Big T-Shirts

Okay I drove out to somewhere and the radio played for me a song from tattoo you it was from 1977 the radio guy said that I remember looking at the record cover wondering that they were still around or they reformed or something I never heard any of it I just assumed from memory it was from the eighties the first year I was aware of was 1979 like I said wow this is 1979 before this I didn't even know about the idea of years. But the eighties. No lets get to t-shirts.
BY TAHI MOORE

T-SHIRTS
I got this idea that big t-shirts and thin pants would be great. I got it from an American Apparel ad with someone in an oversized super low v-neck and would that not be great but so I got a plain oversized t-shirt and it's awful it's like I'm a tiny person in big person's clothes. But the neck was fitting I think that's the problem. I remember a runway shot of someone in a really big sweatshirt with big shoulder pads. That sounds bad too but it's almost good.

SHIRTS
Went for an oversized shirt that sucked also I think it's part because it's white and I'm used to bad white oversized shirts if no one ever wore them to weddings without wanting to it'd be great. Then put on fitting shirt lots better had to tuck it into my jeans but the shirt was white and that was all wrong. In No Country for Old Men, the main guy the star, he wears jeans and shirts that go with the jeans it's really good I think. I went for balck trousers but they didn't go with the white shirt um it's tricky too formal again like the too big white shirt. I think a flash oversized shirt might be good, like polka dot or something.

I say Shirts vs T-shirts shirts win but shirts and jeans are hard going, big t-shirts and jerseys and all that stuff need really big necks, and what else? Who knows. What trousers? Is that why we wear jeans? Really? I watched a Daft Punk movie and this whole town was wearing robot head space helmets and the suits looked good I can see hats making suits make more sense. But who wears hats except for ones that don't go with suits? Should we wear the same suits or find new ones for the future? Is there something new around the corner? Yes.



***

WHat Happened to the Future?

BY TAHI MOORE

I don't know about suits. They're a bit of uniform. So what? well, If you're in a wearing suit context, then you can talk about what's a good one, but if you decide to just wear a suit, it's can you get away with business pajamas. Seriously. And it's got to include your hair and your shoes especially your shoes and your shirt and where you are as well. So that thing of wearing the wrong stuff okay, but the problem of suits, when they go wrong, I'm theorising, is that they're disconnected. You know, it's not like you're going to a job interview or something. The wrongness of good clothes has got a lot to do with what's the right thing to wear, which is suddenly very boring.

I don't think suits are very different to army surplus, except army surplus is cheaper.

I want to wear a hat, but fedoras are hard work. Uniforms right? Uniforms from other times. What's a uniform of difference. There are band photos from around some time when a couple of them were wearing these expensive casual suitey trousers that couldn't have stayed that good for more than a couple of months. After that either they'd be boring, mark you as having some fruity style, or be replaced by the next thing. I thought they were wrong calls for the future, but now I think they were the only thing that could have been worn at the time, and if the times didn't catch up, then the only thing to do was to keep moving or be lost to the eccentric call of a personal style. So wear really good trousers. You can always get your skinny jeans back out next month. I've been doing it for years.



***

High Fashion Low Fashion No Fashion

BY TAHI MOORE

Watches. Again!

Okay so about a month ago I saw a thing in the Herald saying watches equals jewelery of today blah blah and I remember there being two beige swatch watches. The whole thing about those watches was that they came in blue yellow red block colours. They're plastic. Beige plastic. That's computers from when they looked really ugly until apple sold them in red blue yellow see through block colours and they went like hotcakes right so it's not an eighties thing at all AT ALL. Don't buy a beige plastic watch. You can do better. Example I got a rocket wind up watch stainless steel yellow face super modern design look like something from the bahaus serious. Somewhat cheaper delivered across the world. Except the strap sucks so I gotta custom make something in brown leather or get a cloth strap or something. Anyway I wouldn't bother with watches. I'd bother with a good pair of shoes. This is going in circles. I need a mission.



***

Oops

BY TAHI MOORE

Sorry I haven't written for a while. I don't know what's good any more. Someone's wearing something great and someone else is wearing something else that makes the first thing not so great and it goes like this around in circles. All I can think of is to dress well. I don't even know what that means. Stuff that fits well? In good colours? There's so many people dressing sport casual. And there's so many people dressing natty, in loud shirts but pinstriped white and black. How is pinstriped black and white loud? It was invented to be loud, for people who wear perfect fitting suits. I haven't researched that at all. But I think that's how it goes Something about avoiding suits from being uniforms if you can actually wear whatever kind of suit you like. And those loud jeans. Yeah those.

So I predict that if you can find smart casual stuff that fits well then it's hard to go wrong. Maybe. Where can you get that stuff? Do you have to have it made? Can I just go to little brother or something and walk out looking like normal in a sea of ridiculous spoof? Look around. How many people dress like actual human beings and not these this year outlet store six years ago bad super fashions trying to look street but failing even then now you're on some guys arse and cut off at the knees with a patch that says gumf-sports five-oh-seventy with twenty three stitches in green detail. Rebel against rebellion. Go to a menswear shop. Tuck your shirt in or get one five sizes too big and pencil trousers made out of wool or linen or something. Look like there's no chance your clothes are alluding to some tennis club their stable mates belong to and to which they might go if they've got time before hitting the clubs.



***

Research and Development

BY TAHI MOORE

EUROPE
It's been a while. I've been fixing the computer and trying to perfect Gin and Tonic at the same time. I learned that people know a lot about computers because they've destroyed about eight already. I made a cocktail with gin, cointreau, lemon tonic water. Great, but I thought gin and just enough tonic to take the edge off best by far. So yeah the perfect watch I found what I thought was the ideal thing also the plainest thing I ever saw there goes my theory on ugly but it still goes for clothes, most of the time.

BORING IS BESTISH
So what's the ideal jean cut? wore wide jeans around the house. It was great I felt good then they got boring. But they were better than when I sewed them straight and the knees came out saggy it was a fucking mess truly. But I think if you can wear straight thin pants without the shape going funny that's about as good as anything. I was watching a band and they had stoves and the seam at the knees goes forwards in this funny curve. It's off, but I remember cuts from twenty years ago you think they're just recycling but I think the cuts have gotten a lot better. But there's still inherent problems in them that will never go away I think. I think jeans are inherently ugly except by blind luck hence trying on a hundred and eighty seven pairs a year for the average person.

DON'T GO TOO BAGGY ON THE THIGHS THOUGH
The other option apart from fitting thighs and slightly loose calves with no knee bulge was fitting calves and loose around the thighs, jodpured. So I did that. It's great. It looks like the knees are meant to bulge out and they're supposed to be ugly as shit.



***

Doing the Arcades of Fire

BY TAHI MOORE

Yeah so I'm back from the lands of reasonably large shopping malls, so I thought I'd check out some arcades while the perspective is still there.

CHEAP IS GOOD>
The only op shops I found in cheap clothing land had unworn RRL jeans from 1992 for a thousand dollars. I don't know what that means either. After all the struggle last month for an okay pair of jeans, I found myself focusing on increasingly small details to the point where everything became fairly ugly here and there if not all over. It's time not to look too closely. I turned on the radio and didn't bother changing the station. I drove to the op shop where the clothes are 2 dollars a kilo. Either someone had come through earlier or there wasn't much there. I still filled up a sack. I saw some cheap Mondays in Singapore that were almost white, so I got all the really light blue jeans I could. After a bit of basic re tailoring I had some good jeans for eighty cents. Sure you gotta take your chances in these places, but my god, come on. Try to get something you want, that you see people wearing every day, in all the shops in several countries, only to not find it. There it is, sitting on some online shop somewhere that won't ship anything outside of wherever they are. The biggest online shoe store in the world. Come on. All you have to do is stick it in an envelope and write an address. How hard can that be? I guess you can go through a third party international online shopping delivery service for eighty dollars.

THE ARCADES>
Okay so went to St Lukes arcade. What did they have? Um. I'm not sure. Oh yeah. No. Lots of chunky sporty shoes, with the flat broad soles. Well I thought, maybe the time has come for Onitsuka Tigers. I'll go buy a pair.

First we gotta check out Onehunga Dressmart arcade. Here's a few things. In Barkers there were plain t-shirts in a tasteful grey on sale for 30 dollars, which I couldn't handle just yet. In the Converse shop there were some dark blue canvas boat shoes in women's sizes that I thought were good. Um. Some Black Adidas Puffy high tops that came in small and huge. I didn't try any on, so I don't know how they go when worn. The thing about this online shopping stuff is it's tricky trying the stuff on, and when you find something you're sure you'd like, it ends up being a taunt from the strange bureaucracy of capitalissyium . It's true. I don't think they care about money. they just want to not give you anything. it's always available somewhere else. Maybe it's about exclusivity. Lots more chunky shoes. I went to Sole in Vicky Park Market to get some of those shoes that I suddenly decided were good now. I've been to all these places, and there's probably better shops somewhere, I don't know. I'm not that smart.

So In this Sole place, there suddenly weren't any Onitsuka shoes any more. There were always heaps before. I looked around a last time and found one pair, so I got them. These are the ugliest shoes I've seen in a long time. They're mostly purple. They're samples that the shoe co must have sent in case the shop wanted to order some and they didn't because they were TOO UGLY. Maybe sports shoes should look like sports shoes and be ugly and all that, and casual shoes should be minimal and inexpensive, and street shoes should come in brown and black leather, not have logos seared into them, have thin soles, not be pre-distressed, have round toes of varing degress of pointiness depending on how swanky you feel, and should avoid any kind of chunkiness unless they're actually work boots. Or maybe I'm thinking it's good to either dress very well or very badly. Perhaps boredom is the only adversary.



***

Foreign Report

BY TAHI MOORE

I'm not back in Auckland but then someone was talking about Swedish jeans and then I looked up this company I never heard of, Svensson Jeans, and the pictures looked good, so I looked up a shop that sold them, went there, tried some on, but the fit was really loose on the calf, I mean no good at all. And that was that. I didn't have time to obsess over something I couldn't get hold of it was just down the road. They even had a pair of hand crafted plain the right cut blue jeans from Japan in my size no pocket art or funny threads. They seemed a bit expensive. They weren't overly though, about half what you'd charge in Auckland. This was meant to be a good story, but now I'm just depressed. The sale shall be your only hope young man. Go.



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Let's All Plunder Vinyl From Real Groovy

BY DAVE TAYLOR

You're probably all well aware of this, but Real Groovy is a national treasure. If Nicholas Cage was a kiwi, he'd star in films about trying to find it.

Unlike record shops in London or New York, the racks are raked over relatively lightly. And the prices are a steal. What you can pick up there for 2 bucks would cost you 20 quid on Berwick Street.

As music becomes easier to obtain and more freely distributed via the interweb, I find myself drawn more and more to vinyl. You want the latest release? You can grab it off the internet and stick it on your ipod along with millions of other people. You want to hear a 1960s album by Peg Leg Sam? Well, more than likely you'll have to come round my house to hear it because I bought the only copy Real Groovy had. It's not been re-released on CD so it's not been digitised and let loose on the planet of sound so you won't be able to pinch it off the 'net.

I encourage any of you with a passion for music to head down there. If you see an album that:

a) has a nice cover
b) is by a band you've not heard of
c) is priced at a dollar

then buy it! You might be buying an undiscovered gem - for a third of the price of a Magnum ice cream.

Since moving to Auckland last year, I've taken pot luck on a lot of dollar albums (and some pricier) from Real Groovy. As a result, I have a big stack of totally shit schmaltzy 70s country albums. But I also have a stack of amazing albums which
I would have been hard pressed to find anywhere else.

The purpose of this monthly column is to share some of the best discoveries with you. I'm aware I'm slightly contradicting my 'you can only get this at my house' argument by digitising these tracks, but there you go.

So for my inaugral column, I've picked out records by 60s pre-teen sensations, The Bantams, great 70s country by Loudon Wainwright and an album about being a mental patient by Don Bowman and Chet Atkins.

Beware the Bantams - The Bantams

These guys look like a 60s version of Hanson - three blond mop topped lads not yet into double figures agewise. They look slightly disturbing, and I was worried about the people at the counter thinking I was a peado when I went to pay for it. But it was worth it.

This track is their version of the classic Suzie Q. It's got an awesome garage rock production and fuzz guitar lick running through it. The boys do their best to sound older than they are and only the yelp in the middle reminds you that their balls haven't dropped yet.

> Download Suzie Q

Attempted Moustache - Loudon Wainwright III

OK, so a little easier to get this on CD. But I got this sucker for a dollar, and it's truly awesome. The cover photo makes me laugh - anyone who's tried and failed to grow some top lip furniture for Movember will feel a little better after looking at it.

This track is a fine ditty about random acts of violence. 'let's burn down McDonalds' sings Loudon 'tomorrow is sunday / there's going to be parades/back at the house/i've got some grenades'.

Loudon is sooo much cooler than his irritating son. Or at least, he was back then.

> Download Clockwork Chanteusse

Fresh from the Funny Farm - Don Bowman

On this record, there's Chet Atkins' impeccable country picking (knowingly lampooned on 'world's worst guitar picker'), some nice kitschy country close harmonies and Don Bowman singing about being incarcerated in a mental asylum, in the voice of a southern simpleton.

This track is about writing a letter to his sweet heart from inside the funny farm. 'I'm writing this to you with the blunt end of a spoon' says Don and we all share his pain.

> Download Letter to Ellie Mae

I hope you enjoy the tracks. If you do venture into Real Groovy and take a punt, I'd love to hear about it. Join this blog and add your comments below.

And I do like contemporary music too - read all about it at www.artrocker.com



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Hometown Superette Beverage Round-Up

BY SALLY CONOR

Jeez it’s hot! Usually I’m the kind of girl to hide away from the sun like a pasty grub in hibernation, but lately I keep finding myself trekking up Newton Rd in the middle of the day and by the time I make it to Symonds St I’m parched and sweaty. Hometown Superette at the Symonds St shops (next to the wig emporium) is like a cool oasis sans camels. One whole side of the shop is lined with fridges full of nice cold drinks. And such a variety! From your standard soft drinks and fruit juices through to incredibly obscure brands of sarsparilla and strange coffee-in-a-can. The choice is dizzying! Wow!! What follows is a brief survey of those beverages that I have sampled from Hometown so far:

Phoenix Elderflower

Okay so Phoenix is by no means obscure these days. Especially now they’re owned by Charlie’s. Fucking Mark Ellis again. Go away you dickbag! We all hate you! And your stupid advertising website is possibly the most abhorrent money-filching scheme ever conceived!! Get out of our faces and get yourself marooned on a rocky island populated by hungry Kimodo Dragons if at all possible!

So the Phoenix Elderflower drink is really really nice. Sweet and floral and refreshing. Good with gin! I tried it.

Ben Shaw’s Dandelion & Burdock

I was intrigued by this drink. It sat next to a whole lot of other weird-looking ones like Irn Bru, that kinda gross Fanta-like stuff from Scotland. The Dandelion & Burdock can was quite ugly, but I allowed myself to wonder what on earth a dandelion drink might taste like. I had visions of a lovely cool chamomile-style golden nectar that fairies drink out of acorn cups. I ignored the ‘burdock’ bit. This was unwise.

The drink is quite a dark brown and fizzy and almost 100% disgusting. Tastes cloyingly sweet and a bit like creaming soda but way more full-on. Perhaps this is what root beer is like? They were always drinking root beer in Babysitter’s Club novels and I never knew what it was. Kind of fake vanilla-ish and revolting. Avoid.

Mello Yello

Re-released! Again!

A bit like Lift. But not as good.

Lilt Fruit Crush Pineapple & Grapefruit

Another one from the weird shelf. Sounds like it should be awesome right? Pineapple and grapefruit together should be DELICIOUS. It even has a cool can! However, it does say in red letters on the back ‘Contains a source of phenylalanine’.Usually a bad sign. And indeed, this drink is a huge disappointment. Little trace of any pineapple or grapefruit flavour, only a vague, generic ‘fruit’ flavour, some bubbles, and an unpleasant furry coating on your teeth in the manner of Coke. Too bad! It seemed so promising. Sigh.

Ch’i

Yuuuummmmmmmm!!!! So eighties. So refreshing. So so good. Makes me feel a bit like Lana Cocroft when I drink it.

Ribena

Given last year’s false-advertising-vitamin-C-in-Ribena controversy, I thought I would re-test Ribena to see if the fact that it has not very much vitamin C in it detracts from its flavour. I got the kind in a juice-box (of course… does anybody actually buy it in those strange sac things?) and hoed into it with gusto. And then I remembered: I never drank Ribena for vitamin C in the first place! I drank it because it’s so goddam delicious. It tastes like my childhood. There’s something regressive about slurping out of a juice-box… it instantly makes one feel three years old again. It makes me wish I still needed two hands to hold onto Ribena! Remember how awesome it felt to have that much juice that you needed both hands?! They should put straw holes in the tops of big tetra-packs of juice, just so us grown-ups could experience that pleasure again. Kind of like when you get four Kit-Kat Chunkys and melt them together to make one giant Kit-Kat. Makes your hands feel really tiny!

I can highly recommend the Hometown Superette for all your beverage needs. They also have Dr Pepper and the full range of energy drinks if you need a bit of a pick-me-up on your way through town. They have an excellent range of chips as well. My kinda dairy.



***

Jeans: The Final Chapter

BY TAHI MOORE

(JEANS: The Final Chapter)
This is the land of big. I see people wearing stuff I want to buy. Where do they get it? Where do you get a v neck t-shirt. I got a slightly oversized piere cardan t-shirt with a big round neck like a girls shirt that I like. I found a small shop where the guy brings back stuff from Japan and they only get jeans in my size. So I got some.

CRAFTSTYLING
I had to craftstyle the jeans down from a wide straightleg to the cut that suits me. So I did that, and now after months of searching and going to the other side of the world and recraftstyling jeans from france for the japanese market at a reasonable price I have what I've been looking for. It's a letdown. Jeans aren't worth all that effort. I mean they're not that great. You just kind of need them. I understand why people pay four times as much as they should for jeans that look okay when they try them on. From now on I'm just going to make my own suits.



***

Watches

BY TAHI MOORE

I'm in KL. A lot of people are wearing watches. Watches I think are hard because there are so many that think like it's a necessary thing that you kind of pretty up a bit. But the whole cell phone thing yeah you know.

Now, I think that watches are just like it's like you wear one for the look so now it wants to just look like a watch. If there is another layer of re-hiding the watch, it's too much it's too complex you have to just have the thing looking like you got the watch because it looks like a watch. It goes the other way too, it can be too basic like you just got a cheap watch because you need one. No they can never be too basic, nor too cheap looking like it's okay to do plastic becasue it looks just like an expensive watch you know with the gold bits and the flashy writing or whatever and that elegance of style or something you gotta get a cheap watch just simple like the person designing it goes can you see the time? Yeah okay, it's done that's it. Sometimes the cheap watches are really good too, but most of the time they're just like the expensive ones, they have way too much details, the time display just hides under all this crap on your wrist. If there's a useful function in having a watch it's that you can read the time in half a second instead of five seconds. You really want that time thing right tere without being too cluttered up.

But more people are wearing watches. The othodox thing to do is to get an old one with good design. I've been predicting that swatch watches will come back, I don't know. But they still do plain ones which are nice.

I'm looking for a good see through watch I really want a quartz crystal digital see through watch no details. Would that just look too much like a mac? Probably. Okay.

Styles: Railroad, which is about readability, but the official swiss ones have this blob on the end of the second hand.

Dive, I've seen a few people wear them well. Then there are all these watches with bezels and it's like having an altometer on your car.

Pilot watches usually have a triangle at the top, often with a couple of dots. It's all a bit whiffy, I'm sure there are lots of watches that work but the whole theme thing I mean it's not fancy dress here.



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Black Jeans Okay. Running Shoes No Longer Real.

BY TAHI MOORE

2 things.

BLACK JEANS>

They seem to be just black jeans now. Not a whole lot of people wear them it's just another colour less different from dark blue than acid washed light blue. Maybe I've been bothered with the the colour of my shrink to fits which I think are slightly not dark blue enough. No. They don't have a very good cut. But anyway now I think black jeans have stopped being a bit funny or past it and they're not a sketchy colour any more, which is nice.

SHOPPING FOR SOMETHING>

I don't think there's enough of everything to decide you want a particular kind of pants or shoes or anything and hope to find it from a week of shopping. You'll probably find something that kind of looks like what you want but isn't any good and you buy it anyway and it's a super mistake. Almost everything works by chance because almost nobody who makes clothes has any idea, or they do and make people what they want. That Simpsons episode where Homer designs his dream car which brakrupts the car company looks wrong to me. It'd probably be a huge hit. Walk into any sports shoe shop and look the array of clown shoes on sale and people actually wear them everywhere. It's a true story.

I went to Sole in Vicky Park Market and they had some nice New Balance retro style running shoes, except they had gaint Ns on the sides. I don't want to know who contracted the same shoe gluers, who make all the other shoes, to put these out. I have this intuitive feeling that shoes are no longer made by the company that owns the name. It feels like imitation shoes that just happen to be legally liscenced. It's like buying fan merchandise. It doesn't feel real.



***

Shoes Sprts Shoes Style Wires for Casual Smart Casual Plus

BY TAHI MOORE

I SEE PEOPLE WEARING VANS
After I noticed people in photos in magazines and ads for jeans wearing Vans, I looked at some in a shop and they still looked the same. Then I saw three people wearing them. They were good. The soles are thick, which is tricky, except when they get it right.

THE INTRACACIES OF SPORTS SHOE DESIGN
I mean when anything gets a bit indistintive in the design it it gets a bit indistinctive. When design gets perfect it tends to get boring unless it's doing something really good. Casual shoes are good when they're plain, but usually they're sports shoes. Vans tend to have thick soles and a wavy logo that can go either way. that thick sole thing really stands out and they really need to be funny in another way to really work, and basic. And basic. aand basic. Sometimes you can do 3 colours, but usually it's 2 colours too much. There's no such thing as smart casual in sprts shoe land there's no such thing as dressed up. It won't work. The sprts shoes you put on today are the shoes you got because they looked really good with your jeans. That's it. You can't save the wavy line. You can't wear them and insist comfort. You can't hope they'll work when you're not looking or when someone else sees the something you don't right now. That happens sure but not usually. Usually it's all hope and a dream follwed by the comfort zone of memory loss oblivion. If they don't work now and you still buy them they'll know they won't have to work later on and you'll still wear them ha ha sucker.

CHEAP SHOES
Went to No1 shoe warehouse to try some Vans turned out to be lookalike nradn I liked the white chuck type shoes 20 dollars but then a voice from the jeans in depth research said don't by me I was made with below subsistence wages, probably. I tried to do research into that but nothing. What does that mean? I don't know.



***

All I Wanted Was Some Plain Jeans and I Ended Up in a Never Ending Nightmare of Fluff Disasters

BY TAHI MOORE

SHRINK TO FIT 501's ORIGINALS ARRIVE

They say to order 1 size too wide on the pocket but I ordered 2 sizes up. Stood in a hot shower, sat out in the sun. Stuck them in a washing machine. Found out they shrink a lot for three washes and finally stop shrinking after ten.

Okay the whole point of sitting in new jeans in a hot bath and sunbathing in them until dry a few times is to get them to take the shape of your body.

THE CUT AND ALL THAT

High waist, tight but has some give. wideish leg - I took them in a bit -, really heavy denim. They came off the line so stiff I leaned them against the wall. Good pocket art. Possibly the only jeans you can safely experiment with online since there's not much point trying them on in a shop when they'll just shrink on you.

REAL JEANS RESULTS

The Levi's originals were like Evisu's, only more so. I think they're good. Made me feel like I was from the twenties. I've looked at too many bum pocket disasters and too much frilly fru fru that gets put all over nearly every pair of jeans I've seen. It's not as easy as it should be to find good plain jeans. I've also seen enough people in plain Levi's that look like two wide indigo cylinders shoved into their testicles to make me regret I ever started looking at jeans. Just please get something that fits. I'm really sick of this. Oh god. oh god. I don't want choice I want good tailoring. I want jeans, not fruit.

BEST YEAH YEAH

The best jeans are said to be Jomons.
The best denim is said to be Kapital.
In my experience heavier denim tends to look better.
The standard jeans of the now are probably Nudies.
You can get plain skinny cowboy Wranglers from a western shop online for twenty dollars.



***

Jeans in transit, shoes, more online jeans.

BY TAHI MOORE

The Levi's havent arrived yet. So there's nothing to talk about. Here's some filler.

SHOES.

Lots of people in Vans. They're tricky shoes. Sometimes they work and most of the time thery're tricky. The soles are chunky. The side stripey logo can go all wrong when the colours don't match up or when the colours do match up. They should probably be bought from Cheapskates. I'm only guessing.

Clarks are usually pretty good. They don't have a whole range of styles. You get them in suede. All the colours are fine. Black ones don't weather as well as the brown ones. T J Clarks in Queens arcade at the bottom of Queen st and Customs St tend to have the full range.

MORE ONLINE JEANS.

Looked for somewhere that will sell Uniqo jeans. Apparently they have funny sizes. They only sell through their own shops I think so you can't really buy them I think. Anyway shopping for jeans sight unseen has got to be very wrong. If Levi's have the genuine article, which is still being shipped out to me so I really can't tell yet, and jeans have turned into some kind of craftstyle, then I guess those Japanese jeans are probably the real thing of now. I've found something online that doesn't have pocket art or even rivets and only come in small medium and large. Apparently Levi's is trying to law control stop all japan jeans. It's about branding I'm sure but in this warped narrative it is a declaration for craftsyle to be the new real. Sort of.

Maybe I'm going to have to buy some of these, or maybe I'm just going to have to craftsyle my own. But not before the shrink to fit classic style universal jeans that anyone can get has been tested.



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Standard Jeans Theory

BY TAHI MOORE

DRESSMART

CARPARKS

I went to Dessmart in Onehunga to find the real Levi's. The parking's really busy in the weekends here so I just took a ten minute car park just outside on the street. This has got the advantage of not being able to spend long enough in Dressmart to get run down, which usually takes me about twenty minutes. There are so many promises of bargains and things that are almost okay but not quite, that it can get epic in the search for something, anything, which must be around somewhere.

STRAIGHT TO THE SHOP
LEVIS--> FRENCH STYLE 00 JAPANESE STYLE 90 AMERICAN STYLE 80

The outlet store is at the northwest corner of the enclosed area. Okay it is a shop full of Levi's, BUT. I saw these things that are plain, but they're copying french jeans. They've got the same kind overdone back arseband labels as August 77 jeans, except in a slightly more everyman style, you know, goes to the gym or something.

Nearly everything else was a copy of japanese jeans. I've been told that Uniqlo is the Japanese version of Hallensteins. They sell japan made selvedge denim with exactly the right thread and no bum pocket art for real cheap. You can buy them online from their site if you live in Japan or certain parts of the UK. If you happen to be in NY, you can pick up a pair for 40 dollars rrp. Anyway the online shop only sold them in size 30 and 38.

Levis have that nice number code but you can't wear numbers no matter how hard you try.

STONEWASH

In the far corner was the closest thing to actual Levi's. They had been through a process called stone wash that gives the material this flecked feature feature. You can't wear jeans and this is true because everyone buys style everyone who goes into a shop wants style because style is all there is if you want plain denim well you won't buy it not because you want it you secretly know that style is the only things to be to get, jeans is not the thing and in this knowledge the special jeans people only provide special jeans because nobody buys normal jeans you can't find them in shops anyway and no one makes them so that proves it.

Tried on close to normal stone wash darkish blue denim jeans. They came in size 30 and size 31. They were stretch denim. Since I am size 32 it was a lost cause. The lower leg was too wide anyway.

I also went to Just Jeans. They had some similar jeans in sizes 35 to 38.

Outlet store usually mens there's good chance that if you find what you want, then they won't quite have it in your size. I'd have to say it's a trawling mission on a similar scale to op shopping for something in particular. Ten minutes is up.

OP SHOP

One pair of NZ made pre worn jeans that need a resew. I think they were faded buy actual use, but fades are fades are fades. The only thing you could fit through the belt loops would be piece of string, not rope. Nice job though.

ST LUKES

ANOTHER MALL MORE SIZES

I tried K-Mart, which has Bonds t-shirts, possibly the poor cousin of American Apparel. They say made in Australia and come in all the colours. white black grey navy. There were jeans, which all had the advantage of being able to double as marquee tents. I got a grey Bonds t-shirt.

Hallensteins had jeans, just, no I can't remember.

FRUIT SALAD

Just jeans had a whole wall of Levi's, honestly. More like a whole wall of fruit. Tried the closest to normal pair, the only ones with plain yellow thread. One size too small on the waist and twentythree sizes to big on the legs, honestly. I should have bought them because I could have made three pairs and a dinner suit out of one pair of too small 607's I think they were. So I didn't try on my size.

Farmers had a whole bunch of 607's and some maybe fitting jeans, but by this time the stone wash effect that covered everything was starting to make me feel too ill to continue.

THESIS

Standard jeans don't exist, they're all playing off the idea of jeans
When standard jeans did exist they were just bad
In the end you just have to give up on the idea of it and shop around for something wrong that just works anyway.

MORE

I think people wear what they do because that's what's in the shops when it comes to shopping time.

SOMETHING LIKE THE REAL DEAL

After the short search for Uniqlo jeans and a discovery that the online Levi's shop only ships to the bay area, except when Paul is sick or his scooter breaks down. maybe they assume that everyone will just go to Amazon by default.

Apparently Levi's used to make shrink to fit jeans that came in 3 sizes. Levi's claim to make originals 501's shrink to fit no fades etc. These things are meant to shrink ten per cent and you have to jump in a creek or a water hole. Next week I'll be reviewing a water hole and the difficulties of swimming in wet jeans.




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Browns Bay

BY SARAH HOPKINSON

Browns Bay quietly muddles along in its sunny corner of the North Shore unbeknownst (or purposefully ignored) by the majority of Auckland city dwellers. Ostensibly it boasts no glittering attractions; the beach is ok, the sights mediocre, it is very middle-class but not entirely without charm. Elderly drivers congest traffic, sidewalks are roamed by bored youths that haunt the $2 dollar shop and messily eat ice creams on the promenade. Yet to be railroaded by malls, the main street is peppered with the family businesses and boutiques usually confined to small towns and yester-year; including a knitting store (not the trendy type), a Christian book store, pet and pie shops. It is very white, noticeably so. High percentages of British and South African immigrants frequent multiple nationally themed stores such as ‘The British Shop’ (where you can buy those delicious marmite flavoured crisps) and a traditional South African butcher (for the boerworst connoisseurs). On Sunday mornings there is a market where you can select form a vast array of succulents for not much more than 50c each. All in all Browns Bay is a friendly place, perhaps a little backward, familiar and a touch unsettling.

The suburb also boasts a large elderly population and, despite the ghoulish implications, there isn’t a surer signpost for good opportunity shopping. The solid good taste and practicality of our grandparent’s generation, coupled with do-gooder middle-class-ness makes Browns Bay a kind of second-hand store haven. To my knowledge, as well as several furniture outlets, there are 4 stores that stock chiefly clothes and bric-a-brac. It is for these shops that I frequently take the trip to the Shore.

For me good thrift-ing is all about the ratio, you see. For example, a Savemart can be disheartening because the bad monstrously outweighs the good. An inner-city vintage store on the other hand can be too easy; the scales are purposefully tipped in the good’s favour. Browns Bay strikes a near perfect balance: it is hard work but it pays dividends. It offers the thrill of the chase. In Browns Bay, among the usual garish floral synthetic full-length dresses, dime novels and old misshapen men’s shoes that clutter second-hand stores, the discerning eye can find treasures of insurmountable quality. The pure lambs wool cardigans, tapered well-cut trousers and linen sundresses of my Antonioni-inspired dreams, have all been spotted here. I once bought a Harris Tweed, not dissimilar from one my grandmother owns (and probably purchased on from some discerning stockist on Bond St or the like) for the price of Sunday brunch. (I often equate op shop spends with food; the mental use/exchange value comparison is very rewarding.) This I added to a long list of acquisitions that includes everything from sturdy hand-knitted woollen hot water bottle covers to an alcohol cabinet with mirrored shelves and martini glass hooks.

However, it saddens me to say that while the treasures at Browns Bay have never, by any stretch of the imagination, been in abundance there has been a perceptible downturn in the last year. I am not sure whether my tastes have changed, some astute businessperson has cottoned on or simply that the generation that supplied the stores is slowly dwindling. Perhaps all of the above. In saying that it remains a worthwhile trip, if only to take half a day off, cross the bridge, chat to the lovely volunteer ladies, eat a tasty beef and mushroom homemade pie from the local French Café, and immerse yourself for a moment in sunny suburban stupor.


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Fair Go

BY AMBER EASBY

The Auckland Vinyl Record Collectors Fair took place at the Polish House, Morningside on Saturday November 3rd. The fair ran from 10am to 3pm. Henry and I were driving down McDonald Street at 10.05am, when I saw a fat, bald, middle-age man running to his car with a stash of records. We had arrived.

There was a $2 entry fee into the hall. The doorman asked if we were looking for anything in particular. We answered, hoping he might point out a few sellers. Nothing. He asked how regularly we bought records. We answered and he responded. “Really?” The $2 token was also a raffle ticket. “Make sure you hold onto that. There are some good prizes.”

The Polish House is a small hall but there was a decent amount to look through. I was surprised at how many people there were, though I was only one of three women. I saw a friend flicking through some magazines. “Its all fucking junk. Same shit as last year” he said. I asked what he had looked through. “Nothing. I can’t fucking be bothered.”

Henry and I split up - Henry was on LPs, I was on 45s. My first purchase was a lot of fifteen singles – mostly Motown and Disco, all in good condition - for $20. The seller was eating a sandwich and took a good ten minutes before he noticed me. I later saw him staring into the distance, picking his nose, while another customer waited to pay.

My next purchase was from a nice elderly man. His singles were expensive but when I showed him what I wanted, he cut the price in half. I bought six 45s for $10, including a great Marlene Dietrich E.P and a Dolly Parton/Porter Wagoner (R.I.P) duet.

The proceedings were interrupted by the first, probably last, competition of the day. There was a small stage and the doorman had a microphone. If you guessed the record playing, you won a $5 lunch voucher. Not a single person tried. I could hear my friend calling “turn it off” until the song finally ended.

My third transaction was a mistake. Riding high from my previous scores, I hastily chose some 45s from the stack. I misheard the seller and ended paying twice as much as I wanted. I was too shy to say anything, having just been introduced to the seller by another friend. I am still suffering from post-purchase remorse after spending $20 on three singles I wasn’t even that excited about.

I bought another sixteen singles in my fourth and final acquisition. 1960s Beat, Rock and Pop – all for a buck apiece. Three grumpy men sat behind the table. They were like Statler and Waldorf, the guys who heckle form the balcony in the Muppets. I overheard them critiquing my browsing technique. “At that rate, she is going to be there all day.“ Annoyed, I called for back up. Henry checked the condition of each record as I flicked though more.

I was down $66 but had nearly forty good records to show for it. Henry found five LPs he considered to be a bargain. In true Henry fashion, he spent $40 dollars but saw a $50 return on an HDU album he sold on TradeMe later that day. Maybe we should have stayed for the raffle. GRADE: G+/VG



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The Search For Fabric of Newmarket. Or Any Jeans.

BY TAHI MOORE

Sure, it's been a long time since the cut of jeans have decided to become bored. Jeans themselves might begin to cease to be clothes at all. Everyone will carry on wearing them, but there is something inherently evil in the whole situation. It's not even primarily to do with the way they get made. It's got a lot more to with pockets.

I've been asking people what the best jeans are. And the consensus is Levi's. But try to find a plain pair. I saw someone wearing some the other day. I really don't know where he got them from.

I went on a journey, searching for the fabled Fabric branch in Newmarket. It's like searching for a good pair of Levis, except I still believe the Levis are out there. Every shop had a wall mounted shelving unit full of jeans with the back pockets facing up and they all had back pocket art work. Along with the intricate detailing, patinas, shine, studs, coloured thread, selvidge, the pockets make jeans the most elaborate item of clothing you can own. Sure you can get a ten dollar t shirt with a white silkscreen floral pattern and a roughly sewn on logo, but it's just as easy to get Bonds and American Apparel.

In the whole of Newmarket the only pair of jeans that might pass for actual jeans were the last Chloés in the women's section of Workshop. There might have been more, but I doubt it.

So what do you do? Trousers? I think so.

Anyway, since it was raining, and since I had on a Swandry, I went into said shop and the Classic reissues are on sale until they run out. They're cut a bit large, but the one that fit snug just looked like a shirt.

And tip? Tried on some super-crafted jeans and the pockets were really BIG, and I don't have an arse. I actually need braces. But it looked like I was really fat, which just adds to the evil jeans pockets theory.




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