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Never out of style

New Zealand Listener

|

July 19-25, 2025

The concept of coolness has deep roots and a global reach that crosses many cultures.

- MARC WILSON

Never out of style

Is it hip to be square? Huey Lewis and the News said so in 1986. I still have the LP in fact, so does that make me hip, or just square? Or maybe you can be cool only if you're a “long cool woman in a black dress”, as The Hollies sang. There are more contemporary song titles about being cool, but I'm not sure I've heard them, and listing them will just signal how uncool I am.

We all have a sense of what it means to be “cool”. We know it when we see it, even though it might be tricky to define. It’s also a global term - pretty much any place there are human beings, people spend a lot of time and money trying to be cool, and people know cool when they see it.

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