Fashion high

I remember when a few decades ago, as a little boy, you were embarrassed to wear a pair of trousers which had a hole somewhere, or a pants which was shearing at the fold or ends. Well, that’s no longer in vogue.

Today it’s alright to wear ‘raggedy’ pants because if you don’t wear them you are not in style. This trend with ‘pinch-hits’ for pants is the way to go. It is no longer embarrassing to wear such clothes: they are high fashion today! As a matter fact, when in times gone by there was quite a bit of shame to wear torn trousers with what was known at the time as ‘saddle patch’, has now become highly fashionable.

We cannot talk about trousers and women’s pants at this time, if we don’t talk about faded jeans or stone wash. Almost all the young ladies wear pants with holes or tears, with some taking it to the extreme by having holes or stringy patterns all over their pants. Naturally some women take this fashion overboard, having hole and tears all over.

In my younger days, a proper fitting suit with all the matching accessories was the order of the day. Suits must be made from garbadine or ‘pick ‘n pick’ or even black serge, not the type of suiting we used to call ‘flyers’. That does not matter now. The yuppies wear a pair of jeans, T-shirt and any kind of jacket with high-priced sneakers and consider themselves well-dressed. My oldest son is one of them.

Hairstyles is another aspect of fashion. Gone are the days when young girls used to straighten their hair using a hot comb. I must confess that I don’t know whether the modern hairdresser even knows anything about such an instrument.

Today it is all about wearing other people’s hair or weaves or wigs. Then there is the rainbow of colours, with tints of all kinds—whole heads—grey, blue, red or an assortment of coloured hair. Of course, some of today’s women wear the bald look; some prefer to have the ‘boy cut’.

Remember when a girl was invited to a wedding? The boy had to hire a taxi to take the girl to the church and all the neighbours found a reason to be around to see whether the boy who was coming to pick her up was handsome or not. And the embarrassment when the girl is all dressed up and the appointed boy doesn’t show! That doesn’t apply today. The girl has to make her arrangements to get to the wedding—church or reception.

A popular thing these days is ‘dress-down’ Friday when employees in both the private and public sectors take the opportunity to wear anything that might be acceptable to use in the workplace— anything—from neat and stylish to outrageous and gawdy.

But times change and so do the people. In the same way the old, manual desk typewriter we were proud to be able to use gave way to the much smaller portable machines, which gave way to the nifty electric types, which in turn gave way to the desktop computer which gave way to laptops, tablets and cellphones, the same way room must be made for change. That is just how it is.

So, as we gear up for many more change in a modern world, all I can say is like the words of that famous calypso sung by Richard ‘Nappy’ Mayers: “Bring back de ole time days”.