Image via Complex Original
For a while now, kids on city streets and the online worlds of Tumblr and Instagram have been rocking a mix of streetwear and high-end fashion in a new way. The "street goth" look mixes brands like Black Scale and STAMPD with high-end Rick Owens jackets, leather basketball shorts from En Noir, and covetable sneakers like Jordan 1s. Rappers like A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar have championed the look, while designers like Hood By Air are leading the charge. Perhaps you've even let yourself be #influenced by brands like #BEEN #TRILL and are now seeing the world through that PYREX Vision. Read on and find out. Here are 10 Signs You Are a Street Goth.
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10. Your black hoodie practically touches the ground.
You're the Don of draping. Clothes that fit? Never that. You drop your crotch like it's hot and never met an exaggerated proportion you didn't like. Besides, you dig looking like a Sith Lord anyway.
9. You saved up dough for months to buy a Rick Owens jacket to wear over your black Hanes/Supreme tees.
It's all about the high/low. For every Raf Simons or Alexander Wang purchase, you balance it out with about five or six less expensive brands. The main difference between going "goth ninja" and "street goth" is that mix of streetwear brands and other affordable cops.
8. You have "V$VP" in your Twitter/Instagram username.
Anyone that pronounces it "Vis-Vip" is automatically deaded. "Sorry, mom," you tell her. "See you when you're more trill and on my level."
7. You don't think of En Noir as a brand—it's a lifestyle.
You can't remember the last time you wore color. In fact, you dream in black and white these days. You walk down the street in sunglasses with Clams Casino instrumentals banging in your ears because you would hire him to produce the soundtrack to your life.
6. You abuse the "100" and "Wave" emojis for your fit pics.
You hardly use words, but when you do, they're a hashtag. Instead of telling everyone how cool you think something is, you rely on these two emojis to do all the talking. Isn't it ironic that you're telling people how #rare this stuff is when you can easily buy it off ten different websites?
5. Leather pants are an acceptable fashion choice to you no matter how hot it is.
Before heading to the beach, you slip on leather pants. You pack a few pairs for your vacation in Costa Rica. After a rough week, you rock fresh leathers to the sauna. It doesn't matter to you that leather pants + heat = groin environment that's conducive to cultivating tropical life. You made this committment to leather pants the day you deleted the weather app off your phone.
4. You are wearing pants underneath your shorts.
People think you mixed up the order when you got dressed this morning, but you know that this is a very advanced maneuver that only master-level street goths pull off. Layering is a lifestyle, and you're living it a few layers at a time.
3. You have 10 black snapbacks. None of them are for sports teams.
Fuck sports. You're out here brooding under your hood scowling at children and shit. The only sweating you do is from all the leather you're wearing. You don't put on for your city via sports teams. Instead, you pledge allegiance to the street goth swag by plastering brands on your domepiece via snapbacks. The only sports moment you like was when Bane blew up that football stadium in The Dark Knight Rises. That was pretty trill.
2. You've drained your phone battery just by using the #BEEN #TRILL app.
Your Instagram collection has become a photo stream of homeless people, fat asses, and protesters in the Middle East with the dripping BEEN TRILL text in the foreground. Your non-street goth friends are thinking of unfollowing you, but you don't give a fuck because they're ultimately holding back your trillness potential. Finally, you'll never admit that you had to look up the meaning of "irie" on Urban Dictionary.
1. You passionately make the case for skirts.
You've been known to shout, "IT'S A KILT, BRUH!" and can cite past examples of fashionable dudes wearing skirts (1984, 1993, 2004, 2009, and 2012). You practice soliloquies about silhouette, gender as a social construct, and fashion as visual expression. But all that can't do anything for you when a strong wind gives you your first Marilyn Monroe moment.