Let’s face it, most of the people who read this site probably hate Ed Hardy as much as Wale does. I used to hate Ed Hardy. And don’t get me wrong, you would never catch me wearing it. But here’s what I’ve realized about Ed Hardy (and you can throw Von Dutch, Christian Audigier and Affliction in there too), as much as I hate them, never before has a clothing company told you so much about the person wearing it. With the rise of streetwear over the past few years, you have all these kids aspiring to be something or associated with something, but with Ed Hardy, there is like ZERO irony in wearing it. People genuinely think it’s cool. They aren’t TRYING to be cool. They actually think they’ve achieved coolness and that Ed Hardy is the tits when it comes to t-shirts (or trucker hats with roses and rhinestones). The poor decision-making that goes into incorporating Ed Hardy into a wardrobe is very telling about someone’s taste and thought process. With that said, I have turned my disdain of Ed Hardy into something of a human litmus test; a sort of fashion iodine that exposes douchebaggery. Although I think athletes can be exempted from this, as I saw Michael Beasley get turned away from Villa (a very hot club in LA) for wearing Ed Hardy. He just doesn’t know any better.
Edit: Apparently a lot of people really felt strongly about this post. It feels good to put people’s thoughts into words because I don’t think anyone has addressed the “bigger picture” related to Ed Hardy, people just level a general disdain toward it. A few things I wanna address:
Cake writes “this is so true…the question is… do you dismiss a smoking hot girl in an ed hardy T? or trucker hat?
The answer to that is essentially YES. Although I never dismiss a smoking hot girl, I’ve found that most of them don’t make the best “girlfriends.” If they are cool enough to keep around as something other than arm candy, it’s definitely fun to date a smoking hot girl (I dated a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader last year who turned out to be a raging alcoholic…not fun), but to wife them up? It’s a little shallow. However, a smoking hot girl in Ed Hardy is one of a few things (and I am basing this on my world view which consists of Los Angeles). She either just moved to LA and doesn’t know any better and hopefully after a few months she will realize the faults in her ways. Or she is a female dbag and likes male dbags.
shiny.shiny.shoez writes Christian Audigier as a creative director completely gets off on the mass “popularity” of his empire. he’s the cocky star quarterback of a losing team…and every day’s homecoming. it’s not terribly shocking that Ed Hardy launched as something similar to what Sailor Jerry (www.sailorjerry.com) is today – seeing as the Sailor was the Don’s primary mentor; but leave it to the French to reincarnate the brand as the love child of Heatherette’s Traver Rains and La Catrina…resulting from awkward, psychedelic crisis-induced sexperimentation/strip poker on Dia de Los Muertos. as you’ve hinted above, Ed Hardy is becoming another archetype for the ironic personification of conspicuous consumption. it’s inevitable that “designers” will be knocked off…but usually this isn’t viewed as something positive. Audigier welcomed massification with open arms. his “signature” line really pulled the trigger, though…but i guess you can’t blame the guy: he’s in love with himself (just listen/watch how he pronounces his own last name). he won his own popularity contest – was crowned homecoming king…but everyone knows his queen is a dirty, dirty whore.
I loved reading your commentary shiny.shiny.shoez. Thank you!