The rise of geek chic

7 Notes

It’s always a little strange when the Vogue crowd adopts a look which, a few years back, was deeply uncool. Way back when, me and my orchestra-playing friends - yeah, we were that crew - wore specs and brogues, played Mozart and Nintendo, and felt a little plonky. (You know! Plonk, plonk, the sound of sturdy soles on pavements, the onomatopeia of an unladylike gait. It’s probably where the term ‘plonker’ comes from.) In 2011, it’s now a case of spotting which girls in Topshop aren’t wearing tan brogues, and laughing when you spot an actual sad case like yourself wearing the sensible ones from Clarks.

But why do the fashionable lot want to look like we all did a few years ago? What’s with this eponymous “Geek Chic”? Case in point: EVERY-BLOODY-ONE.Why? Let’s start in the cinema. In an interview with the Guardian, Simon Pegg charted a movement in film which, I think, can also be applied more widely to fashion:

“I have a theory about the rise of the loser,” Pegg says. “The genesis of it was the death of the 80s superman; you know, the death of the Terminator, which was the ultimate expression of masculinity at that time in action movies. The man had become so ridiculously masculine that he was metal. Then came John McClane, with Bruce Willis, an action hero who was a little bit flawed, who allowed us to see masculinity as imperfect, and that ultimately led to me and Nick [Frost] being the lead in films. Or Seth Rogen.”

So they are the new anti-action heroes? “No,” says Pegg, “but men don’t have to be inhuman testosterone…Michael Cera, Steve Carell, classic examples. You can chart the social, sexual growth of masculinity in films to the point where, like in reality TV, the ordinary person has taken over. It’s loving the nerds.”

What’s interesting about the fashpack takeover of boyish brogues / NHS glasses / band or computer game t-shirts / farmer jackets is that this trend is one of the first times women have embraced the geek. In Hollywood, the ideal leading lady is still, in essence, pouty aloofness and womanly curves on a stick. Against our better judgement, it’s Megan Fox or Angelina Jolie. The move towards geek chic in fashion has directly correlated with the rise in popularity of part-time kooky actresses such as Zooey Deschanel and Chloe Sevigny, and the graduation of full-blown nerdy leading ladies like Ellen Page, and to some extent Tina Fey.

Tiny Fey is a relevant tangent, for while Fey is not a ‘loser’ or ‘geek’, she is funny. And the sudden splurge of ‘funny women’ in films links directly back to this relegation of traditional beauty. We’ve learnt to dress like the school nerd and embrace geeky actresses, and now we’re learning to love funny leads. ‘At last! Bridesmaids proves that women can be funny’, read the headlines. (‘!?&@!’, went Twitter.) Kristen Wiig seemed to explode onto our screens in a breakthrough role, welcomed heartily by the mainstream; in reality, Wiig has been slogging away on tiny, unknown titles - ahem - such as Saturday Night Live, Whip It, Knocked Up and Paul.

What’s next, then? Where will fashion and film take us next? I for one predict the end of the Makeover Turning Point on screen, as Ugly Betty will be allowed by producers to stay [relatively] ugly; Tai in Clueless will declare the other bimbos, err, clueless; and girly coming-of-age dramas will be called She’s All That [In Her Glasses And Dungarees And Angry Arty Stuff Like At The Beginning Of The Sodding Movie]. Likewise, fashion will move to the even-darker depths of nerd: it’s only a matter of time before train-track teeth braces, shell suits and those weird palladium shoes with rubber toes adorn the pages of Vogue.

So what else are the super-pwnsome g33k kids currently wearing on the streets of that London?

A cut-out-and-keep fashion digest

The essentials

What, still? Yes, still. Differentiate yourself from the 14-year old girls wearing shiny new H&M band t-shirts by dousing your 1989 Fleetwood Mac tour tee (which you slept in through uni) in 22-year old beer. Extra brownie points for vintage vomit.

Nirvana t-shirt, £7.99, H&M