Style is an unexplainable phenomenon. Everyday, a new haircut or clothing line begins to evolve while an old one sputters to a pulp, leaving only a skid mark at Goodwill. What’s cool in one part of the world is jaw-droopingly dumb in another.
In Argentina, rat-tails are common practice among young adults. At the publication of this post, they remain a standard in cool haircuts for Argentines. But in America, when one sees a child with a rat-tail their first feeling is likely pity for the child, followed by disappointment towards the parent responsible for enabling such malarkey.
Paraphrased hypothetical thought cloud: “How could she let her boy go to school with that haircut? Maybe it’s an accident? Why am I shopping at Wal-Mart?”
But in Argentina, the rat-tail is embraced, adapted, and will eventually evolve into a new style altogether. Something as simple as a 3-inch piece of neck hair will scare girls stupid in the USA, but will attract Latin supermodels in Buenos Aires. It would be in Rod Stewart’s best interest to move to there.
In Vietnam, the greased combover is standard procedure in hair fashion. Once an “old-man” haircut sported by American basketball coaches and veteran plumbers is now part of the young man’s game in Vietnam. Asian pop stars are now putting this style to practice, and it’s catching on with the youth.
Since forever, fashion has been cultivated by three variables; fads, trendsetters and trends. The fads are a temporary craze that ultimately overachieves (Starter jackets, yo-yo’s, tickle me Elmo, etc). The trendsetters are usually pop culture icons (Justin Beiber, David Beckham, Ke$ha, etc) riding a popular concept at the right time, thus setting a trend to be emulated and reproduced by the people of a land.
When David Beckham announced he would be leaving England to play soccer in the U.S.A., America was suddenly purchasing soccer jerseys without actually watching the soccer matches themselves. Within 60 days, America went back to not caring about soccer or its trendsetters. This freed up four to five hours of programming on America’s 24-hour news channels. The fad fizzles fastest, the trends wither close behind, and the trendsetters sometimes remain, though faded.
While fashion as we know it is motivated by fads, style and material needs, there is one type of fashion that is not; Survival Fashion. Survival Fashion has nothing to do with coolness, trendiness, or acceptance. Here here. A fu Manchu can help a man survive prison. A beard can help a Neanderthal survive winter. A mustache can keep a pedophile disguised from the police for a federal sentencing. Survival fashion uses rational rather than assimilation. Porcupines don’t want to look like the members of Whitesnake, but they must survive. Same with people.
So why do so many pedophiles have awful mustaches? After the police get a sketch of the mustached molester, the molester simply shaves the stash as a disguise tactic. Everyone knows these cats are the first to perish in penitentiary. Survival fashion is completely void of style, swagger, and finesse. By avoiding the mall, its users are saving precious time and money, and that’s just the bonus to not dying.
This is why NBC Dateline’s To Catch a Predator was such an important television program. It did the world justice while providing mesmerizing entertainment for the public. Every episode was the exact same. A 30-year-old woman decoyed as a 13-year-old boy logs onto a chatroom and lures in a sex offender to be humiliated on national television and captured by authorities. The show had no artificial plots or casting calls, only lessons to be learned and swift justice to be had. To Catch a Predator was arguably the only true reality television program to ever exist, and it was great for America.
The mustaches featured on To Catch a Predator were scraggly, thin and unflattering (also referred to as “dirt lips”). This could only be described as “Survival Fashion”. These mustaches would obviously not be used to further a man’s physical image. The intending molester does not hold the ability to grow a proper mustache (such as Burt Reynolds or Tom Sellick), but is growing one out of necessity. Burt Reynolds used a proper mustache to gain sex appeal, which requires style. The “predators” on To Catch a Predator clearly do not have style, nor do they require it. They don’t need to impress women. They need to avoid federal sentencing. To Catch a Predator eliminated the abusers of survival fashion.
On a parallel note, the fu Manchu has a rich history of survival fashion. Genghis Khan conquered most of Eurasia with this on his face, Hulk Hogan used it to dominate fools in the ring, and Charles Barkley stopped winning when he shaved it off. These people were considered highly successful in their careers. The fu Manchu has but one purpose; to intimidate. It is totally separate from conventional fashion in that its users are not wearing it to look better, they are wearing it to look worse.
This is why biker gangs love fu Manchus. Bikers will never refer to their wardrobe as “fashion,” but they will tattoo their bicep with images that summon survival (barbed wire, dragons, medieval weapons). Bikers aren’t dressing to live, they’re dressing to not die, and they are saving considerable time and money by wearing the same outfit everyday.
In these landscapes of survival, conventional fashion is merely a distraction. There are no beauty pageants, shopping malls, or paparazzi. There is only instinct. No more will humans spend hours in JC Penny searching for deeper meaning via trends and status. Man will take one shirt, one pair of pants, and two shoes, because at the end of the day, there is laundry. Closets will breathe again and the boys and girls of America will not be judged by the style of their clothes, but the content of their character (or lack thereof). Survival fashion is primal. It is evolutionary. It is reasonable, it is rational, and it makes an infinitely complex world simple again, even if just for a moment.
