Things that were never cool, things that still aren't, and things that never will be.

I was walking past a store today and looked in the door to see a shoe that reminded me of this quote:

In the 70s we saw an energy crisis, a bike boom, and a porn explosion. In the oughts or whatever we're in now we're seeing an energy crisis, a bike boom, and a porn explosion. Except this one seems to involve Williamsburg and quasi-homeless people. Still, though, I think if you found someone who had accidentally been locked in a freezer in some Brooklyn basement in the 70s and thawed him out today he'd have no idea anything had changed. Even his moustache would still be in style. (Though he wouldn't realize it was ironic now.)

from the trusty Bikesnob NYC

This was funny, to me because what I was looking at was a Vans classic sneaker that had as a design motif what I made out to be Slash, guitarist for guns and roses.
I may be showing my age here, but it seems like bodysurfing I managed to start stroking my way into paying attention to popular music perfectly timed to miss both the dissapointment of going to soon and being a Guns'n'Roses/Bon Jovi/Aerosmith fan and not too late to be caught up in Nu metal acts Korn/Limp Bizkit/Orgy.
But what struck me was the revelation that Guns'n'Roses, to me, and I may be a minority of one is still not cool. That is, not enough time has passed to even make them 'ironicly' cool like the abovementioned 70's moustache.
Because think about it, Guns'N'Roses had the design aesthetic of the Indoor Gokart Centre Maintenance Guy's Tattoo seen, or the black velvet paintings of Unicorns. And in sneaker terms, if you are going to lash out $200 on jeans, to combine them with $100 sneakers with Slash's visage glaring up at you is like paying $2 million dollars for a black velvet painting of a Unicorn just so you can hang it next to a Dali Print.
The other fashion that every time I see it that is pissing me off is the bedion type 'towel-head' scarf I see people wearing around. Yes it is cold. But these scarves I am pretty sure are straight out of the fixed gear seen along with snug fitting trousers. Fixed gears annoy me to see them creeping into vogue in Melbourne, so certainly late in their coolness lifestyle, but the scarves infuriate me. Because they just look bad. And as scarves it's like someone stumbled upon the only possible design that could make it look bulkier around your neck than wearing a traditional woolen scarf.
I think this scarf for me, shall be in the annals of fashions that caught on that just never looked good, and despite being in, were never cool.
Among these I would add those ripcurl tracksuit pants, and backwards caps everytime they crop up. The backwards cap thing is odd, because it is a manuever that rarely pays off, a cap can be a good looking cap, and there are some very good looking caps out there, but to put it backwards is like assuming unnecessary risk, I doubt that it will look better backwards than forwards, it instantly highlights the flaws in your purchase decision. If the cap actually touches your collar we know its too big, if we can see too much of your forehead its too big, if your hair sticks out the bit where you adjust the size, we know you bought the wrong kind of cap to be wearing backwards, and if you are wearing a uniform we know you are a jackass.

The remarkable things about these uncool trends though, is that they seem to bypass the usual process. Usually (and this is the principle behind most viral marketing campaigns) people are either opinion leaders, or followers. Most people are followers, I guess its why leaders generally in any field have to mathematically be a minority to the amount of people that follow them. And I should point out that opinion leaders are not necessarily leaders in all contexts, just with fashions, pastimes and trends. They lead the consumption pattern.
What usually happens is a group of friends meet, and they are all wearing jeans, they are all wearing tight fitting jeans. Then friend X turns up who has just replaced his jeans, and on a whim he decided to go for baggy fit jeans.
Instantly his friends rile him.
Now what happens next actually determines the follower/leader status. Most often, the person with balls enough to actually break the mold says something like 'Whatever I like em this way, that's why I bought them' which is true in any situation. Over the next few weeks, gradually the rest of the group in their subconscious attraction to him, also buy new pants in the baggy style and conform to the opinion leader.
If however the guy says 'yeah I know, the store only had this size though, I'm gonna buy another pair' and then goes home and shoots himself for being so humiliated, this person is a genuinly unfortunate/stupid opinion follower.
But the point is that trends are usually developed independantly by people with free wills. Some of them may even be fashion designers confident enough that there's some subculture group that will adopt their designs, it can come anywhere.
There are people employed as cool hunters though to find out what opinion leaders are wearing and then slap a brand on whatever that is and sell it to their somewhat less confident friend.
But some fashions I think, maybe at the heady times just before recession, when people have a false sense of security they foolishly invest in a fashion that hasn't been approved first by opinion leaders, hence every ten years or so, you walk around suddenly perplexed at seeing people wear something without understanding why.
At least that's my theory. Anyway, if you really want to get ahead of the trend, throw that scarf out now, because you KNOW you aren't going to wear it next year, you possibly knew it when you bought it.

Or maybe the thuggee strangler cult is making a comeback?

Oh yeah and if you do want a 80's rock band that IS ironically cool its called Warrick they did like 'She's my Cherry Pie' and shit.