fashion skool of hard knocks

: LOLpunk :

Hot, scantily clad kids drinking perfume: seductive, no?

Admittedly, this ad has visual appeal. But when you look closer, something's off. The girl looks appropriately high maintenance, but the guy is less convincing. Since when do punk boys wear cologne? Or drink perfume for that matter? Yeah, yeah, punk got Sold ages ago -- what's interesting is this sort of blend of the punk aesthetic with a more insatiably consumerist, L.A.M.B. sensibility.

What are we supposed do when movements get sold? When the very idea of revolution can be sold on a t-shirt, or as a jug of scent? I see a couple of options.

First option: ethical consumption. Since corporate bigwigs are clearly giving us what they think we want, why don't we figure out what we really want and need and buy it. Unless you'd willingly live your next life as a sweatshop slave, don't let it happen to someone else by pleading ignorance. Pony up for fair trade, legally made, living wage, sustainable shit. Yeah it's more expensive, but that's how much this stuff really costs when labor laws aren't broken to bring it to you for less. Just buy less crap. I know that's really gonna rile the masses, but admit it -- we don't really need half the stuff we own. Besides, the cost argument doesn't work with the designer stuff: it's beyond expensive and still often involved in sweatshop dealings.

Here's another idea (and I'll probably get a cease and desist order for writing this): jack the corporate logos. I'm not talking knockoffs, I mean make fun of that whole paradigm. Buy an old shirt at the thrift store, get a big, fat marker and write "Juicy Couture," "Hollister," or "Prada" across the front all sloppy. You're not stealing anything but their thunder, and it's funnier than a LOLcat.