#13 - Skinny Ties

It was the decade when...

We all dressed like Mad Men.

Neck wear of ratpackers and reservoir dogs, the skinny tie had been hibernating for decades before resurfacing with a vengeance in the late Aughts. Men of all ages rediscovered the joys of the svelte necktie slowly, the girth of the apparel shrinking little by little over the decade, from the fat, iridescent slabs that dominated millennial neck wear (Thank you Regis Philbin!) to the sleek and chic near near uni-dimensional style prevalent today. (For proof of this evolution see Ryan's Seacrest's wardrobe over 10 years.) The effect is young, fun, streamlined and classy. Adjectives like swag and swinging are not inappropriate. For those of a stylish mien, the skinny tie has all but cornered cool. Somewhat less flattering on those of a more portly build, the skinny tie looks best on men as lean as their neck wear. Sporting a tailored suit, an anachronistic pair of brightly colored converse sneakers, and a skinny tie loosened around the open neck, the fashion-forward man of the late Aughts looks not unlike a slacker substantiation of the The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.

Of course, that gray flannel suit was itself wiped clean of mothballs this decade with the hit television show Mad Men on AMC. Probably the most fastidiously accurate (and luscious) recreation of mid-century fashion and design since Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven (another of the decade's artistic highlights), Matthew Weiner's Mad Men is like attending a design showroom of early 60's modernism. Skinny ties and thick rimmed glasses abound, with perfect matching handkerchiefs poking out of every suit's breast pocket. It's style porn. Luckily the show surrounding the vintage duds and leather backed Eames Chairs is equally rich in characterization. Dramatizing a glamorous, lost New York of rigid workplace gender roles, two (or three+) martini lunches, incessant cigarette smoking and flush post-50's abundance, the characters of Mad Men nonetheless teeter on the edge of a social and sexual revolution that would come to uproot the customs and mores of their lives and the world. It's telling that no decade featured such a revolution of style from beginning to end than the 1960's did, a signal of the more real turbulence quaking beneath the shallow fault lines of the fashion world.

Some might chalk up the rise of the skinny tie and the success of Mad Men as two unrelated phenomenon, but I can't help but suspect that the two are more inextricably linked; when fashion trendsetters and the Hollywood hoi-polloi converge on the same aesthetic seemingly independently of each other it's a clue that something is afoot in the American subconscious. Perhaps we, like the employees of the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, are living in a world where the center can't hold, the new revolutions heading our way threatening to collapse the apparatus of stability and material comfort we strained to erect. In the sixties it was the sexual revolution and newly energized leftist movement that undid the world of the Mad Men. The vague but persistent march of globalization and ecological disaster threatens ours. Though I lament to say it, if I had to guess what style of necktie will be popular in ten years, I would expect a resurgence of the loud and bombastic variety that dominated the late 60's and persisted in popularity through the whole of the 70's. Made with thick and heavy synthetic fabric and featuring bright, unsubtle stripes, the tie of the teens is (well, will be) what happens when the whole edifice of civil society starts to fall apart, as it did in the 1970's.

The mens necktie as barometer of social unrest and economic stability? Yeah, I'll go there. (College students, there is an essay for you!) For now, the skinny tie and the slim suit are emblems of control and simplicity in a world that is increasingly anything but.

You AUGHT to remember.

#24 - Low Rise/Skinny/Designer Jeans

It was the decade when...

You bought your denim at a "bar."

Rugged, tough, casual, the jean is the pant of the Marlboro Man, the Rebel Without A Cause, the Wild One. The jean is a classic pant of blue-collar Americana, an affordable, durable, comfortable piece of apparel that was anything but pretentious. Until the Aughts. Make no mistake, this was the decade of the $400 jean -- the tighter through the leg and lower on the hip, the better. Comfort and affordability be damned.

This casual pant became high fashion in the Aughts, each specialty brand contriving more and more outlandish ways to put a unique stamp on a classic formula. Elaborate back pocket embroidery was not uncommon; the rococo designs acted as a kind of crest for the brand, the way a specific tartan pattern used to separate one Scottish clan from the next, except the kilts worn in the Highlands didn't cost a month's salary. In an era where casual was all, capitalism had little choice but to make the informal formal; there had to be a new fashion pecking order, and casual wear had to become as status conscious as "designer" couture used to be. Small design variation from label to label made little overall aesthetic difference yet these minute trappings created the cache that separated one overpriced brand from the next.

I hear your chortles of protestation. "This is hardly new!" you claim. "I was wearing overpriced jeans in '84." Certainly, designer jeans have been on the market since the 70's, but the complex hierarchy of denim fashions reached an apotheosis in the Aughts; jean brands became a caste system. The once humble pants were coronated as the ultimate arbiters of chic. One didn't shop in a store for pants, one went to a brilliantly titled "denim bar," a label conjuring up not a retail shopping experience but a libidinous nightlife hotspot. A place where one didn't so much as purchase clothes as consume them, they way one would an over-priced gin and tonic. Jeans were clothes for the club, not work, and if I'm gonna spend $15 on a martini, you best believe I'm wearing expensive clothes. Young people couldn't get enough. There was, according to slate.com in 2005, such over-hype about the pants that a blue-jeans bubble was upon us. (Why was this the only bubble we saw coming?!?) Designer jean manufacturers like True Religion saw their stock go from from less than a single dollar to seventeen clams a share in under a year. Business was booming. And why? What does wearing a designer jean label say about you? Something to do with having too much money probably. But, in the Aughts's haze of excess and loose cash, anything one could do to wear their bank account on their sleeve (or ass) was fair game.

And what did these buy-a-new-flat-screen-TV-or-equally-priced-pair-of-pants pants look like? They were skinny, first and foremost. The Aughts were not kind to those large of hip and thick of loin. The trend in jeans to this day is a pair that fit like nylons; if putting the jeans on does not require elaborate yoga positioning, you're probably do in for a skinnier pair. While many find the tight fit unflattering there is nonetheless a sleek, streamlined appeal to the skinny jean, a style which is in almost every way superior to the clown-like baggy and apertured jeans of the 90's, the sort made oh-so-popular by Seattle grunge bands. Skinny jeans are, on the right individual, sexy and fun, a throwback to an older vintage style, when most clothes were fitted and slim. (A trip to a thrift shop can testify to the elephantizing of size standards over the years.) More inexcusable was the proliferation of low rise jeans, pants that all but guaranteed a million dollar shot of ass cleavage every time one sat or squat. Only plumbers used to be so tactless.

High couture denim is one trend that I suspect will persist into the Teens. However, with a society less flush with cash to burn, perhaps the pleasures of a moderately-priced pair of 501's will once again reveal itself to a newly humbled public. Then again, maybe even a distraught economy can't stop the inexorable rise of the jean to the pinnacle of the fashion firmament; those parties needing their $1000 pair will continue to fork over the big bucks in the name of fashion and status. The rest of us, well, we'll be happy with our old Levi's.

You AUGHT to remember.

#27 - Tattoos

It was the decade when...

Tattoos got the Tramp Stamp of Approval!

Remember when tattoos were edgy? When having a tattoo marked you as a rebel, an outsider, a fringe member of society with a distaste for authority? You probably drove a motorcycle (or your boyfriend did) and had a penchant for Led Zeppelin and clothing made entirely of leather . If you want to really travel backwards in time, you may have been a sailor, the classic anchor tattoo a permanent record of your years in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Or if you really, really want to go into the annals of tattoo history, maybe you starred in a Mel Gibson film wearing little more than a loincloth and nose ring. (OK, that's 2006, but you know what I'm saying!) What's important about the tattoo is that it branded you as non-conformist and slightly threatening. Having the tattoo mattered far more than what the tattoo actually was. And no one thought a tattoo was art.

As part of the general trend of mainstream culture appropriating fringe aesthetics and commodifying them accordingly, the tattoo underwent a major perceptual shift this decade. The badge of the bad boy became the trendiest of fashion statements. (Of course, the lingering scent of social transgression that for so long defined the tattoo in the collective psyche is the very thing that allowed the tattoo to become and stay so popular, a reality which will persist until tattoos have become so commonplace and neutered by popularity that any association with their original aura of danger will have become totally neutralized. How will we know when this had occurred? It'll be some obvious nuke the fridge moment; perhaps Miley Cyrus will get a tattoo. Oh wait...uh-oh.) The Aughts, without question, have been the golden age of the Tattoo and we have the TV shows to prove it.

Our decade saw no less than three television series about tattoo culture. Inked was A&E's reality series about the curiously legal-firm sounding Hart & Huntington Tattoo Company. Located in the Palms casino in Las Vegas, Inked was too corporate by a half. (H&H opened a outlet of the store at the touristy Orlando Universal City Walk in 2007. A Hells Angel or salty-toothed sailor wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near.) Less about the art of the tattoo and more a standard reality-show soap opera, Inked was a letdown. The show lasted two seasons. More interesting and authentically urban was Miami Ink and it's later spinoff LA Ink. Both series put the art of the tattoo front and center making the intramural drama and bickering more contextually justified. Celebrity clients would swing by to get their new permanent body art. Regular people would share their stories about why they wanted the tattoo they did. Miami Ink's breakout star was Kat Von D, who after being "fired" from the Miami store opened her own parlor in Hollywood and spearheaded the spinoff, LA Ink.

The body was a canvas in the Aughts, and the men and women who practiced the art were modern Michelangelos of the flesh. The work being accomplished now is nothing short of astounding. Sadly, for every beautiful back tattoo done to look ancient Japanese screen painting there are 10 tacky "tramp stamps" that look like a pirate flag or Batman logo. As with any fashion, there is no accounting for taste. And while the idea that in 50 years masses of seniors will be playing shuffleboard with faded and distorted tattoos covering their flabby and sagging flesh is somewhat bizarre (not to mention unappetizing), for now, especially for the young, a tattoo is a must-have fashion accessory, a deep and permanent means of self-expression. Whilst I have yet to feel the itch to defile my own body with a tattoo (I don't, as a matter of course, care for things that I can't get rid of: tattoos, herpes, children, college loans ) it may only be a matter of time before unadorned folk like me are the exception and not the rule.

You AUGHT to remember...

#32 - Crocs

It was the decade when...

Mario Batali started a footwear frenzy!


Crocs are not a shoe. Crocs are not a fashion trend. Crocs are not for adults. Crocs are a toy. A candy colored plaything fit only for party clowns at childrens birthday parties. Orthopedic Tupperware, the only thing more shocking than how ugly crocs are is how many grown men and women actually ware (wore) the plastic beasts.

Of course, they are not plastic. Don't you dare call them plastic. Crocs are made out of Croslite, which sounds like the name of either a company that will freeze-dry your cadavourous head for future regeneration or an overpriced crockery brand. Styled like a dutch clog without the handcrafted charm, crocs began life as boat shoes, utilitarian and slip resistant, and on deck is where they should have stayed.

I blame Mario Batali. How a heavyset, television celebrity-chef with no fashion sense came to be the footwear's biggest PR ambassador is something of a mystery. (And why anyone at Crocs thought this was a good marketing move is beyond me, but, bizarrely, it was.) Matching the Jack O' Lantern hue of his hair, Batali's orange crocs came to be the chef's calling card. Molto Mario was often seen bandying about New York in his Tropicana colored plastic shoes, giving the brand an ostentatious display in the fashion capital of the country. It wasn't long before the company signed the Chef up to sponsor his own Croc product line.

Crocs Inc. earned as many haters as devotees. Most legitimate press coverage veered toward the perplexed if not downright critical. The company, drunk off its quick and massive success, expanded fast, opening independent retail stores, advertising itself as a "lifestyle brand." How does one make Crocs a lifestyle? What was their dream? Rubber hats? Rubber belts? Rubber Undies?

Luckily, Crocs are fast becoming an over-exposed fashion faux pas; a flash in the pan that quickly devolved into a nostalgic punchline, like the Dolorean or love beads. Though they might be marshmallow soft to the heel, and though devoted Croc wearers may still swear by them, their legacy is as inevitably silly as their visual aesthetic. Croc-A-Doodle-Doo! The brand's fifteen minutes if fame is up.

You AUGHT to Remember.

#35 - Vintage T - Shirts

It was the decade when...

Plain white tees were so done.

To be a slave to fashion one must keep their expectations wide open. What may be required to stay on the forefront of shifting trends is not necessarily a big wallet and a trip to fifth avenue. No, in the Aughts, for a casual look that was a la moment, you had to forsake the professional sartorial institutions altogether and rummage through piles of faded and old T-Shirts piled high at your local thrift store.

This is not a retro revival, this is irony chic. When searching for a Vintage Tee it's best to look for the most unexpected design possible. For instance, an old T-Shirt for a youth summer camp is good....
but a Jewish youth summer camp is better.

Pop culture iconography is always a winner, especially if a shirt features characters from cancelled Saturday morning cartoons.

Superheroes work too,
but not if it's a tasteless mass-produced image from the past 25 years.

If you are of an edgier ilk, tops stamped with shabbily silk screened images of old rock bands can give you a grungy vibe.

Ironic text is a must, particuarly if the shirt features any religious messages.
Product and company logos are f-u-n, especially if the logo style has been discontinued or if the company no longer exists.

If the product is associated with childhood memories, like Cereal brands
or long-forgotten toys and games,
you've hit the graphic-Tee jackpot. 8-bit Video game imagery is a category unto itself.

It wasn't long before mainstream apparel companies appropriated the aesthetic and mass produced their own faux-vintage graphic tees. Urban Outfitters has made a whole business off of the style.

What is the appeal of the vintage tee? What does the childlike content of the imagery say about its wearer? Obviously, the primary function here is irony. Dressing like a walking billboard for a defunct company, or sporting an obviously dated design style is an extremely self-conscious way to dress. Not merely about "looking good" a vintage Tee gives an outfit editorial content. The shirt becomes a kind-of punchline. But, not simply an arch exercise in self-aware post-modern expression, there is a real Freudian undercurrent sustaining the popularity of the vintage tee.

By reengaging with the symbols, imagery and graphical style prevalent in childhood memories- the wearers of Vintage Tees are almost always born in the 70's or 80's - the anxiety of nostalgia is abated. The lingering affection Vintage Tee wearers have for the products, companies and images featured on these shirts would, if exposed, threaten to neutralize the aura of cool and disaffection that young people in the Aughts cultivate as their default attitude. There are few things less apathetic than a child's excitement when playing with his new toy; few things more uncool than the smile on the face of a kid when he gets dropped off to summer camp for the first time. These feelings are confronted and then submerged, (or secretly indulged) when the object of sentiment is de-contexualized, slapped onto a shirt and literally worn on the outside of the body like armor made of irony. The vintage tee may be the height of cool, but underneath, its very warm and fuzzy.

You AUGHT to remember.

#47 - Uggs

It was the decade when...

We wore sheepskin snow boots EVERYWHERE!


And now, Caveman Ugg on.....UGGS!

Ugg like uggs. Uggs better than no uggs, No uggs hurt feet when run through forest after bear. Uggs make walking fun! And uggs look so stylish. Ugg in uggs look like all those girls in Starbucks.

Ugg is confused though. Is it just Ugg or are uggs ug? I mean, Ugg named Ugg because Ugg's Mommy thought Ugg was ug when birth Ugg. Maybe uggs are named by same Mommy since they too are ug.

Ugg's ug uggs were expensive to boot! Ugg have no more rocks to trade. Ugg lost all his rocks in a credit default swap so now Ugg can no more buy uggs.

Ugg want to pick himself up by his bootstraps, but uggs have no bootstraps. Ugg is doomed! Ugh.

You AUGHT to remember...

#54 - Burberry

It was the decade when...

The check was chic.

God Save Burberry

From some sea to shining sea

We all wore Burberry

It's not a plaid.

For every Anglophile,

The cost was well worth while,

Though it's an old style,

It's now a fad.

You couldn't own enough,

Of the beige pattered stuff,

Weren't you so glad.

"The scarf around my neck,

Is not a piece of dreck.

It's the Haymarket check!

Its NOT a plaid!"

Too many people wore,

The look, it's now a bore,

Don't be too sad.

You're not an English chap,

So don't be such a sap,

Don't wear this chav-ish crap.

It's not a Plaid!

#65 - Ashcan Chic

It was the decade when...

Rich skinny ass bitches dressed like bag ladies.

Ashcan Chic. Bobo chic. Bobo Style. Boho Grunge. Hobo-Grunge. Heroin chic. Luxe-grunge. It goes by many titles but all refer to the same fashion disaster: wealthy, beautiful young women dressing like Brenda Fricker in Home Alone 2. A rose by any other name...

Oversized skirts, knappy wool sweaters, large boots, oversized sunglasses. These were the ingredients of a fashion trend that defied the very notion of fashion at all. More than just mix and matching, Ashcan Chic was a sartorial potluck. Or rummage sale. A dumpster dive for glamour. It grew in popularity through the early years of the Aughts, reaching a terminal velocity in 2005, when even the Times took notice.

Though many celebrities were guilty of the crime, Ashcan Chic had as its biggest endorsement a pair of celebrities who almost single handedly brought the style into the consciousness of fashion forward women everywhere: Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Yes, it was Michelle Tanner herself(ves) who, galumphing around Manhattan while Freshmen at NYU, acted as a walking billboard for the boho-grunge aesthetic, never shying away from a paparazzi's camera. Of course, for the twins the look has utilitarian value too; it works wonders at hiding eating disorders. The Olsens were the epicenter of this fashion outbreak; rarely has a major style trend so had its locus around one personality. (Okay, two personalities, but they might as well be one person, don't you think?)

Thankfully, like most silly fashion trends, the flame that once burned bright has dimmed to near darkness. Maybe people realized that an ensemble inspired by toothless, penniless, drug addicted women wasn't the most sexy or chic way to present oneself. Or maybe we just are all so over the Olsen twins. Whatever the cause, Ashcan Chic is now in the dustbin of fashion history. Will the look ever see a revival? If I may quote from my favorite childhood sitcom, "Oh, PUH-LEASE!"

You AUGHT to remember...

#72 - Rainbow-colored Men's Underwear

It was the decade when...

Men's underwear got all cute n' stuff!

Underwear used to be so easy. It should be easy, after all, the whole point of the garment is that it's meant not to be seen. The design of underwear ought to be entirely utilitarian. Pure function. When buying underwear two questions should be asked: 1. Does it hold my junk? 2. Is it cheap?

Of course, things aren't so simple. Not in a capitalist, fashion conscious society where every thing you eat, wear, use or play with - essentially anything purchasable - says something important about you.

Info about someone's underwear drawer can be the key to deciphering their personality. After all, it was through his predilection for boxer briefs that Will Truman's laundry companion deduced he was homo on the sitcom Will & Grace. "The homosexual is the leading exponent of the underpant hybrid." said Will in explanation. Sing it Sister. But of course, the significance of any particular style of underwear is always contextually linked to the era in which it is worn. The popularity of the boxer short in the 90's perfectly suited the slacker aesthetic that dominated the alt-pop culture of that decade; constriction of any sort was not a trademark of the era. Baggy clothes, torn jeans, loose undies - it all went together. Just try to imagine Kurt Cobain in tighty-whities. Might as well try to imagine Elton John in something tasteful.

In some ways, the dichotomy between boxers and briefs make a man's undie preference even more profound than a women's. And let's not even talk about going commando; those people are freaks.

In the AUGHTS a new underwear trend took hold. Gone were the loose, carefree days of boxer dominance. Boxer-briefs made a small foothold in the early part of the decade, as the aforementioned Will & Grace reference attests, but it was the brief, the sperm killer itself, that made a startling comeback in the Aughts. Let it be known, these were not your dad's assembly-line white briefs bought in a bulk pack at K-Mart with some generic muscly, headless torso modeling on the package, NO! Briefs were now to be purchased one at a time, in boutique fashion chains, and, most important of all, in many pretty-pretty colors. If an advertisement did show a model sporting the chromatic couture he was likely not muscular, had acne, and was a good 20 lbs underweight.

So what's the appeal of this apparel? Only the same appeal that a super-duper big box of crayons has to a ten year old; how transfixing the difference between rust and amber! The panoply of totally superfluous options - each pair is actually exactly the same in style and material - puts the consumer in a crisis: having just one color would be deeply unsatisfying. After all, are you always in a red mood? Do I feel Fuchsia today? The only way out of this neurotic predicament is to purchase the whole rainbow. Even more recently the trend has been shifting from solid colors to elaborate patterned undies, some with superheroes on them. And yes, I am talking about underwear for adult men.

So, in brief, (yuck, yuck): Boxers? Tres uncouth. Boxer-Briefs? If you must homos. Tightie-Whities? Whatever floats your boat grandpa, if your boat can still float that is. Colored and/or patterned briefs? Welcome to the 21st Century!

You AUGHT to remember...

#80-The "Stripey"

It was the decade when...

Striped dress shirts weren't just for barbershop quartets.

Ballad of the Striped Dress Shirt

It's 2005,

You see what cool dudes are wearing:

Fitted striped shirts,

In hues overbearing.

It's slimming too!

So, you'll want to stand tall,

And show off what's new

At Brooks Brothers this fall.

You live off red bull.

At a hedge fund you work.

In your new striped shirt

You wont look like a jerk.

Okay, it's tight,

But not like you're gay.

The shirt fits just right!

(In a metrosex way.)

It's a Big Date,

You want to impress.

You met this blonde at a club,

But you looked like a mess.

So you button it closed,

Put on Hummmer cologne.

The bitch is real hot and,

This dogs got a bone.

At Pastis you dine.

And though charm you are lacking,

In your shirt you seem fine.

You prepare for meat-packing.

Like a train it now hits you.

Every muscle you freeze.

For you spent all your money on

Your new striped chemise.

"You're a real douche.

So tacky!" she gripes.

And you're left alone.

You and your vertical stripes.

And so home again,

You jerk till you squirt.

And then you clean up

With your brand new striped shirt.

You AUGHT to remember.

#90-Lacoste Polo Shirts.

It was the decade when...

The crocodile got cool again.


I know what you're thinking. Lacoste? How is Lacoste, the original casual athletic shirt, a trend of the Aughts? OK, it's true that the company was formed in 1933 by tennis player Renee Lacoste, (le crocodile was his courtside sobriquet) who designed the shirt out of dissatisfaction with the cumbersome clothes he was wearing on the court (the term "polo shirt" is something of a misnomer), and it's also true that the crocodile-d shirt has since become a classic of American (well, French, if truth be told) fashion. The reptile emblazoned polo has long been the chemise of choice for yacht-club millionaires and yuppie douche-bags on casual Friday. And Lacoste has been through periods of swollen popularity before - take a look back at those Brat Pack movies or early 80's slasher pics; they're everywhere. Lacoste and prep have long been synonymous. So, I concede the point that the Lacoste-look is not the sole province of any particular era. But what happened in the middle of this decade was ridiculous.

Displaying the kind of groupthink that comes only from inflated fashion trends or Stalinist-level propaganda decimation, the Lacoste shirt dominated the polo market this decade. Hell, during part of 2005, Lacoste dominated the shirt market entirely, or so one might surmise were they to stroll down the the streets of Soho on a Sunday afternoon. A person wearing a polo without the status symbol, I mean, lacoste logo became the exception, not the rule. Don't believe me? Check the numbers. The company saw sales grow 800% in just 3 years. In 2005 Lacoste sold over 50 million products. TIME magazine was jizzing all over the company in a 2005 article that read like copy from Lacoste's publicity department. In the heat of the moment, and radiating insecurity, I too succumbed to the pressure, forking over $80 for, essentially, an inch long alligator cartoon.

None of this was an accident of course. Lacoste, divorced in 1993 from it's longtime partner in prep, IZOD, was in the doldrums for the rest of that decade, reduced to selling their shirts at WAL-MART. But when former Levi-Strauss designer Robert Siegel was hired to run the company 2002 he had a brilliant business plan: restore Lacoste's status as the choice attire of would-be privileged fey country club WASP's everywhere. Oh, and paying tennis dreamboat Andy Roddick 5 million a year to wear the brand on the court didn't hurt. In Pavlovian droves the public bought the product with ferocious alacrity; shirts flew off the shelves like a new Harry Potter book, the outrageous price tag only reinforcing the impression that the Lacoste shirt was something special. Sure every store and every designer makes a polo shirt, but only one brand has a Croc on it! Lacoste's renewed success was such a punch to the solar-plexus at Team Ralph Lauren, all they could summon up as a riposte was making their little polo man, hee-hee, BIGGER.

The real secret to Lacoste's success? Woody Allen found the answer:

And it came to pass that the man who sold shirts was smitten by hard times. Neither did any of his merchandise move nor did he prosper. And he prayed and said, "Lord, why hast thou left me to suffer thus? All mine enemies sell their goods except I. And it's the height of the season. My shirts are good shirts. Take a look at this Rayon. I got button downs, flare-collars, nothing sells. Yet have kept thy commandments. Why can I not earn a living when my younger brother cleans up in children's ready-to-wear?" And the Lord heard the man and said, "About thy shirts..." "Yes, Lord," the man said, falling to his knees. "Put an alligator over the pocket." "Pardon me, Lord?" "Just do what I'm telling you. You won't be sorry." And the man sewed onto all his shirts a small alligator symbol and lo and behold, suddenly his merchandise moves like gangbusters, and there was much rejoicing while amongst his enemies there was wailing and gnashing of teeth, and one said, "The Lord is merciful. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. The problem is, I can't get up."

What a croc of shirt!

You AUGHT to remember.

#95-Fauxhawks

It was the decade when...

men found a faux for a friend.


In another instance of a once edgy and shocking fashion trend being appropriated and pussy-fied for the masses, the Aughts brought us the devolution of that once glorious bouffant donned by punk rockers and bellicose Native Canadians everywhere: the mohawk. Or, as it's mainstream, watered down after-birth came to be known: the fauxhawk. Once the most extreme of all hairstyles, standing as high and narrow as a Chinese fan and occasionally manipulated into sharp crown like points that resembled an inquisitional torture device, with the mowhawk, standing out was the raison d'etre. Nothing about Travis Bickle was pret-a-porter. Mowhawks pushed the envelope so far that mass-appeal reamained, not a distant dream, but a terrible fear, to be resisted at every turn. Until now.

Blame David Beckham, England's best smelling athlete; he sported the worlds most famous fauxhawk in 2005, the style's peak of popularity. Thanks to Mr. Posh Spice and other celebrities from across the pond, fauxhawks, like mowhawks before them, carried a vaguely Anglo-fied air - a plus for trends ever since the days when Carnaby street was synonymous with fashion.

The New York Times probably put the final nail in the punk counter-culture's proverbial coffin when it wrote a 2005 article blaming the fauxhawk for turning the mowhawk "cute." Of course, having adorable Maddox Jolie, super-baby celebrity and adopted progeny of Angelina Jolie, sporting the look didn't help.

And what does the faux-hawk actually look like? Well, no longer a threatening, warrior-like strip of a hair surrounded by bald, exposed, naked flesh, (Celtic warriors believed the strip of hair represented an extension of the spinal cord. HARD CORE!) the fauxhawk's tonsorial elan is more akin to what it would look like if a barber was trying to cover up the fact that his client's head came to a point.

Though its popularity has waned somewhat, this unfortunate coiffure has not yet gone the way of the George Clooney Caesar Cut. The fauxhawk may be here to stay. We are all pinheads now.

You AUGHT to remember.

#97-Ponchos

It was the decade when...


Women spent hundreds of dollars to look like burlap sacks.

The Poncho. Preferred couture of Banditos everywhere. These simple, heavy garments were designed by Peruvian peasants to withstand inclement weather as they harvest their, well...whatever they harvest in Peru. In the 60's, they were an accessory of the counter-culture; there was something organic and handmade and anti-fashion about them, a combination that suited the hippie naturalist-meets-anti-establishment aesthetic to a tee. The fad seemed destined to have the same half-life as suede tasseled vests.

But something went horribly, horribly wrong.

Emerging out of nowhere and spreading like a malibu brush fire, in 2004 the poncho dominated womens fashion. They were everywhere. Young women, old women, girls, celebrities. No one could get enough, or spend enough. These were not the the heavy, carapace-like shields that the Inca's wore. These were cheaply made, third-world child-labor intensive, mass produced frocks that looked as if they were knitted with yarn purchased from Michaels. A kitten's dream come true really. The absence of cultural authenticity bothered no one. (If you are shopping for a poncho at Old Navy, ethnic bona fides are probably not on the front of your mind.) So pervasive was the trend that the legitimate media couldn't turn away. The New York Times wrote about them (in the "circuits" section? Is it just me or are ponchos a decidedly "analog" accessory?) So did Slate. Even Martha Stewart got in the act with "Poncho Day;" the Domestic Diva and her entire studio audience were all draped like so much knitted bedding. An ocean of fabric, it looked like she had brought in the the AIDS Quilt. (Whether her guest David Spade joined in the poncho fun I do not recall.) In fact, the trend either reached it's zenith or jumped the shark (probably both) when Martha was released from prison sporting a Poncho knitted by a fellow inmate; in-between operating license-plate machinery and badly-lit frottage sessions it seems one can find time in ladies prison for more "Home-Ec" varieties of activity. After Martha's big out-of-the-clink press conference, incessant Emails poured in demanding a replica. You can buy it here.

By the way, in case you forgot, ponchos are fugly. Bulky, itchy, stupid, and fugly. A poncho, let me remind you, is just a table cloth with a hole to stick your head through. Take a blanket, cut a whole in the middle. Stick your head in. Poncho. Don't like your window treatment? Rip that shit down, take some scissors to it and...voila. Poncho. The hide of a recently killed moose? You get the idea. Doesn't take too much skill to construct a poncho. They aren't exactly dispensing poncho challenges on Project Runway.

In reality, the advertising slogan should have been: Ponchos, when muumuus are just too complicated.

A star shines its brightest before it goes dark. This season's must-have item is next year's wouldn't-be-caught-dead-in-it look to avoid. By the time the title character donned a poncho on Ugly Betty's premiere episode, the fashion trend a la moment circa 2004 had become so passe that its inclusion in a wardrobe could only signal a punchline. Personally, sometime in 2005, I think girls started to look around, breathe a collective sigh and say, "OK, this is REALLY stupid. I just spent $300 on a bunch of yarn." At least I hope that's what happened. It gives me hope.

But maybe people just wanted "The Snuggie" instead. A poncho with arms. Now that's genius.

You AUGHT to remember.