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I never wore my sweat shirts off-the-shoulder. I never had a bar mitzvah. I don't know what she's talking about.
"You'll find out," she says, reading my mind and depositing her empty cup in the trash. "Come with me to the Electroclash show tonight."
With most of a day to kill and shoes still to find, we head down the street and wander into the Subterranean Shoe Room, where Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) is playing on the stereo. The store has bright blue and yellow walls; in the back is a console for old video games, including Asteroid, Moon Patrol, Galaga, and Robotron. Old shoe styles -- Adidas Samoas, Converse All Stars, and Pro-Keds -- line the front room.
Selling primarily retro-rereleased and retro-influenced shoes and accessories, the store was opened in January 2001 by two brothers from Oklahoma City. Joshua Bingaman, 23, and Brock Bingaman, 32, fell in love with the Valencia Street location and traveled the country to trade shows to build their inventory. With no advertising budget, they relied on word-of-mouth for new customers. Earlier this year, the store expanded by 1,200 square feet because sales had doubled.
As Libby checks out some pink PUMAs, I talk with Brock, who points out some of the store's most popular items. The Adidas Micropacer II, originally released in 1984, has a pedometer on one foot to record how far you've run, and a small pocket on the other foot for keys or change. A pair costs $185. "It's something the Six Million Dollar Man would jog in," says Brock.
And what's this, navy tennis warm-up outfits made by Fila for nearly $200?
"These are for more educated shoppers. Bjorn Borg himself wore these," he says. "The whole tennis look is in. Shorter shorts, more fitted apparel, headbands, wristbands, visors. Even athletes are looking more retro, like the Williams sisters and the Italian World Cup team. Did you notice their tight, fitted outfits?"
I take his word for it, and ask him the secret to his success.
"Nostalgia," he says, unrepentant, obviously caught up in some of it himself. "People will come into our store, pick up a shoe, and say, 'Man this takes me back to ninth grade. I'm a cheerleader and my first steady boyfriend just asked me to the prom ....' Good times."
Couldn't this all just be a cynical marketing ploy by greedy corporations to pry money out of the acid-washed pockets of professional 24- to 34-year-olds? "Don't you find the Reagan-era, 'Me Decade' materialism appalling?" I ask.
"I think it was a fascinating decade," he says frankly. "There was so much going on in music, movies, and fashion. As for Reagan, I'm not a hugely political person."
Store employees Massan Fluker and Amy Terhar have different takes on the retro resurgence. Terhar suggests that it's reactionary. "The tech bust turned a lot of people off from the idea that newer is always better," she says.
Fluker contends that the revival stems from old-school hip hop music and its culture. "Nowadays, it's all about reissuing," he says, pointing the store's World Wide Web browser at the Lasonic company home page, which features its "Classic Boombox," of the type seen in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. "If it wasn't classic, they wouldn't be selling that big thing."
Whatever the revival's roots, other San Francisco retailers are busily mining it. Witness two shoe vendors -- Harput's on Fillmore and Shoe Biz II on Haight -- and Wishbone, the Sunset boutique that sells leg warmers, arm warmers, fingerless gloves, plastic Pac-Man barrettes, shirts with fake suspenders, and candy from the '80s, including Pop Rocks and Bottle Caps.
"I couldn't have even imagined this a few years ago," says Wishbone manager Joseph Luce, 30, who describes the store's styles as half punk rock/half Tokyo pop. "The '80s are a total thing, a total way to look." Luce is an acquaintance of Paul Frank, the designer whose monkey-faced apparel dominates the store and much of Haight Street. Luce says Frank is obsessed with the '80s and is trying to appeal to twentysomethings who pine for a time when "they were carefree, rode their bicycles with banana seats, surfed, and ate Pop Rocks."
In the words of the Heathers, from the movie Heathers, "Whatever." It's time to get ready for the Electroclash concert.
The line at the Fillmore goes around the block. Most of the crowd is late 20s, female, and heavily made-up. As we enter I gaze at the framed photographs lining the walls and think how few of the fishnet-stockinged, scarved, and mohawked attendees listen to the Grateful Dead or the Doors.
Electroclash is a tour that rose from the ashes of 9/11 in New York City, filling an escapist void with its emphasis of style over substance. A combination of electro, riot grrl punk, and, of course, mall girl '80s, it has disgusted legions of hard-core electro fans but sold out shows all over the U.S. and Canada. Founded by New York DJ and party promoter Larry Tee, the tour this year also features Chicks on Speed, W.I.T., and Tracy & the Plastics.
By 9:30, the mosh pit has started, and the crowd noise becomes deafening for W.I.T. (Whatever It Takes), a three-piece group whose members wear prom dresses and use guitars as onstage props rather than playable musical instruments. On the tour Web site, they have promised "not to let integrity get in the way of our careers."
"Thank you so much," says lead singer Melissa Burns, pushing a wispy blond bang out of her face. "I feel like I just won something."
"You know, Melissa," interrupts brunette "guitarist" Christine Doz, "I was looking in the mirror before we came onstage tonight, and I couldn't help but notice: I think I need my bangs trimmed."
