Not for Members Only : Tennis togs and golf gear have finally escaped the country club and landed in the mad, mad world of street chic
Tennis togs have landed on La Brea Avenue. Stylish young women are wearing the skirts short and sexy, like street minis, with tank tops and zippered jackets.
Across the continent, descendants of the original New York City b-boys consider staid Tommy Hilfiger de rigueur . And a rap music label is touting its own line of golf and polo clothes.
In a world gone mad, argyle has finally escaped from the country club onto the pavement.
This fashion twitch has lured such big names as Gucci and Stussy, both of whom are filling the stores with golf-inspired wear. Even better stuff is coming from young designers and the urban fashionable who have adopted an old look as their new favorite. Vibe magazine calls it “the latest street chic.”
But this rage only faintly resembles what the pros wore during the recent PGA Championship at the Riviera Country Club. The style has been recast with looser fits, a little more skin and a lot more attitude.
“If anything, the country club has been the epitome of WASP bad taste and the place where all the aristocratic styles have gone wrong,” says Richard Martin, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. “It seems that urban youth are playing with this idea.”
Snap-brim hats worn askew. Vintage sweater vests without shirts. Pants ultra-baggy at the ankles. Finish it off with a pair of Fila’s Grant Hill high-tops.
Or take the look even further. At his Swell Store on La Brea, designer Joel Fitzpatrick offers hot-pink argyles to go with fuchsia-and-orange plaids.
“It’s really kitsch Americana,” Fitzpatrick says. “The things that are the most over-the-top, that we just do as a joke, end up being the biggest sellers.”
Hip-hop probably led the way in this blitzkrieg. All the kids want to flip tradition inside out, explains Monica Lynch, president of Tommy Boy, the music label that now touts polo shirts and vented caps. Lynch was inspired during a visit to last spring’s NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix, a city where duffers and their duds abound.
The clothes appealed to her on two levels. First, they were ripe for satire, a popular element in hip-hop fashion. Second, Lynch says, the street scene has long gravitated toward the appearance of exclusivity. Last year, it was Helly Hansen sailing gear.
“Who the hell is Helly Hansen? I mean, it’s from Denmark,” she says. “But it’s cool because it’s exclusive. The kids are very brand conscious.”
This tendency dates back to the mid-1970s when upscale sweat suits and leather tennis shoes became a staple. Run-DMC sang an ode to their trademark shoes with the 1983 hit “My Adidas.”
In his book, “Class, a Guide Through the American Status System” (Summit Books, 1983), Paul Fussell takes a curt view of such idolatry. “Brand names today possess a totemistic power to confer distinction on those who wear them,” Fussell writes. “By donning legible clothing you fuse your private identity with external commercial success, redeeming your insignificance and becoming, for the moment, somebody.” Urban youth aren’t alone in seeking validation. Martin points out that America’s middle class has snapped up Ralph Lauren’s interpretation of the English manor. And the b-boys, for their part, ventured beyond simple imitation by accessorizing pricey athletic outfits with unlikely gold chains and Kangol hats.
“It’s definitely done tongue-in-cheek and with a sense of irony,” Lynch says.
So, while street preferences have ranged from dashikis to Italian suits over the years, the country club look has continually resurfaced with revolving brands of choice. From Fila to British Knights to Sergio Tacchini. Then back to Fila.
It makes sense that these clothes would succeed in the wake of Cross Colors, the Los Angeles-based line that splashed the late-1980s in vivid oranges and yellows, says Cherie Saunders, who writes for a nationally syndicated hip-hop radio show.
“With Tommy Hilfiger and Fila, the main colors are red, white and blue,” Saunders says. “I think it’s a backlash against all those bright colors.”
Even the wilder street adaptations--such as those from Pleasure Swell, Label Whore and even Skins Game in Irvine--are drawn from traditional country club attire. At American Rag, the racks offer plenty of vintage sweaters and plaid pants.
Meanwhile, mainstream golf designers such as Bobby Jones are opting for elaborate prints. The outfits being worn at country clubs are, perhaps, more outlandish than anything seen inside the nightclubs.
And that may lead to the final irony.
When urban fashion ultimately reverses the perception of golf clothes as square, both Martin and Lynch suspect, golfers may borrow back from their streetwise mockers.
“At some point, the WASPs will get tired of wearing those over-ornamented clothes,” Martin says. “They’ll see that Tommy Boy is creating clothing that is actually drawn from classic golf clothing.”
Lynch calls it the “scenic route” of mainstream taste.
“The style gets picked up by young blacks in the inner-city who then make it popular to young white males in the suburbs,” she says. “And, the thing is, a lot of this stuff looks good.”
