I felt sorry for him. As he stood in the doorway for the 7.34 limited express from Frankston to Flinders Street, the young man was acutely aware of the gargantuan error he had made. Although it was next to freezing, he chose to hold his jacket rather than wear it. The reason was simple: in the early morning haste to get ready, he had taken a jacket (blue) that did not match his trousers (black). Had he worn them together, he would have looked like a dimly lit Neenish tart. It’s one of the hazards of getting dressed in the dark.
I felt sorry for him. As he stood in the doorway for the 7.34 limited express from Frankston to Flinders Street, the young man was acutely aware of the gargantuan error he had made. Although it was next to freezing, he chose to hold his jacket rather than wear it. The reason was simple: in the early morning haste to get ready, he had taken a jacket (blue) that did not match his trousers (black). Had he worn them together, he would have looked like a dimly lit Neenish tart. It’s one of the hazards of getting dressed in the dark.
No-one’s immune. Even the slightest miscalculation can become a fully-fledged fashion disaster. Having been born in the seventies, I ought to be impervious to bad fashion choices. Mine was the generation that was swaddled in flared nappies, whose entire wardrobe was highly combustible. My favourite piece of clothing as a child was, without doubt, my dressing gown. At the back just below the collar was a tag that described the item as ‘inflammable’. This, I had incorrectly assumed, meant that it could not be destroyed by fire. As fire was our only form of heating, it was just as well. I would stand on the hearth, heating myself and wondering why smoke was starting to pour from under my armpits.
But it wasn’t only combustible dressing gowns. Shorts with a high thigh-split and bright piping; tracksuits made of super-synthetic materials that, when you walked, generated enough static electricity to power a small town – this is how our parents chose to dress us. Forget wind farms and solar. True renewable energy comes from a dodgy tracksuit. If we could only convince hipsters to ditch their hemp trousers and skinny jeans in favour of classic seventies tracksuits, this country could meet its renewable energy targets as easily as a return trip to the shops. Skivvies, in contrast, were not a viable alternative energy source.
The bulk of my formative years were spent wearing a skivvy. They seemed to suit almost every occasion. I’m not sure why, in a moment of collective madness, the country and world more generally so wholly embraced the skivvy. Personally, I’d like to think that my parents were subtly referencing great radical skivvy wearers of yesteryear. To the naked eye, my baby blue skivvy was something that’d been bought on sale from Target but, in actual fact, it was a subtle tribute to French philosopher and all-round turtle neck champion, Michel Foucault. Looking back through old school photos, I am often struck by how many of my fellow students at Tyabb Primary were also big fans of Foucault. The class picture from 1978 is a veritable sea of skivvies.
As the seventies surrendered to the eighties, things went from bad to worse. Granted, flares went the way of the dodo, but fashion designers dreamed up new and elaborate means by which to humiliate the broader public and ensure that looking through an old photo album would be something that would inspire either awe at the sheer audacity of it all or could only be done whilst staring in horror from behind your fingers. Frankie may well say ‘Relax’ but he also says ‘I can’t believe you’re wearing that.’ I speak, in particular, of acid wash jeans.
Special mention must be made of acid wash jeans. The concept of distressed denim began simply but quickly got way out of hand. What began as a subtle variation on a theme soon spiraled into something that not only looked terrible but may well have threatened Western Civilisation as we know it. Before long, denim was not so much distressed as it was completely inconsolable. But as mullet-headed youth lined up to purchased acid wash jeans, I decided to take an altogether different path. I decided to make my own acid wash.
In hipster terms, this would be referred to as ‘bespoke acid wash’. In reality, it involved taking a pair of pants and dipping them in a bucket with a bleach solution. After waiting the appropriate time, the jeans were removed and given a separate wash to ensure all the corrosive chemicals had dissolved and did not threaten to permanently disfigure your nether regions. I was overly optimistic. In my mind, my home made acid wash would be a thing of splendour that would cause other youths to weep with envy as I strolled purposively through the Bayside shopping complex. The reality was something far less appealing.
My homemade acid wash jeans were a sight to behold; but not in a good way. They weren’t so much distressed as pretty well close to deceased. In fact, they were too bespoke. A little bespoke can be charming, but too much bespoke and you’re wasting your time. But too proud to admit that my attempt to enter the world of high fashion had been a spectacular fail, I wore them all the same.
The guy on the train was clearly embarrassed by his non-matching suit. Truth be told, I really felt for him. As the train approached Flinders Street station, I got to my feet, putting my hand on his shoulder as a small sign of camaraderie. Adjusting my bespoke acid wash jeans, I wished him well. Then I was gone.