Rather than ‘making up’ a trend of their own, skater girls Grenn and Lexi (both aged14 and perhaps the most working class of the participants) asserted that they were following ‘no fashion trend at all’ and that this defined them as ‘weird’ in the eyes oftheir more affluent, ‘preppy’ peers.Of course, in recent years the skater style has become popular, thus complicatingthe discussion of what is ‘trendy’ and increasing the cost of skater clothes. Thisdevelopment angered a number of the girls, particularly the most hardcore skaters.Kate and Christine spoke derisively of ‘little posers’ who wore skater clothes but didnot really skate. Madeline said it ‘bugged’ her that some girls at her school boughtexpensive stuff that they did not really ‘need’. For example, they wore skate shoes that‘aren’t really great for skating; they’re just kind of poser brands’. (Bettie, 2003, analyzes these types of competing ‘claims to authenticity’ as displaced class antagonism; see especially pp. 127.)The increasing popularity of skater style affected the hardcore yet working classskater girls like Tori the most strongly.It bugs me ‘cause you see all these preppy little kids and they are going and buying skate shoes and skate clothing, which makes the price go up for people like us who depend on that. Like my shoes have the biggest ollie hole in them, like you have no idea!