metro.pop

most fashion magazines suck. magazines like vogue serve no purpose other than to pad anna wintour's pockets and make my eyes glaze over. i don't quite understand why vogue has such a wide circulation. besides the partners in my law firm, i know maybe two or three people who can consistently buy clothes at barney's new york or neiman marcus, and their families either own a hedge fund or have mafia connections um, own a bunch of trucking lots in brooklyn. gucci, prada, blah blah blah. sure, if someone wants to give me prada shoes, i won't object, but pretty much everything in mainstream fashion magazines is out of my price range, and besides, i'm more of a comfy clothes sort of gal. i'm not one to suffer for fashion. no heels for me.

last month i discovered metro.pop. it was an unintended discovery. i was waiting for a friend and barnes and noble. this is nothing new. everyone in the tri-state area seems to run on "fuck it" time, as in "fuck it, it'll be 3 o'clock when i say it's 3 o'clock" time. so i started flipping through magazines, and i picked up metro.pop. the first page i landed on was an ad for the miharayasuhiro for puma line. i've run across that line before surfing the puma site, and although it was a little expensive for my tastes, i appreciated that a sneaker line would collaborate with a designer for upscale sneakers. fabulous and comfortable! my kind of thing.

people in nyc should get into comfy clothes. after all, we don't drive. we walk everywhere. i don't understand the girls who run around in ice and 20 degree weather with exposed knees and three inch heels.

anyway, i kept flipping the magazine and saw spreads featuring clothes everywhere from h&m (cheap!) to ben sherman (okay to purchase on payday!) to new upcoming designers (runs the gamut) to rogan (ridiculously expensive, but totally affordable when they have sample sales). some might be a little expensive but not completely out of reach. (it was where i discovered wrath arcane.i ordered some of their clothes over the phone, and it was amusing to hear the designer seem almost apologetic for selling a shirt for $28. 28 BUCKS?! why the hell are you being sheepish?! in nyc that's a STEAL.) plus, although appears to be a snotty hipster magazine, the articles were really down to earth and matter of fact. even the reviews of restaurants and indie bands were devoid of attitude.

i'm sad i missed the denim issue. if there is one thing i'm willing to drop money on, it's denim. (don't laugh!) my fiancee thinks i'm nuts as well. but we've agreed that each of us can have her respective vices. she's willing to drop $150 on dinner every few months, and i'm willing to drop $150 on a pair jeans every few months. (the fact that you shit out your dinner the next day but you can wear jeans for years and years is lost on her, but i digress!) after slogging around in boring office clothes all week, jeans are my staple on the weekends. my jeans and my casual blazers and hoodies are my "good" clothes. (plus, it's the staple for the lez bars. i've seen lezzies out with $200 mike and chris hoodies, which i also love, but if i get another vice, (1) my otherwise extremely frugal fiancee will kill me and (2) my cheap asian guilt will kick in.)

my take on metro.pop: four out of five stars. their tagline is, appropriately, "the fashion magazine for the rest of us."

p.s. if you're into designer streetwear, check out oki-ni. they're having a sale.