Category: Urban Outfitters

Vindicated!

Cold Cream 'n' Roses
Feather suede hippie headband

From an article posted in September 2008: Ugh. One of the worst fads of the late sixties/early seventies return: the hippie headband. From Urban Outfitters via Splendora.

Hippie headband, as shown on Beauty Counter

Now I’ve been vindicated by Beauty Counter, a blog from Style.com, “The Online Home of Vogue.” Its article Reader Poll: A Word On Hippie Hair says:

It was definitely novel and unexpectedly chic for a little while (by which we mean approximately two to three years ago), but we’re of the mind that the whole string-across-the-forehead/feather accoutrement look is beginning to err on the side of played out, or just too mainstream for our liking. A bohemian declaration or a statement that simply says, “I bought these at Urban Outfitters and so can you”?

Selling Radical Chic to Teens

Cold Cream 'n' Roses2 Comments
Radical Chic was a term coined by author Tom Wolfe to describe the soiree in which the late Leonard Bernstein hosted members of the Black Panther militant group. More recently, several retailers that market to teenage girls have been selling scarves resembling keffiyehs. The keffiyeh has been traditionally worn by men in the Middle East, and was particularly associated with the late Yassir Arafat, who wore the keffiyeh to cover his bald pate.

There has been an uproar over selling keffiyehs, as many people associate the keffiyeh with terrorism.

Below is an example from Urban Outfitters:

An ironic name for this scarf

This type of “radical chic” is reflected in T-shirts carrying the image of Che Guevara; even the perfumeur Le Labo has used Che’s image to portray its fragrance line as “revolutionary.” (hat tip: Beauty Addict)