It's only been a measly two years since college and I'm already losing touch with the hip generation, unknowingly descending into the ranks of new-fashion naysayers who regularly lament the demise of fashion sense by contributing to the chorus of, “what the hell are they wearing?” I wasn't always on the bleeding (sometimes literally) edge of fashion but I certainly was aware of what was in and what wasn't — not like today, where I found out about new trends in the back pages of Newsweek (you know, the same pages where they talk about things like new organic foods you can buy that help lower your cholesterol.) I suppose that admitting to reading Newsweek precludes me from even trying to say that I'm any sort of fashionata, but that's not even half of it. The clincher was while I was recently standing in line at American Eagle and realized just how un-hip I was compared to the other 18-to-22-year-olds-with-unprecented-purchasing-power. Such is the reality for those of us who have fallen from the golden demographic and don't work at Gap.

What really shocks me about these new hipsters, though, is the emerging phenomenon of teenage boys and their obsession with fashion.

It is not unusual these days to see teenage boys roaming the malls in packs, just as girls do, chattering animatedly among themselves and spending their weekly allowances, along with their own meager earnings, on jeans, designer sunglasses, roomy logo T-shirts and loose-fitting khaki-tone cargo shorts, sneakers and square-toed leather shoes.

On second thought, maybe it's not so bad that I'm out of the hip generation, because shopping with a pack of guys is so uncool. Besides, I can't stand shopping anyway.