Global Trend Report 2009 - Vienna & Stockholm

BOYS

Boys are just boys in Vienna. They all look like young, watered-down versions of what comes to mind when you think of a sensitive yet seductive older man. They’re not bothering themselves with unnecessary accessories, colors, bulges, or silhouettes. Guys here believe in traditional fashion values—slim as a cigarette and shy as a ten-year-old girl on the first day of summer camp. The playful Falco arrogance of years past is long gone. These days all the fashion in Vienna is intellectual, dark, and brooding. You’ll find a lot of practical bags and demure haircuts. All-time favorite colors are black, gray, and white (in that order). Brands are not that important, seeing as you can hardly even find stores that sell fancy-pants stuff here.

GIRLS

Granny accessories are big with girls in Vienna—furry hats, your mother’s pearl necklace, and irrelevant things like umbrellas and capes. As for the actual clothes, they usually opt for black and plain cuts. It’s mostly vintage stuff, kept simple by wearing dresses and skirts paired with black tights. They like to top it off with some weird, out-of-place boots. The other style option is to pile on tons of old shit, add one designer piece and a wig, and still manage to look way better than anything the fuckin’ Sartorialist could ever shoot in Milan.

BOYS

Swedish guys have decided to fuck it all and become human Xanax. They have endless amounts of jokes up their sleeves guaranteeing everyone a good time. They wear cute and funny stuff like caps with “friend” written on them and homemade jewelry like a second-place-medal pin and a necklace made from a piece of string and a rock with a hole in it. They tote around 3-D dinosaur books to trick you into a smile and then a blowjob.

They’ll even walk around in public with a Hitler t-shirt as a dare to see if anyone will beat them up. They refuse to lose the nerdy glasses (though they’ve upgraded them to a slimmer, slightly more posh version) and they wear their jeans so high up that if the rest of their outfit failed to make you laugh, the male camel toe certainly will. (Note that the Hitler tee is made by JPFO—Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. We’re not Nazis. Hitler just looks funny.)

GIRLS

With the world going down the drain, no one dares to care about fancy brands or trendy party outfits anymore, especially not self-conscious Swedes. These days the girls are all about being destructive, drinking heavily, and blaspheming like in the days of the Great Depression, when decadence and depravity bloomed. Girls wear high heels, lipstick, and tight tops with décolletage and leather jackets. The key to this look is to wear fur à la dirty 30s glamour, preferably those heartbreaking ones with the little emptied animal heads and paws still on (starting the fur debate will only result in a yawn). It’s essential to look more trashy than posh, ideally as if you’ve worn the same outfit for three days in a row then crashed on someone’s couch after some rough nights. Wine stains are a plus. These girls are generally unconcerned and will say stuff like, “Darling, I need a drink to get back on track.”