| Pop culture takes the guardians of regular culture by | | | | using expensive materials or copyrighted brands to |
| surprise, but never more so than when people learn | | | | reduce supplies and raise prices. NYPD sweatshirts do |
| to love a virtue they've been taught to mock before. | | | | the opposite, by taking a common symbol and |
| The rise (and consistent popularity) of NYD | | | | rebroadcasting it in new contexts. For this reason |
| sweatshirts belies the idea that even the most | | | | alone, many traditional creators and guardians of |
| talented fashion designers can guide taste in a | | | | fashion can be opposed to it -- since anyone can get |
| particular direction. Unlike most fashions, they are | | | | NYPD sweatshirts, they can mean what the average |
| utilitarian, they rely on universal symbols, and they | | | | person thinks they mean, rather than what a |
| are inclusive rather than exclusive. It's clear, upon | | | | particular designer wants them to mean. |
| careful analysis, that a trend like NYPD sweatshirts | | | | It's hard to imagine a fashion designer coming up with |
| can only arise if it quickly gains the critical mass | | | | the idea for NYPD sweatshirts, and it's even harder |
| necessary to outflank normal fashion. | | | | to imagine someone carefully shepherding the trend |
| Fashion and design are rooted in mining popular | | | | to its current state. It's just too complicated, too |
| culture for new ideas. Designers are looking for a | | | | dynamic a phenomenon to be the creation of any |
| way to appeal to emotions, either subtly or blatantly, | | | | one person. Instead, the driving force behind the |
| in a way that affects behavior. Although | | | | adoption of NYPD Sweatshirts is that they are a |
| NYPD-branded sweatshirts certainly do have a | | | | simple way to communicate a popular message. |
| powerful emotional impact, it's not the kind the | | | | People who see NYPD sweatshirts want to buy |
| fashion world is going for. NYPD sweatshirts make | | | | them, because the shirts carry a message that |
| people who see them want to buy them, not to | | | | everyone would like to share. |
| avoid being excluded, but to acknowledge being | | | | Being driven by sharing, rather than excluding, is |
| included. People who wear sweatshirts with the | | | | perhaps the most unique feature of NYPD |
| NYPD brand are not saying that others are different, | | | | sweatshirts. They are very much a trend of offering |
| but that in terms of our potential and our common | | | | something to other people: reminding others of an |
| experiences, we're in many ways the same. They | | | | important moment, and inspiring them to live up to |
| are an inclusive trend, but by being inclusive, they | | | | the ideals of that moment. It seems implausible that |
| make people who don't follow the trend feel as if | | | | people could forget their cynicism long enough to |
| they're being left behind. It's a complicated paradox, | | | | consider such a trend, much less to adopt it so |
| but it's at the root of understanding how these | | | | thoroughly. But perhaps the real secret of NYPD |
| sweatshirts can be so popular and yet so | | | | sweatshirts is that we're not as cynical as we all |
| unfashionable. | | | | think. |
| Many fashions create a sense of artificial scarcity by | | | | |