KLF UNSUPERVISED

By Rose Baxter Why weird, worn, DIY and imperfect style keeps surviving every polished trend cycle. By Rose Baxter Perfect is easy. That’s the problem. Perfect can be copied, optimized, duplicated, trend-forecasted, cleaned up and sold back to everybody at the same time. Weird is harder. Worn is personal. Imperfect usually means something actually happened there. Alternative fashion has always had a strange habit of loving the exact things conventional fashion keeps trying to remove: scuffed boots, patched jackets, crooked graphics, dark imagery, ugly-pretty color combinations, horror references, handmade alterations and clothes that somehow look better after they’ve survived a few bad decisions. And every few years, somebody discovers all of this again. They polish it, package it, put it under expensive lighting and then act surprised when the people who actually live in alternative culture look at the finished version like somebody pressure-washed the personality off it. Perfect does...

  A Kunt Commentary article from Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Perfect is easy to understand. It sits where it is supposed to sit. The colors match. The edges are clean. Nobody has to stare at it for ten seconds trying to figure out what the hell they’re looking at. And that is probably why perfect gets boring so fast. Give me something slightly wrong instead. A painting with proportions that feel strange. A house that looks like nobody has opened the curtains since 1974. A ridiculous roadside attraction. An ugly little ceramic animal at a thrift store that absolutely should not cost twelve dollars but somehow needs to come home with you. That stuff sticks. Not because it is beautiful in the traditional sense. Because it makes your brain stop walking in a straight line. Weird Makes You Pay Attention Most of the world is designed to be understood immediately. Stores want you to know where to walk. Apps want you to know where to click. Advertising wants you to recognize the prod...

  A Kunt Commentary article from Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Watching a horror movie to relax sounds ridiculous until you try relaxing with the fucking news. At least a horror movie is honest with you. It tells you up front that the next ninety minutes might be unpleasant. There is something almost considerate about that. You choose the nightmare, settle in, and know you can turn it off when it’s over. Real life has never been that polite. I’ve always found it funny when people act like horror is the dark, disturbing thing and everyday reality is somehow the safer alternative. Horror movies have monsters, haunted houses, killers, demons and enough fake blood to refill a small lake. Reality has bills, stress, loss, broken systems, people who behave like feral raccoons in Walmart parking lots, and headlines that make a slasher movie feel almost organized. So no, I’ve never been especially scandalized by horror. If anything, I understand why people love it. Horror Gives the Fea...

  Originally published as part of Kunt Commentary by Kunts Live Forever. By Rose Baxter Something funny happens every few years. The fashion world discovers alternative people again. Suddenly black is interesting. Chains are interesting. Leather is interesting. Torn shirts are interesting. Goth is interesting. Punk is interesting. Something somebody would have called weird six months ago walks down a runway and now we're supposed to discuss its cultural significance. Apparently weird becomes fashionable on a rotating schedule. Right now, we're having another one of those moments. Gothic elements have been showing up prominently in fashion coverage, punk and rock influences are appearing on runways, rave culture is being pulled into high fashion, and London street style continues doing what London street style does best mixing things that aren't necessarily supposed to go together and making them work anyway. And you know what? I don't actually have a problem with it. N...