I THOUGHT the fashion had gone. Become passé and slipped into oblivion.
I thought I had seen the rear end of it long ago but it seems to be back. Or perhaps it has only been slumbering, confined to private showings behind closed doors, until it gained enough of a cult following to burst forth again upon an unprepared public.
Well, I was unprepared, I can tell you, when two chaps bent over in Huddersfield town centre and displayed most of their Calvin Klein’d buttocks.
Yes, I’m talking about the fashion of Damocles; young males who wear jeans so baggy and saggy at the waist that they could slip off at any moment.
Was not this a style affected by rappers some years past?
I remember on a visit to America having to contain my mirth at the sight of these gentlemen, laden down with gold chains, baseball caps slewed sideways upon their heads, strutting – and that is the only word that applies – through a shopping mall, while the crutches of their voluminous jeans lurked somewhere below their knee caps.
What if there is a fire, I thought. How could they run?
Only in America, I said to myself, except that the fashion crossed the pond and youths so callow that their hips had not yet formed, strutted with great care and one hand ever ready to stop their trousers falling down around their ankles.
How daft, I thought. How silly, how uncomfortable to wear a garment that at any second could render you straight into the middle of that nightmare where you are alone in a busy street in only your vest.
Did they take lessons to learn how to walk in trousers so baggy you could conceal a barbecue within them? Nay, trousers so baggy you could HOLD a barbecue within them, if it was raining.
My nerves eased when the fashion died out but now it seems to be back, brazenly displaying itself on buses, in shops and along New Street when you least expect it.
But why?
Surely wearing trousers like that cannot be comfortable. And where do you buy jeans with a 48 inch crutch?
“Oh, look. These don’t fit. I’ll have two pairs.”
Can anyone explain why young men should want to jeopardise their modesty in so precarious a way? Or has it gone beyond fashion?
Is this now the ultimate walk on the wild side, with every step bringing the potential risk of arrest for indecent exposure? Particularly if they forget to put on their Calvin Kleins.
