Hipter Culture

Clothes have long been used as a symbol of status and wealth throughout human culture. From the elaborate and high fashion couture looks on the Met Gala carpet to the winter coats patched with duct tape of low-income areas, clothes give us an incredible glimpse into the economic strata of a sample. However, recent trends and the rise and mainstream adoption of ‘hipster’ culture has blurred these lines and actually established an entirely new way of displaying wealth - by actively trying to appear wealthy. Stores like urban outfitters exhibit the exact trend that i viewed in my everyday life; some clothes are made to look cheap and therein charge more for it. I see it alot on college campuses where many women wear ill-fitting “mom jeans” that appear to be inherited from the seventies, or found for cheap in a thrift shop when, in fact, i know that thrift shops have often raised their prices substantially since the rise of this trend and barely anyone actually fits into their mom’s old jeans. In reality, these jeans were

The upper class has the newest, most expensive tech, the middle class has items of a similar quality if a little worse for wear or a bit out-of-date, and the lower class has what is scrounge together and in disrepair. However, hipster culture has made it so that clothes that look ‘new’, that look expensive, are now more a feature of the middle class. It is extremely counterintuitive, and yet this is the reality especially on a college campus. Blue collar items, especially, such as carhartt jackets and weathered ball caps i see represented by members of the upper class. These items were, and still are in many areas, and example of blue collar culture that has now been absorbed into the upper