For some guys, it`s just a matter of not being in the mood to wash their hair. Some just don`t feel like using mousse or a blow dryer anymore. Others like the look of the bandanna-tied pirate-style over the head-because it attracts girls.
As Mike Angelopoulos, 18, of Addison, puts it: ”Before, bandannas used to be like, scummy, but now the girls, they like it.”
Whatever the reason, the bandanna look is hot in Chicago and is attracting everyone from Lincoln Park joggers to highway construction workers, from Evanston bikers to musclemen and even a few teenage girls.
Who`s to blame?
The look is being sported by such a variety of people it`s hard to say where the trend started. Some point to rap artists. Skateboarders and cyclists are frequently mentioned, and some insist bikers-as in the big guys on Harleys-started it. ”It seems to have sprung from construction workers,”
says Michael Bridger, assistant manager at Attivo, a young men`s clothing store in Woodfield Shopping Center, Schaumburg. ”And now, a lot of retailers are pushing the look.”
Angelopoulos and his friends, who are spending the summer hanging out at Oak Street Beach, say they got the idea from teen idol Richard Grieco, star of TV shows ”21 Jump Street” and ”Brooker” and the movie ”If Looks Could Kill.”
Matt Spethmann, 19, a frequent bandanna wearer, was inspired years ago by the lead singer in Guns N` Roses and, later, by members of the group Suicidal Tendencies, who wear their bandannas low to shield their eyes.
”It`s an alternative type thing, man,” says Spethmann, of Northbrook, who just finished his freshman year at the University of Minnesota. ”The look that it gives (a guy) can strike up interest in a certain kind of girl who, like, would listen to the Grateful Dead and have a more liberal kind of orientation and, like, wear Guatemalan clothes.”
There`s also the convenience factor. Spethmann, who went from Thanksgiving to Easter without a haircut, says he wears a hat or bandanna 80 to 90 percent of the time.
A modern-day pirate
When he was younger, Steve Diet was very much into pirates. Now, at 26, he looks like a modern one, riding the elevated train to his Wicker Park home with a faded bandanna on his head and a silver ring pierced through his nose. He can go several days without washing his hair because he covers his head entirely in a bandanna. ”I don`t really like my hair,” says Diet, a photographer. ”It`s curly,” he says, though you can`t tell because hardly any sticks out from his bandanna, ”and I like straight hair better.”
Like Spethmann, Diet`s been wrapping his head in bandannas for a few years now. He buys them in thrift stores and then bleaches and dyes the scarves to muted tones. ”I like muck colors,” he says.
Muck is not the way the trend is moving, however. At Oak Street Beach, turquoise and a lapis shade of blue are big. Uncle Dan`s Outfitters in Skokie and Lincoln Park are moving a lot of Aztec prints. And at Ben & Jerry`s on Armitage Avenue, tie-dyed bandannas with cow icons (at $8.25, they`re quite a bit higher than the old cowboy standbys) are selling as fast as Cherry Garcia ice cream.
Off limits
In certain neighborhoods, some bandanna shades are taboo-gang taboo-and most Chicago high schools forbid kids from wearing them, especially traditional gang colors like blue, red and black.
”I never get on a bus with it; I always take it off,” says Sally Stendaro, 16, who works at a Good Humor cart at Oak Street Beach and wears bandannas almost every day. ”A lot of gang-bangers wear them. Actually, if you wear them, depending on what colors you`re wearing, you could get shot.” Stendaro says the nuns at Good Counsel High School, the all-girls school on the Northwest Side she attends, banned bandannas because of their association with gangs.
Bandanna fashion also is forbidden at Addison Trail High School, where Angelopoulos and his friends recently completed their senior year.
But it`s summer now and the rules of school no longer apply. The rebel look, according to the guys from Addison, is key: muscle T`s, jeans, black, leather cowboy boots and, of course, the bandanna knotted tightly at the nape of the neck.
But for Derrick Nash, the bandanna pirate-look is beginning to lose some of its luster. ”It`s not a fashion statement for me,” says Nash, 21, a student at Daley College in Chicago, who wears bandannas while playing basketball and volleyball because the sun turns his hair red. ”Used to be you didn`t see everyone wearing them,” he says. ”But as the years go by, it`s starting to turn into a fad.”
