"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Coolhunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

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Coolhunting
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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Copyright (c)1998 Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Science Fiction Age, July 1998

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Science Fiction


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Fifteen different ways to fasten a shoe and she was sitting on the
porch steps of a refurbished brownstone, watching a boy barely old enough to
shave tie knots in an ancient pair of Air Jordans. Steffie pushed her hair out
of her face, opened her palmtop and used the tiny lens in the corner to shoot
the boy's hands. They were long, slender, unlined, with wide knuckles and
trimmed nails. A person couldn't do what he was doing with short stubby
fingers or InstaGrow(tm) nails that curved like talons.
He took all six multi-colored laces, wrapped them around three fingers,
and created bows of differing sizes. Then he tied them at the tongue, and
created a flower that blossomed from the ancient shoe like a rose in the
middle of rubble.
When he was done, she flipped him a plastic. He caught it between his
thumb and forefinger, glanced at it, and raised his eyebrows.
"Mega," he said.
She was glad he thought so. She only paid him half the going rate for a
style that would be all over the streets in the next two hours, then all over
the stores in the next two weeks.
"Thanks," she said, and slipped her palmtop back in her pocket.
Then she grabbed one of his extra laces, tied her brown hair back, and
headed down the gum-covered sidewalk toward the park.
Shoelaces. Who'd have thought? When shoes could zip, velcro, and seal
themselves, who'd've thought the arbiters of cool would go back to the lace?
Hers was not to ask why. Hers was to record, market, and change.
Coolhunting was still a strange profession, but thirty years after the
first coolhunters hit the streets, it had worked its way into a mini science.
A science only a person with an eye for beauty and a sense of people
could spot.
She resisted the urge to open her palmtop and check her own credit