When my boyfriend turned me on to the website Vintage Gear Addicts, my mind wasn’t that blown. “What’s the big whoop? I’m a ‘vintage gear addict.’ Almost everyone I know is.” However the VGA site isn’t about ironic Garfield sweatshirts and Zodiac boots. It’s mainly about Polo. As in Ralph Lauren. But above that, it’s about the thug-boys who wear Ralph Lauren, and how they get Ralph Lauren. It’s not just a clothing line to them, it’s an obsession. It’s a way of life. You don’t need a lot of money to be a Lo Life, but rather a huge set of balls.
On the front page of the VGA site, the following shows up in the “news” section:
“This is NOT a trend, this is NOT about the monetary value of gear, this is NOT about retro, this is NOT about hype, this is NOT about waiting in lines, this is NOT about shopping guides for “fly” gear, this is NOT about “VGA”… It’s about taking something that was not meant for us and MAKING it ours, it’s about getting over, it’s about (whatever is left of) real NYC, it’s about being humble, it’s about learning your history!”
The thing that caught my eye was the “taking something that was not meant for us and making it ours” part, because the Lo Life (that’s “Lo” as in “PoLO”) gang LITERALLY did that. Oh what’s a Lo Life? I’ll tell you.
“Lo Lifes” were mainly known for boostin’, running up in stores and just snatching everything. We made this common in our everyday activities. We turned it into a lifestyle, and to this day it is still the way some original members put food on the table.”
This is taken from an interview with Thirstin Howel III, who was an original Lo Life. (This is also from the VGA site, which is run by a kid named Victor. He’s awesome).
“There was so many of us, you would be stupid to try and stop one. Even at the stores in the same area, we would steal every 40oz of Old English 800 by just picking them up and walking out. We would be responsible for 75% of the crimes committed up there. As for the department stores we hit, Manhattan was a regular target. Macy*s, B’Altman’s, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Ave, Trump Towers, Century 21, BFO’s, and like I mentioned before, even McDonalds. Our main target was Polo. Either putting it in back packs or stuffing it down girdles. Most of the time when there was so many of us, we would just rush the store and take all you can carry.”
You can read the rest of the amazing interview here. I asked Victor a few questions for Platform:
State your name and age. Do you have children? A wife? what do you do for a living?
Victor Ving, 26 years young. No kids, live w/ my love Jessica (not married yet), and one dog. I actually work at an online marketing agency for my 9-5 with various side jobs.
Are you still addicted to vintage gear, focusing soley on vintage Ralph Lauren?
To be honest, I lost a lot of interest in wearing vintage Ralph Lauren and North Face in the past few years but I guess I’m still interested in the culture for the most part. It’s strange but creating the VGA site was like a double edged sword. It put a lot of people (like the new sneaker kids/hypebeasts) onto this culture (not a good thing in my eyes.)
Were/are you a member of the Lo Life crew?
Not a member of Lo-Lifes. I am way too young to really be part of that whole movement in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I do have some friends like Meyhem Lauren who are my age and down w/ Lo-Lifes. He was into this gear shit way before me. Also, my man Oprime (of Timeless Truth) got put down w/ Lo-Lifes recently. He pretty much helped start VGA with me. I prefer to stay out of the spotlight and I just do whatever I do behind the scenes. I’ve actually had a lot of conversations w/ random people putting me onto my own website and I just play along like I never even heard of it.
Are the Lo Life’s still active?
They are definitely still around. I guess they are trying to do the music things nowadays. I see Rack Lo, Thirstin, Fi-Lo and some others putting in a lot of work. As far as racking, rolling deep, crimes, like they used to, I don’t really know about that.
Have you ever been arrested for boosting?
Rather just keep these stories private. Nothing to be proud of anyway if it did happen.
I love how you wrote that boosting or at least wearing RL is more about taking something that wasn’t meant for you and making it about something that is. Do you still believe in that?
Yea, I think 99% of the people who were into rockin’ lo/face, etc.. in the past (who weren’t rich) were not paying full price for any of the pieces. It was racking/robbing/buying racked/switching tags/etc…
Obviously, in the past none of the clothes were meant to be worn by so-called “urban” kids. Ski jackets were not meant to be worn on the streets in the Bronx. RL never targeted the Lo-lifes as his demographic.
It’s different now because I know that there are RL designers that know what this demographic likes and they are trying to make more money out of it. Ralph Lauren is aware of Lo-lifes and of sites like VGA. They know these silly kids are willing to pay a lot of money for some big designs. They definitely inflated the price of their pieces recently. I already mentioned about North Face before.
I think one of the main points to stress is that this culture has been around WAY before VGA was even created. I started it as a forum to do some trades and it blew up to something much bigger. Sometimes i even regret it, but the way it is today, if I wasn’t going to do it, someone else would have. VGA also is not some kind of crew. Yes, a bunch of us know each other, but its not like that. As a matter of fact, there are definitely problems between a bunch of people on the site. I guess it kind of keeps it a little interesting at least.
