Its hard to know whether Goyan flagellants, voodoo ritual, abuses at Abu Ghraib or Robert Mapplethorpe's S/M pix provided the lion's share of the inspiration for the candy speckled hoodie top right, but the transmutation of fanaticism, abjection and terror into directional casualwear is something we can all get behind, I think.

(Polka dot ritual from a Maurice Bessy book I'll yet blog about, hoodie from I don't remember where, processional Goya from here, NSFW becowled Mapplethorpe beefcake from artnet, document of US interrogation techniques from Errol Morris' discussion of the hooded man myth on his NYT blog)

Where then's now

Just back from the Edinburgh festival, where I saw Grezegorz Jarzyna’s production of  S. Kane's  4:48 Psychosis, the one she wrote before/about topping herself. Couldn't work out if the turn of the century costumes, which made me think of stuff Kim Gordon's clothing line put out back in the day, were intentional or just, like, a Polish thing. Then I  remembered that - kind of like that disney island where it's NYE every night or maybe like outsourcing call centres to the subcontinent or having yr photos backed up on a server somewhere or an otter sanctuary - East Europe is where the pre-millennial anglo angst slack gets picked up nowadays, to prove which I've dredged up a  flyer for the 2k7 Exit festival in Serbia (the prodigy played, so did basement jaxx and lauryn hill); you'll plz note the Face-esque layout + effulgent, lime-toned Matrix type and take for granted I can barely see my keyboard for dewy-eyed nostalgia

(4:48 pic from eif.co.uk, proj from exitfest.org, strappy topped festival girl from the exit festival's myspace, subcontinental nuclear testing from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998, auntie kim from Kim Gordon Chronicles Volume 1 (cheers Jok))

ALSO:

While the below was in progress, stumbled across this, the which pretty much renders commentary redundant, n'est pas?

(pic fr.  stealthfighter.org (duh))