Prabhat Mukherjee

By Prabhat Mukherjee

In the late 1960s when we were in high school, we did not wear clothes that were out of rhythm with those of our parents. But today the youth dress in a manner that vexes teachers and parents. During that time, however, there was a fad among the young to wear their hair long; maybe as an offshoot of hippie culture.

My father was a frugal person and he used to justify this habit by saying that he spent where there was some value for the money spent. During that period, the cost of a haircut went up almost every month and my father believed that the barbers were the greatest capitalists of that time.

The old people used to hate the long-haired youth of that generation, but my father, for a change, used to like people growing their hair long, drawing satisfaction from the belief that now barbers would learn a lesson.

I learnt that in the early 70s during Park Chung-hee's regime in South Korea, people with long hair attracted punitive action from the police in the streets of Seoul and other cities of Korea. They used to be hauled up, brought to the police stations and forced to get their hair cut.

The president of that time, Park, may be turning in his grave to see the present generation not only growing long hair but also dyeing it red, yellow or green. I somehow thought that the youth of Korea grew long hair soon after they were released from their military conscription as a relief from the horrendously short crew cut they had to wear during their military service.

Then came the 90s when young people started wearing baggy pants and hoods. Suddenly, in 2005 a debate was brewing in the United States over a measure in Atlanta and some other places that would outlaw baggy pants that showed boxer shorts or thongs.

Offenders would risk a fine. City officials believed that sagging pants were an ``epidemic?that was becoming a major concern around the U.S. Critics claimed the measure was a new form of racial profiling that would allow police to target young black males who were the majority of those who wore their pants far below the beltline.

Some believed that it was attacking people's freedom of expression. They argued that when Woodstock was around, did they tell people not to wear their hair long, or hemp clothing? Or the T- shirts or getting whole body tattoos?

They retorted that this was targeting a certain group. They argued that the dress code should be outside the purview of the city administration as they had other more pressing matters to tend to.

Perhaps the origin of saggy pant's popularity was the heart of the controversy. How did the baggy pants below the belt thing start? When males are first processed in jail, their belts are taken, so that they cannot be used as a weapon or as a tool to hang themselves.

Deprived of belts, their pants would start hang down around their hips. When they were released from jail, they continued to wear their pants devoid of belts, as a sign of having served time in jail. Soon, hip-hop artists like Ice Cube performed and composed lyrics about that subculture.

The young were continually frustrated with society. They did not wish to face up to the challenge, and so instead took up drugs and exhibited the subculture as a mark of protest. Saggy pants were a kind of rebuff to society.?The young pulled down their pants instead of lifting up their heads.

They created powerful characters in the images of `bad guys.?/span> Hip-hoppers and rappers became superstars, and so did their clothing, all over the world. They wore backwards not only their baseball caps but also their pants. The sub culture spread like a virus around the globe and scenes in conservative countries like Korea and Japan were no different.

However, although girls in Europe and North America wore pants low, aping males, their counterparts in Korea did not do so. It was sacrilege in Korea for girls even to exhibit their belly buttons in public.

From its beginning in the 1990s, the new style has connected low society with high society, street fashion with high fashion. In Korea, from Namdaemun to Myeongdong, the cultures mixed. In Korea we normally see small size, tight fit dresses, but baggy pants have found their way in, in the shelves of many department stores.

What were hemlines in the 1960s became baggy pants in 2005. When you see on TVs and in cultural shows pop singers making strange obtuse gestures, thrusting hands forward with fingers spread apart, pointing horizontally, does this behavior not disturb you? Does the sight of trousers sagging too far south make you raise your eyebrows? As the borderline goes down, does your blood pressure rise in equal proportion?

What makes sagging so provocative to some and so fashionable to others? The reason is that there comes a time in everyone's life when you cross that invisible boundary that separates generations.

The shift in the paradigm can crop up on you anytime like those undetected strands of grey hair on your head. At that moment you realize that you can no longer tolerate that nonsense _ pounding of the heavy metal, provocative gestures and coarse rap songs.

You prefer to retire to the basement of your house and begin to play music on your stereo system with more melody and sensitivity.

p.mukherjee@gmail.com

Prabhat K. Mukherjee resides in Calgary, Canada, working for an oil and gas company.