The second coolest dog ever (Number one: Phife Dawg)

In keeping with its tradition of covering the news not just as it happens, like most papers, but also possibly before it happens, the Style section of the New York Times announced today that bulletproof vests are totally hip. The author of the article, Ruth La Ferla, says the phenomenon was likely spurred by the return of the Fox show 24, in which Jack Bauer often wears a bulletproof vest. I guess that’s possibly true—24 is a show on television now, and people are apparently wearing bulletproof vests for fashion now—in the same sense that eating breakfast makes it get lighter outside. As is usually the case with a style piece, you can’t prove it’s not happening. La Ferla points out that bulletproof vests are worn by counterterrorism operatives and wealthy plutocrats, as well as Hollywood moguls and 50 Cent. “So it may have been only a matter of time,” she writes, “before aspiring hipsters embraced the style — the sartorial equivalent of a safe room — as a badge of cool.” Because as any hipster will tell you, no one is cooler than 50 Cent, unless it’s the guy who runs Wuhan Steel Group.

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