In 2005, Daniel Bernardo, a newly minted art history graduate, decided to start his post-college life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He was lucky enough to find an affordable loft apartment above a skateboard shop with four other housemates who were all busy pursuing their dreams: one owned the shop below, two were artists, and the other was an aspiring fashion designer.
Bernardo took a stab at starting a business selling handmade shoes. Tourists (or Manhattanites) who strayed into his neighborhood certainly considered the community somewhat eccentric; Bernardo, for instance, was rocking a Dali mustache.
"We were all heavily influenced by the ethics of the punk scene, which was about going against the norm," he recalls. "I wore vintage vests, ties, and suspenders, partly because I liked them, but partly because it was what I could afford at the time. Some of my friends were into the skater look, wearing old band t-shirts and cutoff jeans, others wore flannel and had beards."
After moving to the neighborhood, Bernardo began to notice something odd: the offbeat outfits he and his friends were wearing started appearing on the racks of chain stores. You could pop into Urban Outfitters to buy a faded T-shirt from an obscure band, a pocket watch, and Victorian pinstripe trousers. You could walk out of American Apparel with a leotard and '80s spandex shorts.
This aesthetic was labeled "hipster" and could be bought straight off the shelf. Bernardo was mystified: "Our outfits were all about being true to ourselves and not spending too much money on clothes, but suddenly you could pick up an outfit that looked vintage but that had never been worn before."
By 2006, American Apparel's hipster-centric aesthetic became so popular that the company was snapped up for $382.5 million by an investment firm, who promptly took it public. That year Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, once described as the "nectar of the hipster gods," overtook Coors in volume sales. Meanwhile, Urban Outfitters saw a 44% increasein profits every year between 2003 and 2006.
Before long, so-called hipster looks started showing up at big-box retailers. You could buy skinny jeans, ironic tees, and beanies from Target, along with toilet paper and washing detergent—you could even buy a fixed gear bike from Walmart for $150. "Suddenly, trying to look different became mainstream, which was hard to wrap our minds around," says Dylan Leavitt, star of Dylan’s Vintage Minute.
A decade later, the tide has turned. American Apparel hasn't posted a profit since 2009 and has in fact hemorrhaged so much money that it was nearly delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Pabst was just sold to a Russian beverage company in a move widely interpreted as a sign that the beer is losing its appeal. Urban Outfitters sales have steadily declined since 2011. What went wrong? Did these companies fail to anticipate the next "hipster trend?" Or has the hipster era finally come to an end, rendering these kinds of companies irrelevant?
"This is the conversation I have almost every weekend," says Katharine Brandes, the LA-based creative director of women’s fashion label BB Dakota. "My friends and I sometimes like to observe hipsters in their natural habitat, which around here is Silver Lake." Brandes, 28, grew up surrounded by the hipster-gone-mainstream aesthetic. Her theory is that these brands haven't been perceptive to how youth culture has changed over the last decade.
The earliest hipsters, she argues, generally rejected mainstream fashion and beliefs. In later years, however, hipster culture became more about a particular ethical lifestyle. "Urban Outfitters and American Apparel did a good job of commodifying the earliest kind of hipster—the Vice-reading, PBR-swilling, trucker-hat-wearing twentysomething," she says. "But they have not successfully evolved to meet the needs of the new wave that cares about authenticity and buys products from brands that have a strong ethical core."
Bernardo took a stab at starting a business selling handmade shoes. Tourists (or Manhattanites) who strayed into his neighborhood certainly considered the community somewhat eccentric; Bernardo, for instance, was rocking a Dali mustache.
"We were all heavily influenced by the ethics of the punk scene, which was about going against the norm," he recalls. "I wore vintage vests, ties, and suspenders, partly because I liked them, but partly because it was what I could afford at the time. Some of my friends were into the skater look, wearing old band t-shirts and cutoff jeans, others wore flannel and had beards."After moving to the neighborhood, Bernardo began to notice something odd: the offbeat outfits he and his friends were wearing started appearing on the racks of chain stores. You could pop into Urban Outfitters to buy a faded T-shirt from an obscure band, a pocket watch, and Victorian pinstripe trousers. You could walk out of American Apparel with a leotard and '80s spandex shorts.
This aesthetic was labeled "hipster" and could be bought straight off the shelf. Bernardo was mystified: "Our outfits were all about being true to ourselves and not spending too much money on clothes, but suddenly you could pick up an outfit that looked vintage but that had never been worn before."
By 2006, American Apparel's hipster-centric aesthetic became so popular that the company was snapped up for $382.5 million by an investment firm, who promptly took it public. That year Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, once described as the "nectar of the hipster gods," overtook Coors in volume sales. Meanwhile, Urban Outfitters saw a 44% increasein profits every year between 2003 and 2006.
Before long, so-called hipster looks started showing up at big-box retailers. You could buy skinny jeans, ironic tees, and beanies from Target, along with toilet paper and washing detergent—you could even buy a fixed gear bike from Walmart for $150. "Suddenly, trying to look different became mainstream, which was hard to wrap our minds around," says Dylan Leavitt, star of Dylan’s Vintage Minute.
A decade later, the tide has turned. American Apparel hasn't posted a profit since 2009 and has in fact hemorrhaged so much money that it was nearly delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Pabst was just sold to a Russian beverage company in a move widely interpreted as a sign that the beer is losing its appeal. Urban Outfitters sales have steadily declined since 2011. What went wrong? Did these companies fail to anticipate the next "hipster trend?" Or has the hipster era finally come to an end, rendering these kinds of companies irrelevant?
"This is the conversation I have almost every weekend," says Katharine Brandes, the LA-based creative director of women’s fashion label BB Dakota. "My friends and I sometimes like to observe hipsters in their natural habitat, which around here is Silver Lake." Brandes, 28, grew up surrounded by the hipster-gone-mainstream aesthetic. Her theory is that these brands haven't been perceptive to how youth culture has changed over the last decade.
The earliest hipsters, she argues, generally rejected mainstream fashion and beliefs. In later years, however, hipster culture became more about a particular ethical lifestyle. "Urban Outfitters and American Apparel did a good job of commodifying the earliest kind of hipster—the Vice-reading, PBR-swilling, trucker-hat-wearing twentysomething," she says. "But they have not successfully evolved to meet the needs of the new wave that cares about authenticity and buys products from brands that have a strong ethical core."
by Elizabeth Segran, Racked | Read more:
Image: Getty
