As last summer's fashions begin to smack of old age on college campuses, students are looking for the new hot trend. This summer's fad has arrived, and it wants to bust your bronco, herd your cattle, rob your bank and there may not be enough room in this town for the two of you.
Hot on the heels of the foam and mesh "trucker cap" and big belt buckle craze comes a style that fashion experts are calling "the next big thing" (a term that has been decoded by psychoanalysts to be analogous to the term "the next sign of a Biblical apocalypse").
Students across the country have taken the "anything-for-the-sake-of-irony" trend to another often-typecast social group: cowboys.
It seems to have begun with students wearing buckskin hats to their classes at city-based universities. Presumably, these students used the hat as a proclamation of rural upbringing.
The counter-trend began at New York University, where a small group of friends began adorning full cowboy garb. Freshmen John Rice, Sam Goodell and Scott Lentworth went to a week of classes dressed in cowboy hats, chaps, leather vests and spurs.
"We thought it would be a great way to goof on the kids who come here and think they're sweet for having grown up baling hay and chewing whole-leaf tobacco," said Rice, who grew up in Merrick, outside of New York City. "Kids from no-name towns like Tully and Odessa have no place acting like it's a good thing."
Students from Tully and Odessa declined comment.
After the week, the gag grew tired, and the young men went back to their normal form of dress.
"Just jeans and a t-shirt," said Lentworth.
Soon, however, other students picked up on what they thought was the latest ironic fashion. Young women began attending class with spurs attached to their high-heel boots.
"I just love that ringing sound when I walk into a room. It's like wearing bells. I catch people's attention with not just my new look but my new sound as well," said sophomore Jen Slobkin, a communication major at NYU. "When I walk into a classroom, everyone just has to turn their head and look. These spurs are everything I've always wanted."
The fashion has slowly moved west through the SUNY system, starting at Stony Brook.
"I wore my chaps home over spring break, and my friends thought they were great," said Henrietta Smyth, a junior biology major at Stony Brook. "The girls said it was like the first time they saw someone wear a tan coat with a furry collar and cuffs."
The company responsible for bringing obnoxiously overpriced trucker caps to the masses, Von Dutch, has already signed on to begin manufacturing spurs and chaps, the two facets of the trend that have garnered the strongest support.
Vice President of Von Dutch's design department, Devin Metro, said, "I can't wait to see the underage drinkers heading to the local underage-accepting bar, wearing our chaps with the loopy little Von Dutch logo plastered across their butts."
The sexual implications of such a fashion shine bright as a brand new pair of the "ching-ching things," as spurs are known in the local sororities. "Nothing says 'I'm horny' like a fashion accessory that invokes an image of horseback-riding," said Metro. "This is going to be a big earner for us."
Rice, Goodell and Lentworth feel responsible for the sheer embarrassment the rest of the general public will experience at the sight of this trend sweeping the nation.
"We really opened a can of worms with this one," said Lentworth. "And we're genuinely sorry."
"If Ashton Kutcher or some other famous schmuck starts wearing the spurs, I swear to Christ you'll find me dangling from a tree," said Rice. "That'll be it for me."
New York fashion experts, who were, in 2002, lauding the return of the fanny pack, are now predicting that other occupations soon to be ironically mocked include the custodial worker and the traveling encyclopedia salesman. Dark blue jumpsuits and ill-fitting grey blazers would be the staples of these styles.
"To be honest, I'm looking forward to the return some of the other older fashions," said Mike Tussini, a junior linguistics major. "Corsets? Yes, please," he said with a slow nod.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
