Opinion on Clothes

Clothes don't matter at all. You shouldn't be concerned about it. Be yourself and dress functional and comfortable, heck, don't wear anything if it suits you! I've noticed that many who dress like the "typical" hippie style are either just posers or just happen to like the style and doesn't really reflect much about their personality/lifestyle anyway. My friends tell me I don't look like a hippie most of the time, but I do what I want. I'm a postdoctoral research fellow at a medical center and I usually wear shorts, T-shirt, sandles and a hat to work. On occaision my boss has asked me to "clean myself up a bit" for special occaisions and I usually do. I would call my style pretty eclectik. Sometimes tye dye, and sometimes even a polo shirt (that I got as a gift, secondhand or clearance, of course)

 

To be a hippie you must conform to the following requirements:

a. wear fish on your kneecaps at all times
b. reject everything except snowmen
c. wear blue jeans, a loin cloth or nothing at all

 

At work I have to dress a certain way. When I get home for the weekend, though, I get to drag out all my old t-shirts and ripped up jeans or flare legs. I live for the weekends!

 

clothes do NOT make the man.

 

pees iz so cul u no?!!??!?!!?!??! lolzoszpglsl

 

I like to wear different styles of clothing as I like variety. I suppose that in the cold months, I tend to dress what may be considered preppy (I guess?), but in the warm months, I'm usually clad in long, flowing sundresses and bare-foot. However if I lived in a climate in which it was warm year round, all you'd ever seen me in would be sundresses and long skirts, barefoot, only wearing shoes when I absolutely had to. I just love that.

But, I just wear what I like really. I may dress in different styles at times, but I still feel that I have the heart of a hippie.

 

I don't really know. Right now I'm wearing a pair of jeans I got out of the locker room we were cleaning and so I just took 'em, and a spaghetti strap elastic top thing....

 

Whoever said anything about clothes?

 

Surely the apex of true 'hippie-culture philosophy' is to wear no clothes at all!.

Previously on this thread there is a photo of Allen Ginsberg- one of the founding fathers of the Hippie Movement.In Barry Miles book about the 1960s counter-culture - there is a photograph from 1965 of Barry Miles- his wife & Allen Ginsberg: - Ginsberg is totally naked!. The Miles seem a little perplexed ; if not embarrased!.The photo seems really odd but even in 1965 that is how Ginsberg wanted to display himself as.
FREEDOM!!.To shed the cloth of capitalism & exploitation & be as free as nature designed you to be.

It surprises me that people espousing the 'hippie culture' could spend any time at all matching blouses with jeans or flowery shirts with kaftans & headbands.

Worst off all is nowdays - if you go nude at 'Glastonberry' or 'Reading' or any of the other pop festivals:- you would be treated as a perv.

Have a look at the number of people who went nude at Woodstock in 1969.

I just think that nowdays; - even the modern hippies have sold out to the legitimate mores of: 'money-lust' & 'quasi-respectability'.

 

Well, I personally don't like clothes, but I live in Southern California and would be arrested if I wore what I want...nothing...BUT, I improvise, I make my own clothes, then my clothes mean something to me, and they aren't just another article of clothing like every other one. My neweest pair of pants are a year old, I just put inserts in them when they are too small, and patch up the holes, and we're good to go...but clothes don't really matter, it's whats on the inside...stereotype views hippie as more of a fashion statement then a belief system, and it's really the other way around...just wear what you want, that's the hippiest thing to do.

 

just like everyone else said, of course clothes don't matter.

but that is true about the huge corporations (i'm against them for a zillion reasons) and I hate to wear their clothes....but that's me.
i also bought a pair of jeans from a thrift store and sewed side pannles into them and made them into huge, floor length bells. i love them! mainly because it hides my feet so that I don't have to wear my shoes (just another thing i'm anal about, i hate shoes)
i dress somewhat hippy.....but i really don't know. i honestly wear what i enjoy and people usually come up to me and tell me what my style is by commenting on it. i never really even realize that i'm dressing differently.
also, if you want to find some really nice clothes, there's some awsome women in the crafts forum who make great clothes for awsome prices. so buying clothes from those places like wal mart and crap cuz they're "cheap" can't be used as too much of an excuse.
but yeah, the hippy thing is all in what you believe; what's in your head.

 

Yeah that's true. And I'm always amazed when people who listen to music or watch movies made after 1972 actually think of themselves as hippies! How can they be? lolz, wtf?!

 

If you really support the hippy lifestyle but don't want to go walking around nude, try not to buy anything 'branded'. It only goes to show how much your 30 dollar Nike Sweatshirt supports corporate globalism.

 

that is true..and when i try to explain this ppl say that cloths dont matter blah blah blah..but were you buy them does...so in a sense it does matter...peace and love

 

it doesn't matter what u wear at all! i hardly ever dress "like a hippie" and people still call me one, but i always wear my peace sign bracelet. it's all about ur state of mind and the way u think, man.

 

Here is a different way of looking at the "corporate" "sweat-shop" manufacturers of clothing. If you make your own clothes do you make the fabric too? If not, you have to buy it somewhere. Probably from wal-mart or some other corporation that use the sweat-shop factory to produce the fabric. Also the Sweat-shops of third world countries: sure, the corporations take a vast profit and the women and children make nearly nothing, but it IS something. If it wasn't for the sweat-shop many of the children and families would be worse off especially in the poverty stricken countries where a few cents a week can mean the difference between starving to death and hanging on. On the other hand, it would be great if you could personally buy the goods directly from the worker, but unless you are willing to travel there it probably isn't going to happen. Just a different way of looking at it and not necessarily a strong opinion of mine


Personally, I believe in recycling (clothes) to get as much use as possible out of clothes. This limits the amount of manufacturing wastes and polution, and besides a lot of people get rid of a lot of decent stuff, and its usually cheap to buy. I also donate clothes that were given to me as gifts that don't fit, to churches and second hand shops. I prefer churches simply because the clothes are often given away free of charge as opposed to the stores.

 

that state of mind is the problem..thinking that well it sucks there are sweatshops but atleast these ppl are getting sumthing..if everyone thinks this way then sweatshops are going to be around forever...its not acceptable for anyone to live like those ppl are living..its absolutly horrible that these ppl are suffering just so we can have our designer jeans and nike shoes..also there are places where you can assure your cloths are made without the use of sweatshops..its easy to look for just look online or even the gypsy rose magazine has many cloths that are made from womens coops and recycled material...organizations like "no sweat" sell cloths and sneakers that are union made..

 

Have you ever experienced a sweatshop first hand or spoke with someone who has worked in one? I just wonder what their opinion would be. What is a sweat shop really? Any ununionized factory? If you find yourself in a job where you are not making the money you feel you deserve you either ask for a raise or quit, correct. Why doesn't the sweat shop worker quit? Or is it that that is the only (best) job available? I'm not advocating it at all, just pointing out a different angle.

I think we Americans sometimes are spoiled and set our standards of living as the standards of all countries. I've been to places in central eastern Africa where I think they would welcome the so called "sweat-shops" as being the only opportunity they have to feed their families.
I have seen families from other countries come to america and thrive beyond belief with a household income far less than what most of us would consider comfortable. Sometimes I have a hard time imagining how they do it until I realize how much americans actually waste and spoil ourselves by greed and overindulgence. But I guess I am preaching to the choir here! My point is that sometimes we see how other people live and think that it is horrible, but in reality they may be experiencing happiness and the most important parts of life even more fully than we are.

That said (i'm not really that insensitive), I have also seen disease stricken poverty, and starving citizens of countries where the governments are corrupt. It is a real shame to humanity, but what can we do about it???

 

groovy-that's a really good point. i've heard many times from people who've visited other countries (haven't had the chance to do it yet), that the people there are so happy with so much less. like my aunt and uncle who went to thailand...they said that they saw unbelievable poverty there, and yet the people down there were some of the happiest that they'd ever seen.
these people shouldn't be working in unfair enviornments, no. but their jobs may also not be the most important thing to them, just something to get by....their real lives are their families. we could learn a lot from "less privledged" countries...sometimes i think that they're more fourtunate than we are.
but like i said, i'm not advocating sweat shops AT ALL!!!

 

teeny_tiny_little_me,
I like what you said!

I often try to look deep into both sides of issues and not form a biased or ignorant opinion. I see both points on this issue, but I think it is important to not just arque the basics on any issue but also deeply educate onself into the specific dynamics of the big picture