European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 07, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse If. From recover Wear it s at continued from Page 1 water. These kids Aren t Sib saharan Are you be spotted one of these water babies on base. How far away was the nearest water Bubbler two Hundred Yards Max. In places like London s Trafalgar Square or Rome s St. Peters they clutch their bottles with even greater Fervour. Where s the nearest purveyor of ice cold drinks perhaps 100 feet. So these bottles Aren t about survival not about Comfort. They Are about fashion. The ubiquitous Ness of these bottles Sheds Light on another american fashion fad the front to Back baseball Cap. You probably thought the what me worry look they produce was brought about wholly by whim. Not so. The water bottle did it. Ever try to swig from a one liter water bottle while wearing a baseball Cap As it was meant to be worn ? you be got it. Something has to give. Either you con sume that soul sustaining water while lying Down or the bottle pushes up the Cap s Bill. Either Way it is not a pretty sight. The solution the front to Back Cap. Fashion fickle no Way but solidly grounded in practicality. Take the uniquely american fashion item the loathsome tank top. Or As Henny Youngman would put it please most people think the purpose of the tank tops " merely to allow Guys to demonstrate a no brainer fashion Outlook. How Little do they know. The Wear ing of the tank lop especially on the most sweltering of Days is no Mere contrivance. Instead it s an in your face fashion statement that shouts i am choose one hairy obese pimply Perpet rally locked into adolescence and in urgent need of a while the tank top surely tops the repugnance tables other fashion fads merely seem silly although certainly puzzling Why must to shirts be tent sized Why must pants be so baggy that two people Good friends of course could Wear them Are $100-a-pair sneakers left unplaced in order to make life easier for muggers seeking soles Why has t grunge caught on in the third world Why do Iron plated jeans suddenly get weak kneed and unset and just when ventilation slits be come the in thingy do any creatures other than bulls really need nose rings / does anyone actually think that cattails look cute on Young boys finally one Basic question to Ponder is fashion the world s greatest put on for is Kevin Goss a pair of musicians relax before taking the stage at last month s Usa eur s Battle of the bands the color and combat in teen clothing by Karen Abbott Denver Rocky Mountain news if your daughter wears combat boots not to worry. _ unless her boots have red laces in which Case you must Contact a Good teen therapist immediately. Or possibly it s purple Boot aces. Or maybe by now yellow ones. Meanwhile if your son wears All Black clothes and paints his face White and draws Black circles around his eyes and Calls himself a death Rocker probably you Don t have to worry not yet anyway death rocking so far does t seem to be really dangerous. But if he s wearing Brand name jeans and a White Button Down shirt maybe you should panic. Today s teen clothing is More strongly symbolic than Ever but the rules Are Subtle and fluid. Clothes that signal dangerous cult involvement or gang membership this season can be mainstream teen fashion by fall attire that s popular with College bound Church going Honor students this year can be adopted As a gang uniform within months., everything just kind of gets swallowed up by the whole teen movement so it s hard to distinguish what s actually True gang related for instance and what s just a fad says Regina Huerter who runs juvenile diversion program for the Denver District at Torney s office and has worked with youth related programs for 16 years. She said parents should be most worried if a teen insists on wearing a single colorow style constantly or wears anything on which letters or other symbols have been circled marked out or altered while baggy pants plaid flannel shirts and Over sized jackets have become popular with some of the nicest teens sorry gang members Are wearing Levi s or guess jeans and White shirts with Button Down collars Huerter says fashion minded Fine Young citizens whose parents wore Bass we Juns 30 years ago now May Wear Hunter Green combat style or Marten s boots. But skin Heads Wear them too. The rear skinheads Wear red ,"1 Huerter is Michael Abrams in some places the color of laces not the style of a teen s boots is what counts. Says. No Irple countered a teen age girl. Red was last after schools banned gang related clothing which at the time mostly meant certain colors especially on bandannas and sports team logos kids simply _ changed the signals and made them More Subtle. The color of a rubber band worn in the hair could be the sign Huerter says. Other times it was a few shaved spots in the Eyebrow or the Brand name of the athletic shoes. For a while it was whether the Bill of the baseball Cap pointed straight ahead to one Side or to the rear or even whether it was tilted or perfectly horizontal. Kids in several Denver area cliques for example Wear plaid flannel shirts. But whether and How the shirt is buttoned depending on the neighbourhood or the school May indicate gang membership or simply a preference for a certain kind of music. Adults Are almost never on top of the latest teen signals and that s by design. One reason teens Al ways have adopted their own clothing styles Slang dances and other distinctive behaviour is to set them selves apart from grown ups. But these Days teen culture is fractured into More cliques than Ever each with its own set of symbols hip hop. Death Rocker. Gang. Headbanger. Stoner. Punk skinhead. Jock. Grunge. Satanic. _. It s youth clothing styles much More rigid and much More connected to particular philosophies than it used to be and what bothers me about this is that there Are limited choices says Jeff Dolgan chief of psychology at Denver s children s Hospital. If you Don t pick one of these kinds of avenues of fashion you tend to be viewed Many of the cliques even the harmless ones adopt menacing clothing styles. You have to be a predator today otherwise you re treated As prey,1 Huerter agrees. It s All Power play. If you look formidable or kind of crazy you re going to have that s Why kids in the preppie group sometimes _ Are sneered at by other kids. " it worries me that something is really wrong with the preppie look with being academically oriented involved with kind of traditional Middle class values with wearing say dockers pants and a Nice sweater says Dolgan kids themselves sometimes miss the constantly changing meanings of colors sports logos hairstyles " or other warning signals displayed by some groups. _ an innocent baseball fan for instance May learn too later Botjo. Wear his team Cap in some neighbourhood where it can symbolize gang membership. Huerter says every color and every College and professional sports team has been adopted by some " gang somewhere. It can be dangerous Dolgan says. It could Well be that this is How some of the drive Bys and ind. Vertente shootings occur. Here at the Hospital we see kids who have been injured beaten up abused in awful ways because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong kinds of Scripps Howard news service Page 4 sunday August 1994
