Anyone who’s spent time in a major metropolitan city over the past decade or so has witnessed the rise of the hipster. In fact, even a half-hearted glance around our Historic District these days suggests strongly that the amorphous vintage-y fashion movement and youth-oriented subbacultcha which took root in the late ‘90s in such urban strongholds as NYC and San Francisco and has indeed trickled down to our relatively sleepy hamlet.

Fueled by the rise of detached, blasé indie-rock and an ironic, insular sense of humor begat by the access road of absurdist snark, hipsterdom has since blossomed into a strange mash-up of aggressive individualism and blissfully unaware groupthink. A catchall term that’s bandied about as much by jaded, middle-aged pop-culture curmudgeons (present and accounted for) as twenty-and-thirty-somethings, “hipster” has managed to slip the surly bonds of rigid definition to become that rarest of labels: one which virtually none can seem to accurately define, yet which most find offensive (if applied to themselves, that is).

There are those far and wide who hold (rail, even) that hipster culture is a shallow and superficial hodgepodge – a post-modern, Cliff’s Notes fusion of incongruent stylistic references custom-made for the instant-gratification, web-surfing, sound bite generation. Yet, almost to a one, the ten locals featured on the following pages do not consider themselves to be hipsters. For them, their senses of fashion—related though they may somewhat be to the stereotypical trappings of the “hipster establishment” (if such a thing can even exist)—are direct and highly personal manifestations of their own life experiences.

Through their own words and outlooks, these sincere, dedicated followers of fashion offer an insight into the sauce of chaos and individuality that hides in plain sight behind lazy generalizations.

To read more about Savannah’s Hipsters check out South Magazine’s August September issue!