Fashion....

......and I’m not talking about the song by David Bowie..... now there was a man who knew how to dress and reinvent himself... even his Aladdin Sane or his Ziggy Stardust moments caught your eye. Personally I always preferred him about the time that he and Jagger were “dancing in the street”

.....but I digress.

What is fashion? If something is “fashionable” it is something that is popular or something that someone has said loudly (and to many people) that this is the “must have” fashion item of the season..... a phrase that automatically gets me to turn round and head in the opposite direction . Like the person who tells you how really really funny a joke is before they actually tell it!

We live in a world where “influencer” is a career choice...... yeah.... I know!

If Kim Kardashian puts a fresh steaming cow pat on her head in the next season of KUWTK and tells everyone how great it looks - how many teens will follow her and do likewise .... too many too mention. 

.... by the way Kim’s cow pat wouldn’t be an ordinary cow pat. It would have been from a free range cow that had had an organic diet and blah blah blah ....

I’m a bit like the kid in the street watching the Emperor go past in his “see through” clothes ..... can you all hear the melodious tones of Danny Kaye “ the king is in the altogether ....” for those of us of a certain age....... but look -he’s naked!!!

The weather has been warm-ish for the last couple of days in March .... (known as Fools summer as it makes us think that we need to get out our summer wardrobe but we all know that there is snow just around the corner....

So, as a man with a fluctuating waistline (large but getting smaller ..... slowly) you think “ must get a new pair of shorts” ....and not the horrible sporty ones that I wear everywhere .... walking, working in the garden .... to bed ......

...so to Amazon it is .... and after a quick browse through the first page of men’s cargo shorts ....where as a middle aged man you gave to appreciate a large pocket for all those “things” that you just need a baggy external pocket or two for .... your eyes ate drawn to the rag at the bottom that says 3/4 length .... and so you press the button .....

.....why? Just why? If one spends all of ones working day in a trouser and one years for the end of the day when one can slide gently into a short but one isn’t sure if one should but one can’t make ones mind up .... then here is the ideal solution ..... NO! 

It’s like the fashion idiots who about 5 years ago thought that wearing one trouser leg full length and the other at 3/4 length was cool and tried to make it “a thing.”

I keep seeing young ladies with trousers that DON’T go all the way to their ankles and that is supposed to be fashion..... NO it just looks like you went to the shops to buy some clothes but couldn’t get an item in your size but liked it so much anyway that you still bought it ....... or that it was fashionable 3 years ago but you have since had a “growth spurt” and can’t bear to throw them away ..... eldest daughter did once have a Minnie Mouse nightie that eventually became a t-shirt and a pair of pyjama bottoms that turned into shorts but that’s just a cute child thing.

OK -I may be a fashion “dinosaur” trapped in the 80’s where a white t-shirt, leather jacket and faded jeans will NEVER go out of style. .... Now is that the difference?

Fashion is temporary, style is permanent. 

If so then I’m looking forward to being the most stylish old man in the care home