Hipster Craze

My fashion has been significantly influenced by immersion into European culture. The look in Europe is not so tied up in the definiton, I feel like it is more of 'just being' than in North America. It has always been that Europeans have been fashion forward not just in style but in years of fasionableness. Hence the belief, that the hipster fad in North America is an off-shoot of the nonchalant trend of European culture, and the 'it' of the moment.

The hipster fad seems to have sky rocketed over the last few years in North America- with the help of American Apparel, Urban Outfitters, and to an extent H&M-maybe this is globalization importing trends all over the world, or maybe it is that Europeans are just so cool, or 'deck' that they need not make a statement. I recently fell upon a website Mod Cloth (super awesome clothes, and jewerly, my style for shizz): As I searched the website, I noticed the Pug mascot, and this furthered my belief that this website was for me, and that somehow this vintage throwback, which was coming up as a trend of new and awesome, and traces of Europe all over it. One thing I am trying to tease out, is if there is a difference between Indie and Hipster? I don't know where the hipster definiton first originated, but I do know that it is an interesting trend that I cannot fully embrace, yet elementally I can. It seems that everything counter-culture has been rolled into the essence of a hipster, so being an environmentalist that is fashionable is no longer just that, it has become a trend, based in hipsterism. I am by no means bashing this notion, I am just merely exploring and trying to understand it.

Here is something interesting I found, yes a handbook about the hipster, this seemingly intriguing and sought after trend line). (link below)

Excerpt from the Hipster Handbook:

Definition of a Hipster
Hipster - One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat.

To delve further into the hipster style watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAO4EVMlpwM
I have become increasingly interested in this idea of a hipster. So many people want to be it, and so many more want to hate it. But is the essence not to just 'be cool'?

More to come on the Hipster Craze.