Entry · catalog no. 1450
buffs
/ /bʌfs/ /BUFS
noun (plural) · Detroit, Michigan · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
Cartier glasses, properly the buffalo-horn-templed frames, worn in Detroit as proof of arrival. The word covers the whole Cartier line in practice; the reverence is specifically Detroit''s.
“Fresh fade, white tee, buffs on his face — he came home ready.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Detroit, 1980s. Auto-industry money and hustlers'' money alike went onto faces: rimless Cartiers renamed buffs for the buffalo horn at the temples. Street Lordz, Blade Icewood, and the Black Mafia Family built the lore; by GMAC Cash''s count, ninety percent of Detroit rap songs mention them. Nobody outside the city gets to decide what they mean.
1980s
Detroit''s Black middle class adopts and renames the frames
2000s
Street Lordz and Blade Icewood cement buffs in Detroit rap
2018
National press documents the city''s Cartier culture
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Detroit, Michigan · 1980s
Spoken by
Black Detroit
$BUFFSThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady46 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
58/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1980
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Racked, Cartier Sunglasses'' Violent Detroit History
2018
■
Detroit Metro Times, How Cartier sunglasses became a Detroit fashion
2018
■
+ Cite a sourceCBS Detroit, Cartier sunglasses: the role on Detroit''s culture
2020s
See also