You can beat the sixteen-year-old out of style, but you can’t beat the style out of the sixteen-year-old.

16 was definitely my experimental stage. I used to pair argyle knee-highs with platform shoes, cut-off jeans and a velvet choker. Then there was my hippie/grunge persona. I had one of those flowy skirts paired with a crocheted vest and my trusty brown mid-high hiking boots. I also had a pair of super-baggy jeans that I’d pair with an over-sized sweater with a white collared shirt underneath and a black velvet newsboy cap (worn backwards) with my favorite Puma sneakers. That was my “rave” look. I felt so badass in that outfit. Then I met a punk dude way older than me while bussing at Long John Silver’s, hacked my hair off and dyed it blue-black, bought a pair of 10-eye Docs and one of these monstrosities, even though all I listened to at the time was Erasure, OMD, Morrissey and Depeche Mode. My poor naive mormon stomach could never handle punk. Sixteen is the age where you experiment with aesthetic, and when you come out on the other end, you’ve either buckled under the peer ridicule and homogenized your style to match convention and corporation or you commit yourself to those thrift store racks, and their damned juvenile cat-and-mouse antics and come out looking like you are worth knowing!

Case in point:

How much guts does it take to wear women’s flat front pants when you are a post-pubescent kid? He understands that you must sacrifice a few kernels of manhood in order to look brilliant in a pair of easter green plaid pants. He understands the scarcity of real vintage plaid pants in the the thrift stores since the bondage craze of the 90s. Then to pair that with a pink striped shirt and old school checkered Vans and a hoodie with an ambiguous but strangely intellectual message on it is just so audacious and cheeky. This kid tells me he has more outfits (including a pair of glow-in-the dark Roos!) So there may be more pics to follow.

Kid, here’s your Helsinki doppleganger:

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re alone in this world.