Wearing Art

A few years back I was really interested in Northern European culture (mainly the style that accompanied the mindset). My interest lived mainly in the attraction I had towards Swedish pop music (you know, before Peter, Bjorn and John were cool), an unnatural desire to live in Iceland and my almost obsessive checking of Hel Looks, a website devoted to street fashion in Helsinki, Finland. It's similar to fashion photo sites like The Sartorialist and Face Hunter with a few important differences. While the two latter deal more with high fashion in hubs like New York City and London, Hel Looks seems to look at fashion as more something anyone can achieve, regardless of income, through a specific artistic process. I'm not sure if this (mostly) frugal-invention-of-style mindset is common within Northern European cities more so than others or if Hel Looks just does a better job picking out those people that fall into this category for their site, but this is the type of living that I find most interesting.

My interest in Northern Europe has more or less disintegrated with time but my interest in Hel Looks piqued over the past few days out of boredom of the internet. I recently went through the multiple pages of pictures I've missed over the past 8 months to see what unpredictably inventive outfits I've been missing out on. The outfits pictured did not disappoint. The current Helsinki street fashion tends to be either extremely oversized or incredibly tight and there's a surprising amount of neon within the clothing choices (I thought neon was out when the Klaxons won the Mercury Prize). What surprised me the most as I looked back further into the archives (I believe photos go back to 2005) was how normal the outfits started looking the further I searched. This can either mean two things: Helsinki fashion has gotten more outrageous within the past few years OR (and this is what I am banking on) Helsinki is just about 3 years ahead of the American/mass fashion look.


(2 pictures from Hel Looks, both taken in August 2005. The man on the left has 2008 fashion down to the nike dunks-although he is channeling the facial hair of AJ from the Backstreet Boys-and I think a saw a girl at the Smith College bus stop with the same outfit on as the girl on the right last week.)

If my hypothesis is right, it can only mean one thing. In 2010 we will all be wearing clothes like these:


Both of these taken in 2007

I guess I'd better start looking for the perfect enormous scarf/furry leggings now.