The hottest baseball caps in New York don’t sport the names of its sports franchises or even its streetwear brands. ZADIE SMITH, JOYCE CAROL OATES, ALICE MUNRO – these are the names emblazoned across caps made by the Montreal-based Minor Canon which, the New York Times reported, is a small “fan project” that sells merchandise related to reading and publishing. Also included in the range of $27 caps “celebrating” female authors are Deborah Levy, Chris Kraus and Mary Gaitskill. Or at least they were, until the shop’s founder, Saelan Twerdy, pulled the collection. He had not asked the authors for permission to use their names, which angered fans, who called the venture exploitative.
Exploitative, perhaps, of a larger trend: consuming culture as a performative act. People have always worn slogan T-shirts to look cool, but never has apparel been quite so focused on highbrow arts attire: indie films and literary fiction rather than buzz bands or streetwear labels. It’s the rise of the bookishnista, who wears their literary, cinematic, or intellectual pretensions literally on their sleeve (or, as the case may be for Minor Canon, on their head). These tenurecore, literary-fairy kids identify as people who appreciate culture in an elevated, non-basic way.
