Not Travis Barker Wearing a Nazi-ish Sweater
We're pretty happy for Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker. Seeing Kourtney incorporate Travis' style into her own wardrobe indication has been fun, honestly, a physical manifestation of the couple's contentedness — they're already engaged, you know.
It's gotta be said that Barker's punkish style sometimes goes too far, though: remember the Sid and Nancy Halloween costumes?
Then there's Barker's latest look, which is a little too edgy for comfort.
On December 15, Barker stepped out in Enfants Riches Déprimés' $1,795 "Iron Cross Sweater."
It's far from his first time wearing the shameless French brand, though it oughta be his last — I've got issues with Enfants Riches Déprimés (which translates to "depressed rich kids") that go beyond its pointless prices and try-hard provocative designs.
If you aren't familiar, Enfants Riches Déprimés (ERD) is the brainchild of Henry Alexander, himself born a rich kid.
Alexander's brand rose to fame after celebs like Demi Lovato and Kim Kardashian wore his spiky jackets (he also tossed around synonyms for sexual assault because that's just a cool thing to do).
Heavily inspired by '70s and '80s punk bands, Alexander has intentionally positioned ERD as "elitist," accounting for its imposing prices and edgelord clothing.
ERD is famed for gleefully pilfering OG punk clothing of decades past, thoughtlessly stripping the garments of context for the sake of shock value.
Let's go back to Barker's sweater: it's printed all-over with the Iron Cross, a German military symbol commonly used for Nazi medals.
Think this is a reach? ERD knows what it's doing.
The brand has issued plenty of intentionally edgy pieces in the past, including Columbine sweaters, and once sent models down the runway wearing — oh, look at that — Nazi war medals.
Oh, and there was that one swastika sweater it created for Spring/Summer 2018 (with Loro Piana no less!), hardly ERD's only attempt to repurpose the swastika for ironic gain.
And I'll say this: I know that Westwood, Mclaren, and all of their '70s contemporaries — the folks who directly inspire ERD's output — exploited Nazi symbiology (and other shocking imagery) for shock value alone.
They were working class folks and wanted to provoke the stodgy ruling establishment with crass clothing and music — what's more risqué than T-shirts printed with bare breasts and swastikas.
Most of these folks rejected Nazi ideology and wore the clothes simply to goad reaction, but there were punks (and bikers) who took the Nazi imagery very seriously — they were — and still are — white nationalists.
There's a reason that today's anti-establishmentarians reject even ironic association with fascists and their symbols — Nazi punks, fuck off.
Enfants Riches Déprimés is clearly borrowing from Viv and co. by reusing this kind of imagery; it's lazy but likely not intended to confer any actual political belief, despite the Iron Cross' embedded racist history.
To be clear, I'm not accusing either Barker or ERD of actually holding any Nazi beliefs. It simply appears to be a case of ERD once again commandeering edgy iconography and Barker thinking too little about what he's wearing.
