Old man rants about fashion…
HOLES IN YOUR JEANS
Back when they reckoned “an ugly mend
Was far better than a pretty hole”.
And my knowledge of the fashion world,
Well…was non-existent on the whole.
For a kid sartorially poor;
That tear in your trousers was a curse.
A love of climbing trees in the park,
Could put a strain on mum and dad’s purse.
Buying their offspring a new pair was
Never a viable solution.
They couldn’t just nip down to Primark
And purchase a cheap substitution.
Walking out with a hole in your pants
Brought with it an element of shame.
Unless you were lucky and your Mum
Might invisibly mend them again.
Failing that a possibility
Was she might cover them with a patch.
And fingers-crossed the material
Would be somewhat resembling a match.
Now in the realm of her old scrap box
And so, you could never be certain.
Worst-case scenario might just be
A patch from an old bedroom curtain.
So, you passed the days in corduroy
With a fetching and contrasting trim.
Dickensian urchin you might be.
Definitely…a fashion victim!
Denim took off in the seventies.
Doubling up became the status quo. (Geddit?)
As the world became stone-washed and blue;
Just where else were you going to go.
But when jeans that you loved and lived in
Got a hole…it was unbearable…
And frustrating to say the least when
The rest of them were still wearable!
Then they came up with an idea…
Sew-on patches kept you smart lookin’
With trendy and impassioned statements
Band’s names, ‘Ban the Bomb!’, ‘Keep on Truckin’!’.
They were so cool, you sewed on patches
To stop treasured jeans dying a death.
Sewed them yourself…even in places
Where there wasn’t a hole underneath.
Then the spirit of Punk encouraged
You to embrace each rip and each tear.
Not to show you were down on your luck
But more to prove that you didn’t care.
That’s when fashion’s big business stepped in.
Punk was marketed without its phlegm.
Everyone wears a Ramones shirt now
Yet clearly know nothing about them.
It seems to be what everyone wants.
The demand is for holes in your clothes.
Couturiers might spin in their graves…
Chanel, Quant, Dior ‘n’others like those.
Somewhere in an East-Asian country,
A foetus is running a machine;
That will sew two symmetrical holes
Into the legs of each pair of jeans.
Now everyone’s holes are uniform
Thanks to tiny hands and their sewing;
Who make use of extra-strength cotton
Just to prevent those holes from growing.
And they’ll do that millions of times
So, you can wear them to make it look
That you and a world-full of others
Want us to think you don’t give a fuck…
But clearly, you do!
©graylightfoot
gray lightfoot 