I gotta admit, I'm feeling pretty good if I have just about the same idea about clothing as Malcolm McLaren. I mean, the dude invented punk, for Sid's sake. But even after reading about McLaren's new line of video-game inspired clothing in the NYT on the plane this morning, I have to say, Malcolm's still somewhere in the middle.
Or should I say in the tweens. His new line of "8-bit clothing," Fashionbeast, is for kids ages 4-12. [There's the first, obvious problem, at least from the new gamer dad's POV.] Some of it looks great; he's got space invader-knit sweaters, for example. And there's one dress for like 10-yr-olds that's got a tiny space invader print. Pretty cool, or at least I think so.
And that's the other, more serious issue. McLaren said in the Times and on Yoox.com [the exclusive retailer right now] that "Children dominate the culture like never before, whether in film, music or art. These 8-Bit music fans with their ideas rooted in videogame culture are ready to rock!"
Fine, except that kids this age aren't 8-bit kids; they're 1 billion-polygon and PSP kids. It's their parents who were 8-bit. I don't know what the age limit is for saddling your kids with your own nostalgic sense of cool, but for Malcolm's sake, I hope it's not anywhere between 4 and 12. It's definitely NOT before age 2, though. So where's the baby gear already?
Fashionbeast 8-bit clothing by Malcolm McLaren, exclusively at Yoox.com [yoox.com, via nyt]
Related: "It takes this whole console just to do Pong?" Classic video games reviewed by 21st century kids [electronic gaming monthly]
I agree that they totally missed the demographic here. It's the 30-45 year olds that would wear the Space Invaders sweater.
Isn't it kind like of like buying a train set for your kid that you want to play with!
Well if you're in the older bracket and want something to wear you could always check out the official fashionable t's at www.joystickjunkies.com.
enjoy