Dedicated Follower of Fashion

I have just put my holiday hat away to hibernate for the winter. Using all
the skills of a Blue Peter presenter I stored it in a box at the back of my
wardrobe making sure that there was enough air circulation to ensure it
emerges undamaged next year ready for the baking heat of a British summer.

Whilst completing this important process I found a couple of items that
have managed to avoid Mrs M's regular clothes cull. She does one of these
quite regularly, spurred on by some charity or other that has kindly
dropped a bin liner through our door.

I often wonder whether it is our need to follow fashion rather than our
support for the concerned charity that drives such action.

Here, however, I had found some clothes that had avoided the cull.

Firstly there were my old jogging bottoms circa 1988. Made of shiny
material with two long stripes running up each leg, they included the
helpful feature of a small zip near each ankle so that you could take them
off without removing your footwear.

I have worn them very occasionally during the intervening years but I have
to confess they don’t offer the same comfort they did when I was in my
twenties.

I tried them on and posed for my wife, holding in my stomach, and hoping
to look at least a little sportsman like. Mrs M seemed more amused than
impressed.

‘It would work if you had a moustache and a curly perm’ she offered.

‘I think there is still a little life in them’ I replied. At this point my
bride’s laughter subsided to be replaced with a slight look of fear at the
thought that I might actually wear them outdoors.

‘Don’t worry’ I said hoping to offer comfort ‘I will wait until they come
back in fashion’

I said this in certain knowledge that, apart from the cod piece and the
Bay City Roller tartan trousers, everything else does seem to return to the
forefront again.

Just as I have managed to afford some small framed, branded reading
glasses, it seems that the old style large specs are making a come back;
think Deirdre Barlow and Richard Whitely.

We have seen a few celebrities wearing such items recently on TV and
commented how ridiculous they look.

Most people react like this when, in truth, it is not long before the
irresistible need to conform overtakes them and they start wearing what
they once ridiculed.

The second item I found during my holiday hat hibernation ritual was a
shirt on which the collar and cuffs are a different colour to the main
body.

I tried to model this for my wife too but ended up feeling a little
depressed as I tried to fasten the buttons and failed.

‘If I had managed to fasten them’ I said pushing through my sadness ‘I
think I could have pulled it off’.

‘If you had managed to fasten them' commented Mrs M 'we would have had to
cut it off with the scissors’ Then she rolled her eyes in a way that has
never gone out of fashion.