Fashion

Yesterday I ventured north of Melbourne city, where the culture of cool is of a slightly different kind. Whereas Richmond hipsters tend to be condescending rather than hostile, the youth of Fitzroy are edgier and angrier. Whether this anger is spawned by unemployment, housing affordability or the fact that someone over thirty is wearing the same T-shirt as them I couldn’t say.


However, there’s evidence that Fitzroy is slowly losing its grit and becoming Bobo. In certain streets the hard edges are being softened by the whine of electric cars, the giggles of well-mannered children and the gentle soak of money. They have a San Churro and a T2 now. Consequently many of the second hand stores and charity shops have drifted slightly east into Collingwood, where the rents are cheaper and the homeless people crazier, two requirements for an edgy cool postcode.


At a charity shop on Smith Street I picked up a boxed set of Futurama Season 3 and a copy of the classic 1958 monster movie ‘Fiend Without a Face’ for $5.25. Then when I got home I discovered that while I had the movie disc, someone had stolen the Futurama discs from their cases. I don’t know what sort of person steals from a charity shop, but I’m blaming students.


I also went to Shag and bought the World’s Most 1976 Shirt:





It cost more than most of my new shirts. But come on, look at it! Bask in its burnt orange and mission brown pseudo-Hawaiian glory!