10 Style Tips You Can Learn From Filthy, Smelly Hippies

Image via Complex Original

A head scarf lets the ladies know that you're a kind and sensitive free spirit, like a rescued puppy you wear around your head. Also, hats are hot as hell, so a doctored bandanna is a great and comfortable way to hide your LeBron hairline this summer. Plus you can soak that shit in LSD and trip balls for a year.

The tie-dye shirt is to the grimy, freeloading, hippie as the golf visor was to the '90s-era college football coach: a fitting and horrifically awesome signature clothing item. Tie-dye mixes the joy of DIY fashion with what it must look like to be vomited on by a magical unicorn. Also, as demonstrated by the above picture, the look has incredible range. Whether you're mean mugging paparazzi or being questioned by an R.A. about the suspicious smoke billowing out of your dorm room, you can't go wrong with bright primary colors.

Fashion is a means of expression. One might parade about in velvet Versace loafers to declare dominion over all other swaglords, while another person might show up to the YMCA in an And1 T-shirt to ask the rest of the men's rec league, "What's wrong? Momma forgot to pack your game?" Filthy, dirty hippies carried messages that advocated social change and an end to the war in Vietnam. However, when non-verbal communication and street style collide today, it usually involves a fuccboi wearing a shirt that says "Life is a hustle," with two hashtags and a few $ signs. For better or worse (spoiler alert: worse), this is what revolution looks like in 2014.

Wearing a buckskin will make you feel like a real man. Plus, the shreds on a fringe jacket are as stylish as they are practical. A lot of materials claim to repel moisture, but this article of clothing literally has built in wicks. Don't let a little rain (or spilled bong water) ruin your steeze.

From job interviews to your shift as a substitute teacher at the local junior high, you can't go wrong with a T-shirt that's emblazoned with pot leaves. A lot of people try really hard to communicate something about themselves through clothing, but why over think it? You like bong rips? Cool. Rock a cannabis shirt and some HUF socks and call it a day.

Smelly, drug-addled hippies of the '60s and '70s proved that the psychoactive effects of dropping a tab translate rather nicely to casual dress shirts. Why should an acid trip remain between you, your brain, and that pink hippo in the kitchen jumping Double Dutch with Benjamin Franklin? By rocking a kaleidoscope print ensemble, you share your transcendent experience with the world without actually having to divvy out stamps for everyone on the subway car.

Wearing patchwork clothes tells the world that you're equal parts bohemian free spirit and perpetually late when it comes to paying your gas bill. This is the official material of choice for guys who still cosign Devil Sticks in 2014. If you want to rock something that's as stylish as a barn roof and easily repairable, simply sew a bunch of random materials together and call it a wardrobe.

If it's good enough for Willie Nelson, it's good enough for you. You should actually go ahead and carve that phrase into a study hall desk or truck stop bathroom stall right now, because that's a very profound life motto. Now, did Willie Nelson invent the straw hat? No, but he does make it look cool as fuck during encore performances of "On the Road Again." Let your friends rock bucket hats and snapbacks. This year, you're all about dry stalks on your head.

Credit (blame?) grimy, slacker hippies for the bastardization of the poncho, which in turn evolved (devolved?) into the Baja hoodie and, eventually, The Snuggie. That's how that went, right? Anyway, if you haven't had a lot of luck in the ladies department recently, drape yourself in nothing but a down comforter, hit the town with a smile on your face, and watch the phone numbers pile up. 

The biggest lesson you can learn from muddy, rank hippies is that stunting is a mindset. Peep this guy on the left, for example. Sure, he looks like he grew out of the ground like a root vegetable, but he's wayyy happier than approximately all of the "fashionable" people I know. And Russell Brand looks like a guy who pays his cable bill with loose change and spends four hours a day surfing the Internet at an Apple Store, but he actually convinced Katy Perry to marry him. Think about that for a second. In sum, do you. Do filthy, smelly you.