side and concentrated more on getting a bit ravey and danc-y.
The highlight of the night? When Metric drew the raffle for the chance to win first class flights to Iceland. The end of this blog would be a lot more interesting if I'd won it, but I didn't, and so it isn't. Soz.
© Miranda Thompson 2010.
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