I Don't Get It: Ed Hardy Edition

Okay, when you go out of state to college, one of the things you have to resign yourself to is the fact that things are going to change while you’re gone. There will be new restaurants you’ve never heard of, new buildings that somehow were built in less than three months, and some major store location swapping in the mall (GAP just suffered a severe downgrade). I’m also used to the idea that as long as I divide my time between the desert and Dixie Land, I’m going to, essentially, have two different set of clothes. It’s like this switch in my brain goes off when I cross the Mississippi—suddenly it is NOT okay to wear Polo shirts and boat shoes, suddenly I have to convert back to wearing Rainbow Sandals year round and clothing styles that won’t cross the continent and become popular in the South until a year after the West is finished with them. It’s about adjustment, y’all.

But I will tell you now that I will never adjust to wearing Ed Hardy.

Ed Hardy, I think, is going to go the way of Von Dutch. It’ll explode, Ashton Kutcher will wear the hats out, stores will pop up everywhere—but just as quickly, it’ll be done, and only the ever-classy Ms. Spears will still be wearing it (until someone shoots her with a clue gun). In a word, it’s trendy.

I have issues with trendy in general, without trendy involving designs that sort of look like a death-obsessed unicorn got sick and threw up all of the rainbows and cheap rhinestones that it ate for lunch. My problem with the Ed Hardy line of clothing stems largely from the fact that Ed Hardy and the other designer are former tattoo artists and all of the shirts/dresses/sunglasses/bathing suits/shoes/socks/shit have a tattoo-y look about them. (Also, because one of the original stores opened up in Tucson. TUCSON, ARIZONA. THE ONLY WAY I CAN EXPRESS MY UTTER DISBELIEF AND COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT IS THROUGH CAPSLOCK.)

Sorry if the above offends anyone, but I’m a total priss about tattoos; they gross me out in a way that usually only salad bars are capable of doing. I love clothing with bright, vibrant colors—but why are we still on the skull and crossbones drawings? Didn’t Avril Lavigne kill that for us already? Haven’t the Emo kids moved on to that crazy ass, but well-meant, To Write Love on Her Arms thing?

The drawings and styles on the t-shirts/watches/intimates/bathing suits/scarves/sunglasses sort of alternate between Asian-influenced and El Dia de los Muertos, and let me tell you people, if I’m going to buy a shirt—A COTTON SHIRT—for $90 I expect it to be wrapped around some dead bread. And not the crappy kind that your mom made you for extra credit in Spanish class. The real stuff.

Oh, and did I mention that I see Ed Hardy everywhere in stores, but not on actual people. I’ve seen approximately three people wearing something by Ed Hardy (and one of them was Cesar Millan on The Dog Whisperer marathon I watched today), so I’m not sure that’s a good sign for those of you looking to jump on the wagon.

Well, anyway. I’m not afraid to admit that I do like some of the t-shirt designs, but I don’t think I could ever wear them. 1. Because I have self respect, 2. Because of the astonishingly high caliber of celebrities that wear it, and 3. Because I already have enough pieces of clothing that look like they lost a long, brutal war to a Bedazzler.