I tend to agree that the reaction to Janet's overexposure is 4T, although I wonder how many kids were looking at an adult naked breast for the first time. (Believe it or not, I was 18 when I saw my first one in a movie, but of course I had seen many in magazines long before that.) As you all know, the raunchiness of the ads has attracted a lot of attention. Forgotten in all this is the ad that CBS refused to air, the moveon.org winning anti-Bush ad, which was actually both tasteful and serious.

David K '47

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

But wait...

What about the (hypocritical)over-reaction from middle-America, Jackson out of the Grammys, new 7-second delay on NBC and 5 MINUTE DELAY on CBS, the reaction of the FCC compared to Bono's f-word?

That sounds more like 4T to me.

Sounds more like Prohibition to me (what do you folks think caused all that "roaring" in the 1920s anyway?).

I would expect full frontal orgies in the coming fourth. So long as they're state sanctioned with an appropriate excise tax.

Come on, folks, study your history books!

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

But wait...

What about the (hypocritical)over-reaction from middle-America, Jackson out of the Grammys, new 7-second delay on NBC and 5 MINUTE DELAY on CBS, the reaction of the FCC compared to Bono's f-word?

That sounds more like 4T to me.

Sounds more like Prohibition to me (what do you folks think caused all that "roaring" in the 1920s anyway?).

I would expect full frontal orgies in the coming fourth. So long as they're state sanctioned with an appropriate excise tax.

Come on, folks, study your history books!

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

But wait...

What about the (hypocritical)over-reaction from middle-America, Jackson out of the Grammys, new 7-second delay on NBC and 5 MINUTE DELAY on CBS, the reaction of the FCC compared to Bono's f-word?

That sounds more like 4T to me.

Sounds more like Prohibition to me (what do you folks think caused all that "roaring" in the 1920s anyway?).

I would expect full frontal orgies in the coming fourth. So long as they're state sanctioned with an appropriate excise tax.

Come on, folks, study your history books!

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

This was linked here recently. Perhaps it will help.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

This was linked here recently. Perhaps it will help.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

Originally Posted by Croakmore

Enough already with Janet's titilations! Let's get back to the thread.

Out here in great state of Washington, within ten mile from where I live, we have the sprawling Bangor Submarine Base, where nuclear armed subs come and go to defend us against strategic annihilation from the Evil Doers. Not a few of our dwindling dollars are spent each year to keep these subs coming and going, and to keep their missiles fresh and ready to go.

But where? Those Cold War Evil Doers don?t look so evil anymore. Today?s Evil-Doer weapon of choice is the suicide bomber. And just about anybody cleaver enough, and religious enough, can pull that off.

I?d like to know how Bangor?s subs are going to protect us from the suicide bomber. A single such bomber on the Bainbridge Island ferry to Seattle could be another 9/11. And I doubt if any submarine could do very much about it.

--Croak

This was linked here recently. Perhaps it will help.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

Another factor that might contribute to a 'market dominant minority' driven 'division of wealth' crisis. Printed for educational purposes, and perhaps to scare the bejesus out of people.

If we need another catalyst...

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/techn...0.html?cnn=yes

Originally Posted by Fortune

? The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
? Our Hemisphere's Achilles' Heel
? Growing Evidence of Scary Change

CLIMATE COLLAPSE
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.
By David Stipp

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade?like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies?thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power...

Another factor that might contribute to a 'market dominant minority' driven 'division of wealth' crisis. Printed for educational purposes, and perhaps to scare the bejesus out of people.

If we need another catalyst...

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/techn...0.html?cnn=yes

Originally Posted by Fortune

? The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
? Our Hemisphere's Achilles' Heel
? Growing Evidence of Scary Change

CLIMATE COLLAPSE
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.
By David Stipp

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade?like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies?thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power...

Another factor that might contribute to a 'market dominant minority' driven 'division of wealth' crisis. Printed for educational purposes, and perhaps to scare the bejesus out of people.

If we need another catalyst...

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/techn...0.html?cnn=yes

Originally Posted by Fortune

? The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
? Our Hemisphere's Achilles' Heel
? Growing Evidence of Scary Change

CLIMATE COLLAPSE
The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare
The climate could change radically, and fast. That would be the mother of all national security issues.
By David Stipp

Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

The threat that has riveted their attention is this: Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point. Growing evidence suggests the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade?like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over. Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies?thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power...

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I tend to agree that the reaction to Janet's overexposure is 4T,

This and the more general "cracking down" against raunchiness we have witnessed in the past 2-3 years is a rare instance where we have an almost exact parallel to the early years (pre-regeneracy) of the last 4T. Radio and television gradually approached a "no holds barred" unrestricted ideal through the Roaring '90s. Really, it seems to me that the trend started in the '80s with Howard Stern. This trend toward unrestricted expression, including vulgarity, seems to mirror the actual span of the 3T better than most indicators. If the Bush administration's stated desire to begin cracking down with the FCC upon assuming office in the winter/spring of 2001 was not "pre-seasonal," then this would support Mike A.'s theory that the shift to 4T mood may have begun with the market crashes in the spring of 2000, earlier even than 911. Or it could mean that E2K best marks the boundary. I almost prefer E2K to 911 myself because I don't think the mood has ever been quite the same as that which we knew through the '80s and '90s as long as the Bush people have been in office.

Forgotten in all this is the ad that CBS refused to air, the moveon.org winning anti-Bush ad, which was actually both tasteful and serious.

Yep. Absolutely disgraceful. The same media which trashed Reagan on a daily basis has given the imperial puppet Junior Bush a pass ever since he was first trotted out in 1999. Thus the media is NOT "liberal"; it is simply establishment. I quit watching television altogether a couple of years ago due to the incessant media propaganda and I do not miss it one bit. According to recent studies, a lot of other people have been making a similar change. New trends, new turnings. The 3T has burned itself out and is behind us. We be 4T.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I tend to agree that the reaction to Janet's overexposure is 4T,

This and the more general "cracking down" against raunchiness we have witnessed in the past 2-3 years is a rare instance where we have an almost exact parallel to the early years (pre-regeneracy) of the last 4T. Radio and television gradually approached a "no holds barred" unrestricted ideal through the Roaring '90s. Really, it seems to me that the trend started in the '80s with Howard Stern. This trend toward unrestricted expression, including vulgarity, seems to mirror the actual span of the 3T better than most indicators. If the Bush administration's stated desire to begin cracking down with the FCC upon assuming office in the winter/spring of 2001 was not "pre-seasonal," then this would support Mike A.'s theory that the shift to 4T mood may have begun with the market crashes in the spring of 2000, earlier even than 911. Or it could mean that E2K best marks the boundary. I almost prefer E2K to 911 myself because I don't think the mood has ever been quite the same as that which we knew through the '80s and '90s as long as the Bush people have been in office.

Forgotten in all this is the ad that CBS refused to air, the moveon.org winning anti-Bush ad, which was actually both tasteful and serious.

Yep. Absolutely disgraceful. The same media which trashed Reagan on a daily basis has given the imperial puppet Junior Bush a pass ever since he was first trotted out in 1999. Thus the media is NOT "liberal"; it is simply establishment. I quit watching television altogether a couple of years ago due to the incessant media propaganda and I do not miss it one bit. According to recent studies, a lot of other people have been making a similar change. New trends, new turnings. The 3T has burned itself out and is behind us. We be 4T.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I tend to agree that the reaction to Janet's overexposure is 4T,

This and the more general "cracking down" against raunchiness we have witnessed in the past 2-3 years is a rare instance where we have an almost exact parallel to the early years (pre-regeneracy) of the last 4T. Radio and television gradually approached a "no holds barred" unrestricted ideal through the Roaring '90s. Really, it seems to me that the trend started in the '80s with Howard Stern. This trend toward unrestricted expression, including vulgarity, seems to mirror the actual span of the 3T better than most indicators. If the Bush administration's stated desire to begin cracking down with the FCC upon assuming office in the winter/spring of 2001 was not "pre-seasonal," then this would support Mike A.'s theory that the shift to 4T mood may have begun with the market crashes in the spring of 2000, earlier even than 911. Or it could mean that E2K best marks the boundary. I almost prefer E2K to 911 myself because I don't think the mood has ever been quite the same as that which we knew through the '80s and '90s as long as the Bush people have been in office.

Forgotten in all this is the ad that CBS refused to air, the moveon.org winning anti-Bush ad, which was actually both tasteful and serious.

Yep. Absolutely disgraceful. The same media which trashed Reagan on a daily basis has given the imperial puppet Junior Bush a pass ever since he was first trotted out in 1999. Thus the media is NOT "liberal"; it is simply establishment. I quit watching television altogether a couple of years ago due to the incessant media propaganda and I do not miss it one bit. According to recent studies, a lot of other people have been making a similar change. New trends, new turnings. The 3T has burned itself out and is behind us. We be 4T.

In a Suit, Hip-Hop Grows Up and Buttons Down

By GUY TREBAY

Hip-hop has long been synonymous with jeans big enough to upholster a sofa, with throwback sports jerseys draped to the knees, with outrageously priced, limited-edition sneakers and with the diamond-barnacled hardware that has entered the vernacular as bling-bling.

But now the generation that made these trappings a perennially adolescent uniform is pushing 35. As fans mature and ascend the ranks in the work force, they find themselves looking for a new sartorial statement. Following the trends set by musical stars like Jay-Z, major hip-hop brands like Ecko and Sean John are ready with a simple proposition: the time has come for them to put on a suit.

During New York's Fashion Week, which begins today, Ecko will present a fall 2004 collection that largely dispenses with its trademark track suits and sneakers, and arranges its new image around that staple of Everyman's wardrobe, the blazer. On Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, few fans of Pharrell Williams, who has been nominated for six awards, are likely to be shocked if he appears in one of the Perry Como-style sports jackets he wears so rakishly.

"This generation is getting older," said Wyclef Jean, 34, the founder of the Fugees. "When you mature, you realize that it's fine to wear your comfortable throwback jersey in the studio, but when you go out with your girl in a restaurant, you want to look clean-cut and mature."

Designers at a number of urban wear labels share that opinion, and while consumers have yet to respond in large numbers, manufacturers are staking a healthy proportion of their future business on the prospect that hip-hop will want to turn in its oversized baseball caps and sweatpants and get suited up. "I hate the word, but the consumer has matured," said Jeffy Tweedy, the chief executive of Sean John, a label known for its high-end jeans and costly sweatclothes, but which stumbled upon a bonanza when it sold 200,000 striped shirts with French cuffs in the 2003.

"Blazers and wovens are going to be a major part of our business now," Mr. Tweedy said. "You can tell the consumer is ready if you go to the lounges and hipper clubs in New York City and around America and they all have signs at the door saying 'Dress to Impress' or 'No Athletic Gear Allowed.' "

Hip-hop is "becoming more Wall Street," said Tiffany Reid, 21, an employee at H272, a store on Lafayette Street owned by the hip-hop artist DJ Honda that is a certified pipeline for street fashion's early adopters. Ms. Reid's colleague, Johanna Barnes, agreed. "I notice a lot of guys who come in and want button-down shirts with stripes like Jay-Z wore in a video," Ms. Barnes added. "A lot of rappers now aren't as much street as they used to be.

Last November when "The Black Album" by Jay-Z was released, the rapper made the point succinctly. "And I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30-plus," Jay-Z rapped. "Give me a crisp pair of jeans," he intoned. "Button up." As early as last August, he signaled a shift in his sartorial direction by wearing a jacket with well-defined shoulders and rear vents to the MTV Video Music Awards.

Jerseys, whether the vintage-inspired throwbacks or those celebrating sports stars of our day, "are over" according to John Moore, the fashion director of Vibe, whose February issue features an eight page pictorial devoted to young men wearing suits. "This ain't your daddy's suit," a caption reads, and, while the high-end "kicks," or sneakers, and gangster do-rags worn by Vibe's models would not have cut it at the water coolers of an earlier era, chalk-stripes and superfine woolens from Hugo Boss and Dior Homme were classic Wall Street garb.

"The whole bling-bling thing has left," Mr. Moore said, a change attributable perhaps to general shifts in taste and just as inevitably to workplace requirements that have seen employers seek to distance themselves from casual attire. "Education-wise and workwise, people of color and African-Americans are a force," he added. "They're sophisticated consumers, and they increasingly want to be taken seriously."

Most market analysts point out that it has been some time since the hip-hop market was predominantly African-American. "The hip-hop generation is demographically broad-based," said Marshal Cohen, the senior analyst at the NPD Group, a market research company. "What's happening is that the designer market is not driving the business anymore. Consumers and celebrities are.

"You have this age group from 25 to 34 that grew up with the music and is now migrating away from the hip-hop lifestyle and getting more conventional. At the same time, they're bringing the lessons of casual hip-hop dressing forward so they wear the suit in a way that says they're willing to be part of the establishment but not necessarily to conform."

Customers at the leading edge of the trend are eager to dress up, said Lenny Rothschild, who operates 10 men's haberdasheries in the Midwest.

"They have money, they've outgrown labels and branding, they understand what style and fashion is all about," he said. "They're hugely influenced by Jay-Z, and they don't want jerseys anymore."

What they want, Mr. Rothschild said, is shirts with barrel cuffs and point collars: "I've gone through 500 of them this month."

Yesterday afternoon at Bergdorf Goodman's new Thom Browne boutique, a music celebrity came in wearing a XXXL-size jersey and jeans that were "falling off his rear end," said Robert Burke, the store's fashion director.

The celebrity promptly headed for Mr. Browne's retro classic suits, and he bought a $2,200 linen tuxedo with the ribbon stripe on the trousers, high armholes and a lean silhouette to wear at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

When Marc Ecko recently decided to realign his brand's future, it was to accommodate his sense that new dress codes are required for a maturing generation.

"The average kid - black, white, it doesn't matter - is urban-minded now," said Mr. Ecko, the founder of a clothing company best known for voluminous sweatshirts with a rhinoceros logo that seem ubiquitous along city streets. "He's going into the workplace, and he's bringing that information and that approach to the classics."

Mr. Ecko added: "There's this group whose fashion sense has been born from sports culture and not traditional haberdashery. When they see a blazer it says, 'wear me differently.' "

For most of the past decade, hip-hop credibility was linked to looking "street," a notion interpreted through styles that made reference to gang life (colored bandannas), the jailhouse (beltless jeans worn with one leg rolled) and subcultures in which the markers of cool were enmeshed in drug running and other activities as illicit as they were perversely glamorous.

Musicians set the trends then - and still do - a fact that designers are hoping can revive earnings in the flagging $55 billion men's wear industry. At last month's men's wear runway shows for fall 2004 in Milan, designers like Dolce & Gabbana outlined their ambitions in this regard.

"Musicians set the trends, and a man in the 25- to 30-year-old generation is very sensitive to what musicians wear," said Gabriella Forte, the president of United States operations for Dolce & Gabbana, which built its show around a kind of high/low dressing that paired cargo trousers with suit jackets whose abbreviated skirts and trim silhouettes seemed overtly pitched at the tastes of just such a customer.

"The suit was a constricting uniform for someone who is 50 now, something he couldn't wait to get out of," Ms. Forte said. For a cohort that grew up in hooded shirts and Air Jordans, however, the suit has an enticing novelty.

"When Pharrell Williams wears a jacket it's not a uniform," Ms. Forte said. "He's making it his fashion attire."

At the Triple Five Soul shop on Lafayette Street yesterday employees said that they had already sold out their stock of 80-odd pinstriped and camouflage suits, which range in price from $80 to $160, in just two months. The blue pinstriped suits bore on their jacket backs the motto Fresh Dressed Like a Million Bucks.

Wearing a Run-D.M.C. T-shirt, a blue hooded jacket and baggy jeans, A. Frog, 28, a D.J. from Glendale, Queens, considered himself a holdout against the inevitable change. "I'm still more partial to the old-school style," he explained.

In a Suit, Hip-Hop Grows Up and Buttons Down

By GUY TREBAY

Hip-hop has long been synonymous with jeans big enough to upholster a sofa, with throwback sports jerseys draped to the knees, with outrageously priced, limited-edition sneakers and with the diamond-barnacled hardware that has entered the vernacular as bling-bling.

But now the generation that made these trappings a perennially adolescent uniform is pushing 35. As fans mature and ascend the ranks in the work force, they find themselves looking for a new sartorial statement. Following the trends set by musical stars like Jay-Z, major hip-hop brands like Ecko and Sean John are ready with a simple proposition: the time has come for them to put on a suit.

During New York's Fashion Week, which begins today, Ecko will present a fall 2004 collection that largely dispenses with its trademark track suits and sneakers, and arranges its new image around that staple of Everyman's wardrobe, the blazer. On Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, few fans of Pharrell Williams, who has been nominated for six awards, are likely to be shocked if he appears in one of the Perry Como-style sports jackets he wears so rakishly.

"This generation is getting older," said Wyclef Jean, 34, the founder of the Fugees. "When you mature, you realize that it's fine to wear your comfortable throwback jersey in the studio, but when you go out with your girl in a restaurant, you want to look clean-cut and mature."

Designers at a number of urban wear labels share that opinion, and while consumers have yet to respond in large numbers, manufacturers are staking a healthy proportion of their future business on the prospect that hip-hop will want to turn in its oversized baseball caps and sweatpants and get suited up. "I hate the word, but the consumer has matured," said Jeffy Tweedy, the chief executive of Sean John, a label known for its high-end jeans and costly sweatclothes, but which stumbled upon a bonanza when it sold 200,000 striped shirts with French cuffs in the 2003.

"Blazers and wovens are going to be a major part of our business now," Mr. Tweedy said. "You can tell the consumer is ready if you go to the lounges and hipper clubs in New York City and around America and they all have signs at the door saying 'Dress to Impress' or 'No Athletic Gear Allowed.' "

Hip-hop is "becoming more Wall Street," said Tiffany Reid, 21, an employee at H272, a store on Lafayette Street owned by the hip-hop artist DJ Honda that is a certified pipeline for street fashion's early adopters. Ms. Reid's colleague, Johanna Barnes, agreed. "I notice a lot of guys who come in and want button-down shirts with stripes like Jay-Z wore in a video," Ms. Barnes added. "A lot of rappers now aren't as much street as they used to be.

Last November when "The Black Album" by Jay-Z was released, the rapper made the point succinctly. "And I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30-plus," Jay-Z rapped. "Give me a crisp pair of jeans," he intoned. "Button up." As early as last August, he signaled a shift in his sartorial direction by wearing a jacket with well-defined shoulders and rear vents to the MTV Video Music Awards.

Jerseys, whether the vintage-inspired throwbacks or those celebrating sports stars of our day, "are over" according to John Moore, the fashion director of Vibe, whose February issue features an eight page pictorial devoted to young men wearing suits. "This ain't your daddy's suit," a caption reads, and, while the high-end "kicks," or sneakers, and gangster do-rags worn by Vibe's models would not have cut it at the water coolers of an earlier era, chalk-stripes and superfine woolens from Hugo Boss and Dior Homme were classic Wall Street garb.

"The whole bling-bling thing has left," Mr. Moore said, a change attributable perhaps to general shifts in taste and just as inevitably to workplace requirements that have seen employers seek to distance themselves from casual attire. "Education-wise and workwise, people of color and African-Americans are a force," he added. "They're sophisticated consumers, and they increasingly want to be taken seriously."

Most market analysts point out that it has been some time since the hip-hop market was predominantly African-American. "The hip-hop generation is demographically broad-based," said Marshal Cohen, the senior analyst at the NPD Group, a market research company. "What's happening is that the designer market is not driving the business anymore. Consumers and celebrities are.

"You have this age group from 25 to 34 that grew up with the music and is now migrating away from the hip-hop lifestyle and getting more conventional. At the same time, they're bringing the lessons of casual hip-hop dressing forward so they wear the suit in a way that says they're willing to be part of the establishment but not necessarily to conform."

Customers at the leading edge of the trend are eager to dress up, said Lenny Rothschild, who operates 10 men's haberdasheries in the Midwest.

"They have money, they've outgrown labels and branding, they understand what style and fashion is all about," he said. "They're hugely influenced by Jay-Z, and they don't want jerseys anymore."

What they want, Mr. Rothschild said, is shirts with barrel cuffs and point collars: "I've gone through 500 of them this month."

Yesterday afternoon at Bergdorf Goodman's new Thom Browne boutique, a music celebrity came in wearing a XXXL-size jersey and jeans that were "falling off his rear end," said Robert Burke, the store's fashion director.

The celebrity promptly headed for Mr. Browne's retro classic suits, and he bought a $2,200 linen tuxedo with the ribbon stripe on the trousers, high armholes and a lean silhouette to wear at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

When Marc Ecko recently decided to realign his brand's future, it was to accommodate his sense that new dress codes are required for a maturing generation.

"The average kid - black, white, it doesn't matter - is urban-minded now," said Mr. Ecko, the founder of a clothing company best known for voluminous sweatshirts with a rhinoceros logo that seem ubiquitous along city streets. "He's going into the workplace, and he's bringing that information and that approach to the classics."

Mr. Ecko added: "There's this group whose fashion sense has been born from sports culture and not traditional haberdashery. When they see a blazer it says, 'wear me differently.' "

For most of the past decade, hip-hop credibility was linked to looking "street," a notion interpreted through styles that made reference to gang life (colored bandannas), the jailhouse (beltless jeans worn with one leg rolled) and subcultures in which the markers of cool were enmeshed in drug running and other activities as illicit as they were perversely glamorous.

Musicians set the trends then - and still do - a fact that designers are hoping can revive earnings in the flagging $55 billion men's wear industry. At last month's men's wear runway shows for fall 2004 in Milan, designers like Dolce & Gabbana outlined their ambitions in this regard.

"Musicians set the trends, and a man in the 25- to 30-year-old generation is very sensitive to what musicians wear," said Gabriella Forte, the president of United States operations for Dolce & Gabbana, which built its show around a kind of high/low dressing that paired cargo trousers with suit jackets whose abbreviated skirts and trim silhouettes seemed overtly pitched at the tastes of just such a customer.

"The suit was a constricting uniform for someone who is 50 now, something he couldn't wait to get out of," Ms. Forte said. For a cohort that grew up in hooded shirts and Air Jordans, however, the suit has an enticing novelty.

"When Pharrell Williams wears a jacket it's not a uniform," Ms. Forte said. "He's making it his fashion attire."

At the Triple Five Soul shop on Lafayette Street yesterday employees said that they had already sold out their stock of 80-odd pinstriped and camouflage suits, which range in price from $80 to $160, in just two months. The blue pinstriped suits bore on their jacket backs the motto Fresh Dressed Like a Million Bucks.

Wearing a Run-D.M.C. T-shirt, a blue hooded jacket and baggy jeans, A. Frog, 28, a D.J. from Glendale, Queens, considered himself a holdout against the inevitable change. "I'm still more partial to the old-school style," he explained.

In a Suit, Hip-Hop Grows Up and Buttons Down

By GUY TREBAY

Hip-hop has long been synonymous with jeans big enough to upholster a sofa, with throwback sports jerseys draped to the knees, with outrageously priced, limited-edition sneakers and with the diamond-barnacled hardware that has entered the vernacular as bling-bling.

But now the generation that made these trappings a perennially adolescent uniform is pushing 35. As fans mature and ascend the ranks in the work force, they find themselves looking for a new sartorial statement. Following the trends set by musical stars like Jay-Z, major hip-hop brands like Ecko and Sean John are ready with a simple proposition: the time has come for them to put on a suit.

During New York's Fashion Week, which begins today, Ecko will present a fall 2004 collection that largely dispenses with its trademark track suits and sneakers, and arranges its new image around that staple of Everyman's wardrobe, the blazer. On Sunday night at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, few fans of Pharrell Williams, who has been nominated for six awards, are likely to be shocked if he appears in one of the Perry Como-style sports jackets he wears so rakishly.

"This generation is getting older," said Wyclef Jean, 34, the founder of the Fugees. "When you mature, you realize that it's fine to wear your comfortable throwback jersey in the studio, but when you go out with your girl in a restaurant, you want to look clean-cut and mature."

Designers at a number of urban wear labels share that opinion, and while consumers have yet to respond in large numbers, manufacturers are staking a healthy proportion of their future business on the prospect that hip-hop will want to turn in its oversized baseball caps and sweatpants and get suited up. "I hate the word, but the consumer has matured," said Jeffy Tweedy, the chief executive of Sean John, a label known for its high-end jeans and costly sweatclothes, but which stumbled upon a bonanza when it sold 200,000 striped shirts with French cuffs in the 2003.

"Blazers and wovens are going to be a major part of our business now," Mr. Tweedy said. "You can tell the consumer is ready if you go to the lounges and hipper clubs in New York City and around America and they all have signs at the door saying 'Dress to Impress' or 'No Athletic Gear Allowed.' "

Hip-hop is "becoming more Wall Street," said Tiffany Reid, 21, an employee at H272, a store on Lafayette Street owned by the hip-hop artist DJ Honda that is a certified pipeline for street fashion's early adopters. Ms. Reid's colleague, Johanna Barnes, agreed. "I notice a lot of guys who come in and want button-down shirts with stripes like Jay-Z wore in a video," Ms. Barnes added. "A lot of rappers now aren't as much street as they used to be.

Last November when "The Black Album" by Jay-Z was released, the rapper made the point succinctly. "And I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30-plus," Jay-Z rapped. "Give me a crisp pair of jeans," he intoned. "Button up." As early as last August, he signaled a shift in his sartorial direction by wearing a jacket with well-defined shoulders and rear vents to the MTV Video Music Awards.

Jerseys, whether the vintage-inspired throwbacks or those celebrating sports stars of our day, "are over" according to John Moore, the fashion director of Vibe, whose February issue features an eight page pictorial devoted to young men wearing suits. "This ain't your daddy's suit," a caption reads, and, while the high-end "kicks," or sneakers, and gangster do-rags worn by Vibe's models would not have cut it at the water coolers of an earlier era, chalk-stripes and superfine woolens from Hugo Boss and Dior Homme were classic Wall Street garb.

"The whole bling-bling thing has left," Mr. Moore said, a change attributable perhaps to general shifts in taste and just as inevitably to workplace requirements that have seen employers seek to distance themselves from casual attire. "Education-wise and workwise, people of color and African-Americans are a force," he added. "They're sophisticated consumers, and they increasingly want to be taken seriously."

Most market analysts point out that it has been some time since the hip-hop market was predominantly African-American. "The hip-hop generation is demographically broad-based," said Marshal Cohen, the senior analyst at the NPD Group, a market research company. "What's happening is that the designer market is not driving the business anymore. Consumers and celebrities are.

"You have this age group from 25 to 34 that grew up with the music and is now migrating away from the hip-hop lifestyle and getting more conventional. At the same time, they're bringing the lessons of casual hip-hop dressing forward so they wear the suit in a way that says they're willing to be part of the establishment but not necessarily to conform."

Customers at the leading edge of the trend are eager to dress up, said Lenny Rothschild, who operates 10 men's haberdasheries in the Midwest.

"They have money, they've outgrown labels and branding, they understand what style and fashion is all about," he said. "They're hugely influenced by Jay-Z, and they don't want jerseys anymore."

What they want, Mr. Rothschild said, is shirts with barrel cuffs and point collars: "I've gone through 500 of them this month."

Yesterday afternoon at Bergdorf Goodman's new Thom Browne boutique, a music celebrity came in wearing a XXXL-size jersey and jeans that were "falling off his rear end," said Robert Burke, the store's fashion director.

The celebrity promptly headed for Mr. Browne's retro classic suits, and he bought a $2,200 linen tuxedo with the ribbon stripe on the trousers, high armholes and a lean silhouette to wear at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

When Marc Ecko recently decided to realign his brand's future, it was to accommodate his sense that new dress codes are required for a maturing generation.

"The average kid - black, white, it doesn't matter - is urban-minded now," said Mr. Ecko, the founder of a clothing company best known for voluminous sweatshirts with a rhinoceros logo that seem ubiquitous along city streets. "He's going into the workplace, and he's bringing that information and that approach to the classics."

Mr. Ecko added: "There's this group whose fashion sense has been born from sports culture and not traditional haberdashery. When they see a blazer it says, 'wear me differently.' "

For most of the past decade, hip-hop credibility was linked to looking "street," a notion interpreted through styles that made reference to gang life (colored bandannas), the jailhouse (beltless jeans worn with one leg rolled) and subcultures in which the markers of cool were enmeshed in drug running and other activities as illicit as they were perversely glamorous.

Musicians set the trends then - and still do - a fact that designers are hoping can revive earnings in the flagging $55 billion men's wear industry. At last month's men's wear runway shows for fall 2004 in Milan, designers like Dolce & Gabbana outlined their ambitions in this regard.

"Musicians set the trends, and a man in the 25- to 30-year-old generation is very sensitive to what musicians wear," said Gabriella Forte, the president of United States operations for Dolce & Gabbana, which built its show around a kind of high/low dressing that paired cargo trousers with suit jackets whose abbreviated skirts and trim silhouettes seemed overtly pitched at the tastes of just such a customer.

"The suit was a constricting uniform for someone who is 50 now, something he couldn't wait to get out of," Ms. Forte said. For a cohort that grew up in hooded shirts and Air Jordans, however, the suit has an enticing novelty.

"When Pharrell Williams wears a jacket it's not a uniform," Ms. Forte said. "He's making it his fashion attire."

At the Triple Five Soul shop on Lafayette Street yesterday employees said that they had already sold out their stock of 80-odd pinstriped and camouflage suits, which range in price from $80 to $160, in just two months. The blue pinstriped suits bore on their jacket backs the motto Fresh Dressed Like a Million Bucks.

Wearing a Run-D.M.C. T-shirt, a blue hooded jacket and baggy jeans, A. Frog, 28, a D.J. from Glendale, Queens, considered himself a holdout against the inevitable change. "I'm still more partial to the old-school style," he explained.

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

I know what has been impossible to find is a nice forest or emerald green. Lime, yes. Olive, yes. But no wonderful rich true green.

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

I know what has been impossible to find is a nice forest or emerald green. Lime, yes. Olive, yes. But no wonderful rich true green.

Originally Posted by BoomerXer

If you also look at Fashion Week - NY, Toronto, & LA - you'll see that black is not as dominant as it once was - maybe not in Hip-hop culture - but generally speaking it seems 2004 is looking pretty colorful. Pink (soothing) is big this spring coupled with white and almost anything but red.

I know what has been impossible to find is a nice forest or emerald green. Lime, yes. Olive, yes. But no wonderful rich true green.