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 So what's with the huge white t-shirt? Hip Zepi salesman Tyrone Robertson says "When you've got a nice pair of jeans and sneakers, it just makes it all look crisp." Eddie Frierson, manager at Manhattan has a different theory. "Most of the time your pants are saggin', and you don't wanna show nothing, so the shirt covers that area." Hip Zepi, 31 Winter St., Boston. | MBTA: Orange or Red Line to Downtown Crossing. Mon-Sat, 9:30 to 7 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 617-350-6870 www.hipzepiboston.com Manhattan Clothing, 40 Winter St., Boston. | MBTA: Orange or Red Line to Downtown Crossing. Mon-Thu 10 a.m. -7 p.m.; Fri-Sat 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 617-482-3370. Indie apparel To acquire geek chic, the dresscode of indie rockers, a visit to the Garment District or Urban Outfitters will suffice, but if you really want the vintage advantage, you have to visit Café Society or Gumshoe. Handbags, hat boxes, bellbottoms, and butterfly collars are just some of Café Society's ever-rotating retro inventory, and dudes will enjoy the cowboy shirts, old sports-tees and ceiling-high stack of cords and jeans at Gumshoe. They are both hard to get to, but they both offer clothes that are even harder to get. So what's with the white belts? Gumshoe owner Otto Johnson says "it offsets the pants." Café Society, 131 Cypress St Brookline. | MBTA: Green Line to Brookline Hills. Mon, Tue 2 p.m.-6 p.m.; Wed-Fri noon-6 p.m.; Sat 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 617-738-7186. Gumshoe, 40 South St., Jamaica Plain. | MBTA: Orange Line to Forest Hills, then take 37/38 bus. Fri 3 p.m.-6 p.m.; Sat and Sun. noon-5p.m. 617-522-5066 Preppie wear Why is it that all these preppy stores put the initial J. in front of their names? We don't know, but we do know that J. Press (a classier J. Crew) is the place to go for wool sweaters, fancy tweed jackets and belts with whales on them. Also, try Thomas Pink. A button-down starts at about $70 and dresses are $100 and up. So what's with the whale belt? "It's just a reminder of, I suppose, the old money crowd in New England, with the whaling industry from Nantucket to New Bedford," says Denis Black, manager of J. Press. J. Press, 82 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge. | MBTA: Red Line to Harvard. Mon-Sat 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. (617) 547-9886 www.jpressonline.com Thomas Pink, 100 Huntington Ave., Boston. | MBTA: Green Line to Copley. Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m.-6 p.m. (617) 267-0447. Or go to Downtown Crossing (280 Washington St., Boston). | MBTA: Red Line to Downtown Crossing. Mon-Fri 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sat 10 am.-5 p.m. (617) 426-7859 www.thomaspink.com Goth garb Although mallternative stores like Hot Topic have been cashing in on goth gear lately, the amount of dark latex fashions you'll find at Hubba Hubba and Eros Boutique will ass a little color - just a little - to any Goth's sun-starved skin. Specializing in rubber and pleather, they have everything from collars to corsets to styles of dresses that might look more appropriate on a Victorian corpse. These stores are for mature audiences only. In other words, stay away if you think you might be intimidated by the rainbow of phalluses (or would that be phalli?) that they also sell. So what's with everything being black? "It's a crossover from Goth, with black and death and spookiness, but it also makes peep look thinner," says Liam Jacobs, manager at Hubba Hubba. "And people look more stylish in black. You look better in a black suit than you do in a blue suit." Hubba Hubba, 534 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. | MBTA: Red Line to Central. Mon-Sat noon-8 p.m. (617) 492-9082 www.hubbahubba.com Eros Boutique, 581 A Tremont St., Boston. | MBTA: Orange Line to Back Bay. 10 a.m.-10 p.m., daily. (617) 425-0345 www.erosboutique.com |
