Rules for Cool

Everybody it seems is a designer now. The advent of T-bar and other 'custom shirt' businesses has meant now everybody can obtain that unique look. Maybe we are at an apex of affluency.
I'm sure I will always hate fashion trends amongst teenagers, I hated them when I was a teenager and they were the bogus dilemma of surf brands or goth. And 99% of balifornians chose surf brands.
I hated emo, I hated skatepunk, and I hate this 'hipster' style that's emerged. The only trend I ever really liked was grunge, and with major recession around the corner maybe it will make a comeback.
Give a teenager money and I will show you a loser. Take their money away and they become winners. I guess their rebelliousness is justified in economic downturns, their elders have clearly fucked everything up. And since it's a cycle their elders are probably engaged in the process of fucking things up in the good times too.

But enough, I think I have come up with my own subjective rules for how to be cool and not piss me off. Because if everyone's cool, then cool it certainly isn't. It's that endless income stream for coolhunters, find what's cool, sell it to the massmarket, it isn't cool anymore, find what's cool. The more efficient marketing efforts get, the more you have to change style, meaning the more money comes out of your pocket on regretable fashion choices.

Of course some people have the power to simply say what is cool and be taken seriously. Am I one of those people? Probably not. But I have come up with some rules for cool that will at least thwart marketing companies intentions.

RULE 1: Cool is cheap.

I don't know how to adjust for inflation, but if you can get an item of clothing or accessory for about the same price as lunch out you are laughing. Ballarat op shops seemed to waver around the $2-3 mark. Savers in Brunswick was about the $5-6 mark.
The reason I feel cool has to be cheap is because if its expensive then there is adequate margin in there for a company to pursue growth, and growth means market penetration, and that means mass marketing.
I'm not just talking second hand here, there's certain staples of fashion, classics if you will that are also cheap. Aviator sunglasses for $10 or less suit everybody. Chesty bond singlets provide a blank canvas to emphasise your shorts. $2 thongs from target/kmart/lowes complement your foot hair. And of course DIY haircuts.

RULE 2: Cool has been done before.

This might be really going against the grain, but there should be nothing cutting edge about coolness. If so you get sucked into the current trap of 'limited edition' artist designed Air Force 1 sneakers. See the Airforce 1 sneaker is a pretty retro shoe of itself. Just like in the 80's A Spiderman comic was a pretty fun read in and of itself. It was the limted edition foil collector covers that lured in the morons, and it's the limited edition designer shoe that lures the morons now.
You don't want anything you wear to be a collector piece. JUst like these days you don't want to waste water washing your car. I'll allude to the classics again - chuck taylors, non-endorsed licensed-design Vans are also good, aviators, old band shirts that were cool (but try to avoid the 80's all together), old moth eaten mambo shirts from your Balifornian days, Aviators, Aviators, Aviators.
And of course the big one, the second hand goods. Second hand clothing seems to be still predominantly populated by 80's stuff. But one thing I like to do is walk in nd just buy some inconspicuous slacks and cut them into shorts. If second hand goes a long way to being cool then marketing companies are bound to be confounded because how can they second hand new overpriced goods for mass consumption? I mean sure there was the pre-slashed jeans in the 80's that companies tried to sell but that was plainly apparantly stupid. If you need a company to slash your jeans for you you need a company to stamp moron in red ink on the back of your hand.
Otherwise, you can relax, your peers who require catalogues, models and general reference from society to be comfortable about what they wear will never impose on your second handedness.

RULE 3: Cool is Self-referential

I never wore skate shoes because I never skated. My dad bought me a pair of black Vans once that I wore on two occasions when I managed to thoroughly drench my own shoes. They were like wearing really boxy pillows strapped around my feet. They were of course designed with the utility of skating in mind. Hence the overlarge toe caps to ensure you never ground through the canvas and ripped out a toe nail, the bulky rubber soles to absorb the impact of hitting concrete all the time and so on and so fourth.
If you happen to skate, skate shoes are unquestionably awesome. If you play basketball, basketball apparal is a winner. If you cycle, even the dreaded fixed gear those cycling caps are acceptable. If you are an artist, wearing t-shirts imprinted with your own designs (and if you are really confident, tattoos) is totally cool. If you like helping your struggling artist friends by buying their crappy t-shirts that's cool too. If you are into fashion, then just wear a diamond studded ball gown.
Wear things that are you, not everyone else and certainly not who you want to be. Ben Stiller's comment in Starsky and Hutch "Just be yourself, that's what's really cool" is actually the crux of all rules for cool. If you can't skate, don't want to skate and are afraid of skating, don't wear skate gear.
If you can't surf, don't like swallowing gallons of sea water and sand, and only hit the beach during 'beach weather' don't wear surfgear.
If you are a loser that cries about life and doesn't do anything to better it, by all means dress up like an emo.
If you don't play basketball, can't name a player's jersey outside of Jordan's 23 and are afraid of not getting picked for a team, don't wear basketball gear.
Then there's the ones that should be really obvious, like if you aren't a thai fisherman don't wear thai fisherman's pants. If you aren't a greek fisherman, don't wear greek fisherman's hats.
The ambiguous ones are army cams, obviously the rule should be 'if you aren't in the army, don't wear army cams' however Aussie Disposals should be one of those stores up in the rule number 1. It is fucking cheap comparatively speaking. And classic.
I guess the big hitch though with self referential, the ultimate test is if you are ever putting on clothes and you actually worry what other people will think, or whether other people will be wearing it, or even worry that a bouncer won't let you in you have failed rule 3.
Self referential doesn't just mean clothes should say something about you. It means your attitude is such that clothes can say something about you, other than 'I just want to fit in'. You must control the choice of what you wear, the clothes conform to your standards. A good way to observe the opposite is to read the meandering descriptions of what people are wearing in American Psycho.
"Price is wearing a suit by Armani, Shirts by Hugo Boss and a Croata company tie." that's all the description you get of Tim Price, and of course it changes every time the character changes clothes. You get the impression however that these descriptions are meant to mean something, but in the end they don't, they can't, they won't.
The logical error of so much fashion faux pars is that people believe that clothes can affirm the consequent "he wears an Armani suit, therefore he is a successful guy" or "she is wearing interesting clothes, therefore she is an interesting person" neither need be true, okay an Armani suit is expensive, but who's to say the person isn't a screwball given their suit by a wealthy relative for a wedding.
Yes you can read a lot into people by their clothes, but it isn't a system that can't be gamed, and people are trying to game it all the time.
The most common one being the second example of affirming the consequent above, trying to appear interesting. If you want to be interesting think. And think more than just thinking about clothes that would be interesting. Yoko Ono is interesting, your average fan of 'My Chemical Romance' or 'Muse' is not. The antecedant is the defining factor in what clothes you should wear. That is dress like who you are, not who you want to be. At the very least if you want to be a basketball star, this will get you focused on playing basketball instead of just buying the clothes.

And those are my rules for cool. They are just mine, I made them up. But I try to live by them. Am I cool? Who the fuck are you to tell me if I'm cool or not?