About a week ago, I grabbed our artist Ryan Cecil Smith and photographer Zac X. Wolf and headed to Inspiration LA. Inspiration’s a massive vintage and tradeshow run by Rin Tinaka. Tinaka is the Japanese self-styled “King of Vintage,” publishing photo books of things like 1960s surfer t-shirts and 1950s rock and roll style. Over the years it’s taken place in LA, Inspiration has grown into a sort of hybrid vintage and trade show – brands like Real McCoys come over from Japan and American brands show to the kind of industry insiders who’ll buy a tattered sweater for $500 because they want to copy it for their new line.
One of the joys of Inspiration is seeing all the men, both in and outside the industry, in what amounts to their Sunday Best. Above is the first of a few installments of Zac’s photos from the gathering. This one features some of the more traditional looks – ones that fell loosely into the category that our colleague Pete once called “well-dressed gas station attendant.”
Check our full run of photos (and photos from the last show we went to) by clicking here.
