Swedish Fashion: www.Hel-Looks.com

Trying to put the BRO back in brog, I took to the web in search of only the hottest Swedish babes. Eventually I came across www.Hel-Looks.com, which is like a Swedish version of The Sartorialist if dude had a taste for the flamboyant-verging-on-retarded-but-just-barely-keeping-it-together. Soon enough I became immersed in this bizarre world of cutting-edge Helsinski style, which would put most European cities I saw to shame in its boldness and color. However, like all trendy cities, there are a fair share of complete and utter flops in outfits. It makes you realize that even if American style is kind of weak compared to Europe, our being tame has its benefits, namely that nobody tries as hard and fails as badly as some of these fucking duds. Here are the highlights, both good and bad...

BABES

This site has made me realize a lot of hyper-fashionable girls are really, well, kind of ugly. In fact, it might even be the hyper-fashion, the totally mis-matched thrift store outfits paired with $300 Dior jeans, the expensive avant-garde haircuts done by some spoiled cokehead, that make the girls look so distinctly terrible. What real bros like us want from a girl -- bros who are into boning chicks but aren't looking for some blonde monster with a silicon chest -- is an understated elegance at all times, even when you're going for hip. Sure, only the most extreme of circumstances can turn a girl's outfit into a strike against her and dissuade us from talking; see examples of the "Gothic Lolita" style on the site, which I will not poison this blog with. But the truth is this: when a good-looking girl owns it, the sun shines a little bit brighter and Zeus smiles down from the heavens all like, "Damn, lemme tap that, and then let's order Chinese and watch the repeat of the Mets game on SNY."

The nominees...

This girl is out of any of our league, so instead of imaging that she's looking at you like that because she wants to fuck you, just pretend she dropped a paper on the floor and you picked it up all, "Hey, excuse me, you dropped this," and she turns around like this and just says thanks. That's a little closer to reality.


This girl could be going to work, a party or a family gathering. Ideally, she is doing so after leaving your apartment.


What do you even talk to a girl like this about? The Beatles?


That dress is so rad.


The website said her jeans are glued somehow. Like, what does that mean, to her boots? Wouldn't that be really annoying to take off at the end of the day?


Swedish girls actually aren't that hard to get with, but your odds of getting with this girl are actually zero.

This girl has the hairstyle that was really popular in Spain when I studied there. On the right girl it looks incredible, and this girl totally pulls it off.

THE DUDS

One of things about trying to look cool is that some people really suck at it. When people say that your clothes should reflect your personality, what they really mean is that you have to wear something you're comfortable with; if you're a total dork and you're trying to look rock and roll, it's obvious to everyone that you're a poseur. Here are my votes for most flagrantly bad Swedish outfits. Dudes only.


This outfit is just whack. I don't know what this dude was going for, but he could have had a really cool time-traveler thing going on if he just got his act together. Commit, my friend, commit.

It's not often that I get the elementary school urge to call someone a freak, but here we are, I suppose.

It's like someone glued a fake bottom-half on this picture. Jorts, stocking and Chucks? No fucking way.

You can tell this guy has been waiting for years for www.Hel-Looks.com to take his picture. When they finally did he took a very deliberate puff of his cigarette and was like, "No, you can't mean me. Really? Me?"

You have to give a guy credit when he's ready to party so hard he wears a pair of PJ bottoms so he can pass out wherever the night takes him.

If this is the apotheosis of the Tim Burton/Hot Topic era, at least we can say that while it was harsh on the eyes, at least nobody died.

SKINNY JEANS

I have no problem with skinny jeans, but this is an optical illusion, right?


Let's hear what Ninjasonik has to say about this.


WINNERS AT LIFE

OK, I give up. This guy won. I quit. If you don't want to make this guy your best friend, take a few hits of acid with them and then write "Beatles-osque pahp melodies feathuh-ing Krautrock rhythms" for a few hours you have no idea what fun is.