The clothes, from tailored coats through puffa jackets to sleek knits, were fine — perhaps too fine for the context of a downtown boy band.
Masafumi, 47, grew up on the streets of Tokyo as, he says, "a downtown boy, hustling," hanging out and consuming the '80s and '90s British and American music, magazines and movies that would form the DNA of his label.
Performers included Anti-Flag, Flobots, Downtown Boys, Taina Asili, Lia Rose, Ryan Harvey and Son of Nun.
Then there's Rhode Island-based Latin punks Downtown Boys, who will release their album on Sub Pop in August.
The singer and activist Victoria Ruiz leads Downtown Boys with a sharp tongue and a hoarse throat, growling through the Providence outfit's riotous début album, "Full Communism".
They built a reputation by supporting bands including Parquet Courts and Downtown Boys and making a stand for the recognition of black punks in British music's past and present.
So I'm like, 'O.K., I'll wear a pink dress and show my vagina.' " Ms. Schmidt's contradictions, playfully mocking the things that make up her world — the downtown boys' art club, popular fashion, Mr. Zahm's naked girls — are perhaps indicative of her efforts to appear as an outsider, even as some of her works sell for upward of $25,000.
SCREAMING FEMALES: with Downtown Boys and others.
It's by the entrance, and worth a look for sets by Guided by Voices, Downtown Boys and T.S.O.L.
Two years ago, Chandler and her business partner, Walter Pearce, who is a twenty-two-year-old downtown It Boy, created an agency called Midland, which aims to cast real people (with an emphasis on the eccentric or the unpolished) in fashion shows and ad campaigns.
Now, Powell said, she is leery to be alone downtown where boys loiter.
