Global Trend Report '08 - New Zealand

It’s slightly disappointing that no one in this majestic land actually looks like Frodo or Xena. Yes, that is all most of us know about New Zealand. Oh, and

Flight of the Conchords

, which isn’t the funniest thing ever, but it’s a little bit funny once in awhile.

Eagle Vs. Shark

was pretty good too—like

Napoleon Dynamite

but with cute accents and kind of sadder. What other good movies were made in New Zealand? Oh yeah,

Heavenly Creatures

. That’s an old fave. So anyway, instead of mythical creatures and lesbian schoolgirls, what we have here is a bunch of young cool kids being cool in their cool clothes that, we are slowly coming to realize, are the same cool clothes as everywhere else in the world. Globalization blah blah blah.

Nevertheless, New Zealanders look like a pretty good time. It’s like new rave never stretched its poisonous tentacles all the way over there or something. NZ girls are good at mix ’n’ match. High-end designer pieces (Yohji Yamamoto Y’s, Zambesi) are carefully thrown together with more “street” items and bits of vintage. A simple black-and-white outfit accented with a Chanel purse plus arm tattoos plus pink hair with long bangs plus Docs equals “Let’s do this.” And wait, is that a tattoo of the Little Mermaid on her arm? OK, fine, let’s

fucking

do this.

Everything is black-and-white, and color only occurs in the context of a perfect plaid shirt, which is harder to find than you think. Again, the preppy look for boys is a big winner, with a nice, muted-color Comme des Garçons cardigan and other tried-and-true classics, while the more metrosexual types keep up the snazz with either a slick cyberpunk vibe or a hobo kind of look. (Actually, hey, the guy in the floppy felt hat here is almost approaching hobbit territory!)

Finally, all boys have uniformly decided, “Fuck it, let’s carry tote bags, what the hey.”

Photos: Sam Crawford; text: Jimmy Johnson