Fashions That Pamper the Consumer

You have wondered, of course, what the world would be without fashion. I wondered today (in the loo, I might add, when I was unbuttoning my branded trouser, not that I am less fashion conscious) that today we are seeing a virtual clash of fashions. In my youth, we had the bell bottoms and high-shirt-collar as the style of the times. Today the styles differ according to the whim of its designer. How about a no collar shirt with patterns held together with Chinese buttons. Hm. I saw a guy wearing it – sitting opposite me - in the train today. Then I see a guy wearing a shoe pointed and curved enough to poke the guy or gal in the behind. Then another with a shoe, protruding in a sort of rectangular shape, a good five inches in front of him. I wonder how he climbs stairs with those shoes. Does he do a Chaplinesque amble?

Then there are short shirts, there are long shirts, tee-shirts, patterned shirts, pants with lots of straps hanging from them, jeans that are crushed and crumpled to give that ruffled grungy look, jeans that come in atrocious patterns, odd-shaped pockets that are – you won't believe this – behind the thighs (so that when you sit you are sitting on your wallet or your cell phone), etc. It is amusing to watch all these designer stuff, the manifestations of the need to sell, the maxim that "greed (pampering to the vanity of the consumer) is good."