"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months" - Oscar Wilde.I hate shopping for clothes. I'm sure this is a universal bloke thing but I really do detest it with a passion. To this end, I am prone to wear the same clothes until they are so battered and threadbare that a tramp would turn their nose up at them. For a start, I'm slightly colour blind and any attempts that I have of choosing something colourful are normally met with howls of derision. To this end, I normally end up wearing clothes in varying shades or grey - preferably heading towards the black side of things. You see, it's not just because I'm a misanthropic, miserable bastard.
The first point of utter hatred is the sizes that the shops stock. There is meant to be an obesity epidemic but this only appears to affect those with an inside leg measurement of 31" or under. I assume the theory here is that anyone who has put on a few pounds will have their legs telescope down to an acceptably diminutive size under the pressure of their excessive mass. I'm not sure what the physiological basis for this phenomenon is, but it means that the clothes shops only cater for short, squatty people - or Peter Crouch. This is then compounded by the fact that shirt designers seem loathe to allow for their cloth to actually reach waist level. Exposed mid-rifts are seldom flattering on attractive, nubile, young people. On hairy, middle-aged gits it's a decided turn-off.
Having manoeuvred my choice through the miserable range of might-just-fit-if-I-put-my-mind-to-it garments, I am left with the horrific spectacle of what the clothing retailers have actually allowed me to chose from. I am talking, of course, of that dreaded, hideous abomination of society called "fashion". The latest trend seems to be that old favourite - the "distressed" look. Essentially, this translates to the clothes in the shop with a fancy price tag actually being in a worse state of disrepair than those rags I wish to consign to the fabrics recycling bin. This isn't a new idea. I blame Vivienne Westwood but I think they are all at it. Bastards, every last one of them. The other favourite is clothes that don't fit properly - by design. Apparently, this was the brainchild of the recently deceased Alexander McQueen. I don't want to speak ill of the dead but I'd rather people didn't walk around with their arses hanging out.
This then narrows things down those items designed for the yoof market - the only purpose of which is to supply a series of photographs for a future "honestly, did I really wear that" nostalgia trip - or things that 85 year olds would wear when they couldn't give a toss and may as well go around wearing an old tea cosy. There is nothing available for normal, somewhere-in-the-middle aged homo sapiens. So I try a few things on. It's always stilted - I feel like a bit of a dick and I look like a twit. I can also guarantee that anything I do buy will have some subtle unforeseen booby-trap, like pockets that lose all you loose change when you sit down or a shirt that shrinks three sizes when washed because it's "dry clean only" or, as I would put it, not bloody made properly. It's at this point that I contemplate whether my old clothes will survive another 30 degree woollen cycle without disintegrating.
"We are the goon squad and we're coming to town" - David Bowie.
Wow, there's a lot to comment on there!
ReplyDeleteI, as you know, am a slightly more middle-aged bloke who long ago lost his svelte, racing-snake figure.
I have never had much interest in fashion and my favourite colour is grey - I get a lot of stick for that fact.
I do approve of the distressed look because it means scruffy and financially challenged people who employ our strategy of wearing clothes until they fall apart can accidentally look trendy without really trying.
I particularly despise the jeans-hanging-off-the-arse look as it just looks plain stupid and makes the wearer look like they can't dress themselves properly.
My usual choice of clothing is jeans and rugby shirt or jeans and football shirt. The footy shirt may make people think I am some sort of yob but I wear them because I like them and they are comfy. Rugby shirts are a bit warmer in the Winter but are now not seemingly worn by rugby players - for the last couple of years they seem to now sport skin-tight efforts that may flatter athletes but would do absolutely nothing for the average man in the pub so I'll stick with the old-fashioned type thank you very much.