the story of kweejibo clothing co., a men's shirt maker and shop, all locally manufactured
we will be publishing a small portion of this ongoing series every couple weeks--this site is updated weekly--
PAGES 22 TO 24
"1992 and 1993, sub-culture and fashion"
Austin's period belongs to the Sixties and Seventies in music and style. of course, his actual time-frame is the new millennia in the year 2000. but Kweejibo's story starts in 1992, the year Bill Clinton was elected, same year he plays jazz on the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show as part of his campaign.
1992, a year which still belongs to itself, with non-retro Raves and Hip-hop, with music and accompanying costume. however, the nostalgia style is creeping in : this is a time period which also evokes the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties. we have Swing and Rockabilly. we have a lot of metal and ink self-consciously melded with skin, even into tongues, body crevices. we have belly dance.
first there is one belly dancer, then, there is two. Rina is the first. she is a marvelous dancer, and later becomes a flamenco star as well. possibly, she is the best employee and one of my best friends. she is loyal, indefatigable, and arrives on time at work for four years; a product of all that dancer training. she witnesses three years of women's clothing and the year of transition into men's clothing. she does not believe in this crazy men's shirt idea, doesn't believe that men shop. and i am not so sure of myself with so many opinions to filter through, and not so certain of how to dream up a way to pay the bills.
Rina belongs to Fat Chance Belly Dance, the premier troupe in a surprisingly large community of belly dance groups. their yearly festival is mobbed. It is located most improbably in Utah.
Cafe Istanbul or Club Kan Zaman are the restaurant/clubs, with all the eastern trappings, hookah pipes, silken cushions to sit on. One can be accustomed to the intoxication of that music, a certain rhythm, and powerful bodies in layers of fabric and bijoux, tattoos and kohl and henna. a powerful muscular stomach encircled with grape-vine or is it fig-leaves? Kan Zaman is just on the other side of Haight and Ashbury. male clients amuse me, in their indecision. should i focus on my dinner and talk to my date, or focus on the dancers?
one man even tells me once "i don't want to try to eat my dinner while a woman is shaking all her earthly goods at my face level". other men disagree. they get up and join in, give tips. a city sub-culture. women display themselves, but this particular troupe has a vague lesbian or bisexual feminist reputation. art by women for women, as much a part of San Francisco as the drinking water. by women for women, or by women for men, or any other variation. with a glass of red wine on hand, this is the drinking water.
Rina stands at only four-feet-eleven-inches. she has dark short curly hair, mostly dark, though she does have a "Dorothy-from-Wizard-of-Oz" brighter red phase. she brings another dancer to work at Kweejibo, Jane, the one with the grape vines. the vines are not visible in her daytime wear. Jane brings drama, with angry boyfriend fights over the Kweejibo phone. Rina is quieter. she has sex with a boyfriend in the ravishing boudoir dressing room before anyone else has the chance.
Marlena thinks she is causing trouble. she is the head Rina's dance troupe. i ask one day if i can photograph Rina and Jane in an advertising campaign for Kweejibo. she is incensed, fully dramatic. “i don't need more photos of Rina and Jane! i got plenty of those already, they are the hottest chicks around town!" she is a bit peeved at not being the main focus of the photo shoot. then she softens, promising me what i want in exchange for long princess-line Kweejibo coats in velvet. i am fatigued at this point and say "no". a friend observes, "Marlena wants to be the queen, but she doesn't understand that it is really you who are the Queen". Rina says, "you have to be careful about being vulnerable around her because that's when Marlena comes in for the kill". "you put up with it because you get addicted to the dance." and their troupe is the best. when Marlena dances slowly, one can almost see a the outlines of a small beast, an alien trying to escape from her stomach. she provokes reactions of sensuality with a tiny edge of revulsion.
"1993, life in the stone ages"
in 1993, Kweejibo and much of Haight street life is in dark ages of technology. i do not have a computer, many merchants on the street, my friends, co-workers, do not possess one and are untroubled by this fact. the multi-million dollar fabric warehouse business i frequent does not have a computer. this is the pivotal moment, the middle of a seven year long recession which will not lose its hard edges till 1996.
we do not realize that soon we will all possess the glowing boxes, square, oblong, then just flat. we do not understand that this is supposed to make our lives more convenient, but even more importantly, these objects will enable me to pay the bills, only because this new industry will enable hordes of the style conscious and style-seeking men, usually in the under-thirty age group to be able to afford the fashion they want. for they shall work in the industries related to these glowing boxes, and and possibly some higher being above will regard and approve. I buy my first computer, my glowing box, after kweejibo has become profitable. It was a luxury item; we did not feel the lack of it before we bought it, and do not feel our work lives easier for having it.
they will decide Kweejibo is the cheaper alternative. they will try to avoid a Prada-habit, which very shortly and for a very short time, they will be able to afford. This expression originates from one of my customers. he says, "i wanna hold onto all my receipts from here and from Prada, to see how i feed my addictions." the P-habit refers not to a particular company, but to the action of acquiring lovely objects, which can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, that you have to have and can afford until you cannot.
this is a an era where street-life is everything. people are focused on reading papers like the Bay Guardian or the SF Weekly to find life. we are still interested in art that can be seen live, in the same room. we can still talk to people in cafes, because there are few laptops to stare into. we make friends with people who work on the same street, who serve us coffee, who sell us a book. we still use bars and cafes, art events to meet people, not computers. men never even consider using emails to ask people out. we make eye-contact.