Tuesday, March 9, 2010

There was a time, not long ago, when the proper upkeep of clothes confounded me, forcing me to employ desperate measures like bankrolling a steady influx of new shirts. Indeed, the very idea of marshaling steam technology to make oneself look sharper was pure science fiction, and you may as well have claimed that telephony had gone cordless and I would’ve believed you. Well, things have changed since then. I’ve made progress. I can now dewrinkletize a button-down, not to mention invent new verbs, in mere minutes.

The question has come full circle, in fact, and I am again preoccupied with acquiring new threads, though what drives me now isn’t necessity, so much as vanity. Certainly I’ll pick up a new article of clothing here or there, but I haven’t made a truly concerted effort to understand the world of apparel since aught-five, when structurally compromised jeans were all the rage. Those were pre-recession days, I suppose, and it was fashionable to look like you were destitute or possibly AWOL from a local casting of Cats.

Here, too, things have changed, with the denim of today sporting an altogether different style. Gone are the carefully positioned tears, and the only way to achieve the destroyed look these days is through your own industry and a pair of scissors. Now, if trendy is what you want, it’s going to be slim, low-ride jeans for you. I unwittingly brought a pair to the fitting room over the weekend, and it just didn’t take. It was horrifically uncomfortable.

I guess I’m just not shaped like a hipster, you know? I simply don’t want to chat about the latest grungecore hits while sipping alternative brews, ever, and my protest begins with comfortable pants. Is darker, regular-fit denim the answer for me? Perhaps, though if we continue along the current trajectory, carpenter jeans will likely see a revival soon, and maybe this time we’ll figure out what exactly goes in the hammer loop.