Deconstructing The Street Fashion At South By Southwest

pageant of counterculture fashion on display at this year’s South by Southwest music festival (SXSW for those fluent in indie-speak) was, as always, a study in undifferentiated differentiation. Bopping along to the Psych Folk, Proto Punk, and No Wave beats that permeated downtown Austin last week was a sea of under-thirtysomethings who, despite their best efforts, all looked vaguely alike. Today’s faction of iconoclastic youth enjoy a very limited sartorial vocabulary consisting of American Apparel T-shirts, thrift store flannels, and a pair of Wayfarer shades, which admittedly do come in a dizzying array of colors these days. Of course, that’s not to say there weren’t some risk takers, especially among the actual performers. They come to SXSW to get noticed, after all, and an eye-popping outfit is a surefire plan of attack. Shown above are four prime examples of festival participants who proudly flew their freak flag at full mast. Clockwise from top left: soul/blues singer Andre Williams, Black Lips guitarist Cole Alexander, Peelander-Z drummer Akihiko Naruse, and Alela Diane’s Alina Hardin and Benjamin Oak Goodman, who describes his personal style as “Jewish Bruce Springsteen.”