Dutch fashion is an fascinating mixture of genres. It has a formality to it, with guys often wearing blazers and girls wearing proper classy looking skirts, but usually this formality is mixed with something else. Maybe, that girl dressed in a formal looking long black coat and skirt, finishes her look off with a funky scarf and a pair of Adidas trainers. Or, a guy rocking a blazer has a funny band or film oriented t-shirt under it instead of a shirt. What I’m saying is for people under 40 there’s almost always a mix of clothing genres together. A Dutch friend of mind once said about Amsterdamer’s love of wearing a blazer and a hoody together. “We like to keep it business in the front and street in the back.” I always liked that expression. To be fair though, fashion is just on the surface, what I’m grasping at here reaches deeper.
When it comes to consumption of media the Amsterdamer’s are voracious. The sheer amount and variety of music, film and art they are familiar with is impressive. Several years back I remember being at a friend’s birthday party in Amsterdam. When everyone got drunk, two Dutch guys decided to show me their prowess at English by rapping some songs - acapella. Now they didn’t choose any of the standards, say Dr. Dre, snoop, or 50 cent. No, they started rapping word for word the intellectual rap of the Roots, and Gang Starr. Honestly, the fact they even heard of these groups let alone could repeat their difficult lyrics word for word baffled me. The same can be said of Amsterdamer's knowledge of North American film, music and television. It’s shocking how good it is. The other night in a night club called the Melkweg twenty something’s were singing 90’s songs word for word. This little country has so many different cultural influences and they soak them up like a sponge in a bath tub.
The reason why Dutch media is so intriguing and successful is that it has the innate, and often ironic, context of so many other countries cultural imagery. This imagery is then just refined, synthesized and mixed to create something original. The Dutch magic is that this new cultural product still has recognizable features to the original genres. So really it’s something people know, but is intriguing because it’s also different at the same time. Amsterdam is such a media hub, because they have taken and embraced the role of media re-inventors. In essence they say: “we’ll take your imagery and mash into something new that you will find interesting.” In the present postmodern information era we live in this is path forward for media production. Again, like they have been many times before, the Dutch are on the cutting edge,
Nice analysis Dave. Although I don't recognize all of your findings in our culture, I find it highly interesting to read your view on the matter. I think I lack the cultural bird-view to analyze our own culture and compare it to others.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, a number of things are obviously true. We look at the world around us; we get inspired by many different cultures. The north-American, but also the cultures living in our own country ( Surinam, marocan, etc. ). Many slang words come directly from their vocabulary.
There used to be a time, where Dutch culture influenced the world much more than it used to. Rembrandt, van Gogh and others were an inspiration to artists around the globe. Ah well... In a few years we'll add Jannes to that same list of great Dutch artists ;)
Thanks Laurent! I know it's hard to pin point a culture... there's always going to be loads of variance. Thought, I'd try though just out of my love for the place and to try to answer why is there so much cool, creative media coming out of Amsterdam?! And yes, it's only a matter of time before Jannes takes his place amongst the great artists of the Netherlands. :)
ReplyDelete