Old School Philly Street Style: Hector, 15th St

Hector says that he doesn't even know what his style is. He describes it as "nondescript." But on the streets of Philadelphia, it is anything but. The classic black Adidas align it with a range of old school street styles from skater to hip hop. The Dickies trousers, cut off with threads dangling over the knees, are vintage workwear, and a long-time staple of scenes like punk, skate, and skinhead that play up their working-class roots. The T-shirt, meanwhile, is a nod to one of Hector's favorite films, a cult horror movie from 1983 called "Deadly Spawn." It announces Hector as a B-movie buff, a semiotic move typical of people who associate with metal and goth. The long hair strengthens the association with metal, and the beard, bold and lustrous in the style of the moment, puts a hipster spin on the whole package. There may not be a pithy term that sums up Hector's style, but that doesn't make it illegible, and certainly not nondescript. My eyes were drawn to him for the wealth of familiar subcultural signs.