Hanging with the Hipsters

They’re a totes awesome YouTube phenom who were almost too cool to talk to Time Out, but somehow we wore down the Bondi Hipsters. In the lead up to their trip to London to shoot a web series a la Roy and HG, sun-sizzled Dom and Adrian sat down with us for a coffee in their eastern natural habitat.

You both look great, what are you wearing?
Dom My jeans are by Ksodomy, a brand that developed in Bondi. They used to be spelt T-s-o-d-o-m-y. I don’t know why they changed it. As far as I’m concerned things are cooler with a silent ‘t’, like Costa Tszyu or Tsunami.
Adrian Did you just put a sugar in your coffee Dom?
Dom Yeah, I’m just having one sugar, bro.
Adrian [sighs] Fine, if you want to retain water, bro, that’s your problem.

That shirt you’re wearing is pretty, er, low-slung…
Dom I did this Contiki tour in America a few years ago – that’s where I picked up the accent – and I found this little op shop and bought this Indian shirt. The whole idea of the shirt with the open front is that you’re free to put yourself out there and be judged. Today I’ve decided to go with no shoes because, frankly, if you wear shoes, you just give too much of a shit. And for my hair I don’t use products, but I spend three nights a week sleeping in the gutter outside Oxford Art Factory, and I get many of those essential nutrients from gutter run off. It is totes sustains.

What about your outfit Adrian?
Adrian I get all my clothes from op shops around the world. I used to love Vinnies, but now they’ve got young people working there, and they have a logo.
Dom Yeah, those big clothes bins have branding all over them. It was so much more underground when homeless dudes were sleeping in there.
Adrian Now you’ve got to go to cooler places to get good vintage, like Yass.

Tell us about your own label. How long has it been going and what kind of aesthetic are you pushing?
Dom A lot of our clothes are about exposing an unexpected part of the body. Like our ‘W’ shirt removes the chest area of a mens shirt so that his chesticles are exposed. It allows the sensuality of the male nipples to evolve.
Adrian Yeah, like when men see side boob they go crazy. We want to do that for the male body.

Does the label have a name?
Dom Well, it’s hard to talk about because it’s called nothing. But not ‘nothing’, more like ‘_____’.
Adrian It’s like, “introducing the new range by ‘_____’.” So underground.

Do you work on nothing full-time. I mean, ‘_____’.
Dom Yeah it’s a full-time job apart from my three other day jobs. I work at a hostel, I do a few hours a week at Tuchuzy and I also work at the Beach Road Hotel. Ads is still living off his parents.
Adrian I am not! I DJ. My DJ name is DJ Enzyme, because I’m always breaking it down.
Dom I’ve just started getting into it too. I play under DJ Oedipus because he was the original motherfucker. Time Out readers will probably get that reference.

What are your favourite venues to play?
Dom At the moment there are only about 50 venues that I think are cool enough in Sydney. White Revolver is a given, and the Pink Sheaf is really underground.
Adrian A guy that went to Cranbrook started it in a garage in Double Bay. No ventilation or anything, but it’s amaze.

What inspires you?
Dom I take a lot of inspiration from my childhood. The original Nintendo, Voltron, Duck Hunter guns, and marine-style tattoos.
Adrian Communist fashion too, and we really like homeless people. They don’t mean to look great, but they just do.
Dom Yeah, homeless people are really industrious. I don’t know if you’ve heard of The Big Issue, but it’s this magazine that is written entirely by homeless people and it has a homeless CEO. And everyone that buys it is homeless.
Adrian And they are allowed to take their dogs to work, which is awesome.

Do you think your travels to London will inspire the ‘_____’ aesthetic?
Dom Since 2012 is an Olympic year, I think sports will have a big influence on the fash scene, and it will definitely influence us.
Adrian How often do you see genital outlines in sports gear? It’s the Shervington effect. We want to use that.

See more of Dom and Adrian at the Bondi Hipsters Youtube channel.