The driving bass, the old-school drop kicks, vinyl pumping and listless, this is just part of Aix. Kids skittered and drawn in the streets where Goth still rules Chinatown, antique squares dot behind the cobbles to reveal squares of shops, the tragically hip, swaying masses, bottled oils; the entire scene is within the definition of an afternoon.
Beyond the pale wash of window and into the depth of the spinning record, the overpriced spoils of said transition between youth and success shines its brightest; what’s too expensive for its demographic, yet could never be worn by anyone else, I see everything earthly and shallow in the world I’ve ever wanted at every stage of angst.
High-art anime, hoodies emblazoned with AKs suspiciously like the one I thought I designed, Bapes and bones, all for boys or beautiful girls with thin limbs. And then, the most incredible thing of them all.
The most amazing, most stylish, freaking coolingest pair of men’s underwear hanging near a white wall…no…no, not quite. Not underwear. These trump underwear. They could not be called by any other name…they are manties. Oh how they are manties.
Neon manties—graffiti, camo, Aeon Flux capacitor bright green and black and yellow skivvies. They defy logic. They define haute anything. And I have a moment, a flash-forward into my own fantasy land of imagination. What man…what man would wear such a thing and where could I find this…what’s the word…soulmate of mine?
Dear God, what a man to wear such a pair of manties. And while we're at it, what of his girlfriend, should he have one?
Cezanne's studio is completely forgotten, replaced fast by my direction to such a man—I imagine myself somehow as an older Russian woman at this point, and really, rich (don't ask me)—a fantastical Euro man-boy who, on the stroke of midnight, the first Saturday if each month, I would make dance, in those, and only those, and only to CSS, while I cheered:
“Dance! Dance! Dance!”—preferably while a small dog and a strobe light pranced around the room.
I stare at the manties. I can’t shake it. This man who buys these, the righteous dude he must be, I have to meet him. He’s got to be a boy who wears nuggers, an Ed Banger disciple, has a gold chain with a Swarovski skull swinging from the line, an oh-so-subtle mullet cresting (which seem to be all the rage in Aix)—or better yet—a shaved head—he’s bronze, lithe, has the baddest of all badass tattoos snaking across his—no wait, he’s got a sleeve—even better, and he dances, in manties, for CSS or for me, with a cigarette drooping from his bilingual mouth, wristbands, seventies Aviators on, cap tipped to the side, in a ring of glowsticks which I keep tossing at his feet every time she echoes “Death from Above.”
I so want to buy them. But for who? Who, do I know, could possibly wear these with as much irony and glee as they deserve?
I leave them be, knowing the man who buys them will reach them only after I leave them. Of course.
Man, if only I had been born in France…in Aix…and was a hell of a lot cooler…
Beyond the pale wash of window and into the depth of the spinning record, the overpriced spoils of said transition between youth and success shines its brightest; what’s too expensive for its demographic, yet could never be worn by anyone else, I see everything earthly and shallow in the world I’ve ever wanted at every stage of angst.
High-art anime, hoodies emblazoned with AKs suspiciously like the one I thought I designed, Bapes and bones, all for boys or beautiful girls with thin limbs. And then, the most incredible thing of them all.
The most amazing, most stylish, freaking coolingest pair of men’s underwear hanging near a white wall…no…no, not quite. Not underwear. These trump underwear. They could not be called by any other name…they are manties. Oh how they are manties.
Neon manties—graffiti, camo, Aeon Flux capacitor bright green and black and yellow skivvies. They defy logic. They define haute anything. And I have a moment, a flash-forward into my own fantasy land of imagination. What man…what man would wear such a thing and where could I find this…what’s the word…soulmate of mine?
Dear God, what a man to wear such a pair of manties. And while we're at it, what of his girlfriend, should he have one?
Cezanne's studio is completely forgotten, replaced fast by my direction to such a man—I imagine myself somehow as an older Russian woman at this point, and really, rich (don't ask me)—a fantastical Euro man-boy who, on the stroke of midnight, the first Saturday if each month, I would make dance, in those, and only those, and only to CSS, while I cheered:
“Dance! Dance! Dance!”—preferably while a small dog and a strobe light pranced around the room.
I stare at the manties. I can’t shake it. This man who buys these, the righteous dude he must be, I have to meet him. He’s got to be a boy who wears nuggers, an Ed Banger disciple, has a gold chain with a Swarovski skull swinging from the line, an oh-so-subtle mullet cresting (which seem to be all the rage in Aix)—or better yet—a shaved head—he’s bronze, lithe, has the baddest of all badass tattoos snaking across his—no wait, he’s got a sleeve—even better, and he dances, in manties, for CSS or for me, with a cigarette drooping from his bilingual mouth, wristbands, seventies Aviators on, cap tipped to the side, in a ring of glowsticks which I keep tossing at his feet every time she echoes “Death from Above.”
I so want to buy them. But for who? Who, do I know, could possibly wear these with as much irony and glee as they deserve?
I leave them be, knowing the man who buys them will reach them only after I leave them. Of course.
Man, if only I had been born in France…in Aix…and was a hell of a lot cooler…
5 comments:
It sounds like your soulmate will be a "kept boy", perhaps in the mold of Terry Richardson.
LOL.
I would so wear manties for you. Only to get glowsticks thrown at my humiliated body though.
see its your belief that you would be humiliated that will prevent that from ever happening.
top posts this one K. (your russian self is like six feet or taller by the by)
Hey, k, thanks for writing...And reading. ;)
Your "manties" story made me :).
In a word, rawsome.
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