Fashion blogFashionA lesson in antihero fashion, the film’s multiple styles are more resonant today than ever before.
Shot in black and white, La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz’s 1995 film, follows the listless routine of three friends over a 19-hour period. They are Hubert, a black boxer with a strong moral code, Saïd, the naive son of Algerians, and Vinz, a working-class Jew with a temper; all born in France of immigrant parents, all living on a housing project and all deeply embittered by the way society has treated them.
Although more than 20 years old, the film’s cult status is still apparent. In 2005, Kassovitz wrote of the comparisons between 1990s France and France under Sarkozy ; to this day, it feels and looks like a slice of historical fiction, at times a documentary. But without detracting from its stark message – of race- and class-based struggles within a Parisian zone d’urbanisation prioritaire – the film is an unlikely and accidental soothsayer of menswear, and the way sportswear has shifted from the streets to the catwalk.
Multiple shots from the film could be straight from the pages of Man About (Ghetto) Town: the three men on a balcony, smoking weed, zipped-up Nike track tops under overcoats; facing a group of racist skinheads (in Lonsdale), or even stealing sausages on a rooftop (bright white polo shirts, chains, a lot of Fila). If this feels reductive, it shouldn’t. Their clothing is integral to their characterisation: Vinz – repressed, emotionally impotent – remains zipped in his Nike tracksuit throughout. Hubert, meanwhile, wears Carhartt, Everlast and shearling, all indicative of his internal conflict: he’s angry and fierce, but when it comes to violence, as shown in the film’s denouement, he’s both gentle and dangerous. Saïd – confused, lost, unformed – sticks to non-branded clothes.
Then there are the plain-clothes policemen in their Clarkson leather jackets and the rookie cop who wears a polo neck under his sweater (one part Dior to another part David Gandy) as he observes a rather unpleasant scene in a police station holding room. But it’s the accidental uniform – tracksuits under coats – of our three heroes that is precisely the anti-luxury luxury permeating menswear now. Labels such as Marques’Almeida, Gosha Rubchinskiy and a slew of luxe sportswear – from Adidas to Nike and Everlast – are exploding the mid-range menswear market.
Just as “working with our hands has become fetishised”, as fashion historian Amber Butchart explains, so it seems has our obsession with social appropriation, which has left an incremental mark on style. But this isn’t as bleak as it sounds, explains vintage expert Kevin Soar. Instead, it suggests a shift from antipathy to interest: “La Haine has a resonance for its style and its political context. The film remains relevant by focusing on the relationship between the police/the government and working-class suburban youth, as there will always be a struggle between young people and the police in most big cities around the world. The consistent look between groups of people, and especially young people, is an important statement – it’s not just about looking good, but also saying ‘We are one.’”
Film critic Carmen Gray is reluctant to call it a uniform “because uniforms tend to be sanctioned from above by an organisation to signify belonging and the antithesis of invention. Here, as with many disenfranchised subcultures, clothing functions more like costume, and signals desire and resistance – the hope that if you look like and imitate the figure you would like to become, you will embody their essence.” Take Vinz’s chunky knuckleduster: “It’s an over-the-top subversion of his powerlessness.”
She adds: “The real force of fashion like this is not only to draw the disenfranchised together in unity, but also to defy the language with which they are named and oppressed.”
In one scene, the three men , take refuge in a private art exhibition after missing the last train home. There’s a fight, predictably, and after the curator ejects them and locks the doors, he turns to his guests and shrugs: “Off the estates.” He’s in a linen suit; they’re in Nike, Everlast and Carhartt. This is two sides of Parisian culture, seen through its fashions.
Historically, the mid-90s were an interesting time in streetwear, not least because, Soar says, “In the casual culture, there was a term called ‘upping’, where men would try and get the best Sergio Tacchini or Fila tracksuits.” In the 1990s, Carhartt and Dickies were wardrobe staples, and today those labels are seeing a resurgence. Ditto sheepskin coats, which peaked in the 1970s, the mid-1990s and again now.
“The current trend of mixing oversize shearling (fake and real) and camo is more military/dystopian/utilitarian than out and out luxe – or trying to be,” explains Christopher Fisher, head buyer at Oki-Ni, which has seen a sudden spike in niche streetwear. “Shearling-lined and sheepskin-style jackets have been one of our top-selling men’s styles for the past year now. Gosha will use fake fur, fake suede, fake shearling; it’s accessible, subversive, ambitious, with voice-of-a-generation styling, and more about the attitude and referencing than it is forward-thinking.” The last time they noticed a spike was following the release of Straight Outta Compton last year.
Fisher thinks La Haine chimes with today’s youth, many of whom were born after the film came out: “In pure retrospection, it’s not new at all, but it is for the generation it appeals to.”
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