I’m Your Number One Fan!
I was walking around in Boston and believe it or not decided to pop into a Starbucks for a cup of coffee. Boston being the college town that it is, is filled with wanna be “originals” and students trying to carve out their identity proving that they are truly original and unique to the world. As I sat down to enjoy my overly priced Grande Vanilla Latter (a discussion topic for another post), I saw her! Who was she you ask? She was none other than the number one fan. The number one fan of what you ask? EXACTLY!
I suppose it’s only natural that people have the same clothes as the person next to them. It’s not like Banana Republic or Abercrombie & Fitch only made one original shirt for each person. What bothers me is what I’ll dub as the “self expression” shirt.
This girl probably bought the shirt thinking she was truly original and because it was funny. It expresses who she is as a person and identifies her to the world. The problem is, who is she a fan of? And what about the other 10,000 people that bought the same shirt? Is she the same as them?
I see these shirts everywhere. Everyone is trying to be funny and original these days and so they resort to buying poor quality, over-priced shirts with phrases and pictures that no one cares about to create their identity. So much for fashion. We’ve resorted to buying a t-shirt to carve our our identity in the world instead of buying clothes and creating outfits that truly identify us. We can now go to urban outfitters or shop online at busted tees to claim our little piece of originality. How convenient.
Who knows, maybe she is someone’s number one fan or maybe she’s not. I’ll never know because I never asked her. It goes to show you that being original is truly original. I guess it’s time for me to throw my shirt away…
Oooh, child! I can’t stand Urban Outfitters, mainly because they’ve mass-produced really cute clothes, and I know if I buy something I like there I’m going to see at least twenty other people on my way home wearing the exact same thing.
There’s nothing more embarrassing than standing next to someone on the bus and wearing the same t-shirt.
I try to avoid that place like the plague.
It’s getting especially difficult with the more recent fashion trends, too, because everything that’s coming out is totally outrageous. It’s not so bad if you’re wearing something that’s simple. Unfortunately you can’t find anything of the sort these days.
Second-hand stores are your best bet.
Comment by annie lou — January 26, 2007 @ 11:45 am