I went to a shopping mall in suburban Virginia yesterday. I return largely unscathed and with both good and bad news: we are, sartorially speaking, about 15 minutes away from the Members Only jacket being back in style.
How can this possibly qualify as good news, you ask?
Quite simply, despite the nonsense that is most of the haute couture or even the ready-to-wear designer shows, fashion for the average Target-shopping mall-going American has spent the past three years in a time warp between 1975 and 1982. Coexisting in the same fashion universe are the peasant blouse complete with billowy sleeves and delicate lace details around the neck (circa 1976), hip-hugger bell bottoms (also circa 1976), skinny jeans and polo shirts with the collars turned up (god save me from 1983) for guys.
Walk into any store (Gap, Target, Old Navy, Macys, etc) where an “average” person might shop and what you’ll find is a mashup of the worst of fashion from the past 25 years. Colors that used to appear on appliances (think harvest gold and that sort of pukey avocado green that your aunt Edna thought was such a hip color for her new dishwasher in 1978) now saturate the clothing market. And just who the hell thought it was a good idea to bring back horizontal stripes? They still make all except the skinny of us look fatter than we really are and a population coping with both a sixth sense problem and an obesity “epidemic” does not need one more thing to drag into the arena of self-esteem building.
I also noticed another disturbing trend while I was looking at clothes yesterday: we seem to have taken disposability to a new, more ridiculous level. I lost lot of weight last year and as a result none of my pants really fit any more. I’m not quite wearing them prison style just yet but I have run out of holes on a couple of belts. Thus began the great search for new jeans.
Now, I understand that Gap is having some financial problems and that their CEO was recently booted from his post on the basis of weak overall sales at company’s many brand outlets but they’ve always been a reliable source for competitively priced casual clothes. That is until they decided they were going to try to compete with Abercrombie & Fitch (you know them; the company with the hopelessly gay and racist advertisements, the ones that make fundamentalists pant and scream boycott, comedians giggle at the easy target, and give gay boys yet one more soft core porn outlet and more proof that gay male sensibilities have overrun advertising in America).
So why can’t Gap compete? Because no one who actually has to work to earn their money (read: anyone over 24) wants to pay $45 for a pair of pants that are frayed around the cuffs, look like they’re in need of a good wash, and have a hole in the thigh just like the 10 year old pair they just tossed in the trash and are looking to replace.
If we are, as I suspect, sartorially about 15 minutes away from 1985 that means that maybe, just maybe there might soon be clothes on the market that normal people can wear. You know, clothes that don’t come pre-ripped, don’t wear out in a season, and don’t make you look like you raided your teenager’s closet in a vain attempt to recapture your youth.
Of course, I did in my shopping expedition trigger the second sign of the coming apocalypse (the first sign being my friend Charlotte appearing in public in a skirt): my ass is now small enough to get into a pair of Levi’s 501s. Button fly here I come.
As per usual you hit the nail on the head. I either shop at Costco now…where I can buy delightful 22.00 trousers (microfiber, flat front, into and out of the wash and ready to wear!) or I wear my older “good” trousers now that they fit me again!
What I find even more difficult is the “aging” part of fashion. What does a 56 year old reasonably hip man wear?
I’m with you. Real clothes, real fit. Real comfort. When someone can explain how a white shirt can cost $420.00 I’ll die a happy man.
STB
If you can hold out until fall do so. Or if you have the body type to do so, take a peak at the men’s departments, where the non ridiculous pair of jeans can be occasionally spotted, even at this sad time of the clothing year.
I always look forward to Esquire with amused puzzlement (or maybe that’s puzzled amusement?) trying to understand why I would want to pay the equivalent of my entire wardrobe’s cost for one item.
I haven’t been into a GAP since, like, forever because the jeans come in only two sizes — baggy or baggier. (Heh, heh, I’d never heard of “prison style.”) Why spend $45 there when, for $20, often less, I can pick up a pair at Costco.