Faded Jeans

For several months my wife and daughters have been expressing the view that I am in desperate need of a style makeover. The sight of me once again turning up for an event in T-shirt and denim must have been too much for them.

Anyway after an overdose of Trinny and Susannah terrorising fashion victims on TV, the Molineaux females decided to take me on a serious shopping expedition. After driving for what felt like several lunch times we arrived at the temple to mammon and found refuge in an outlet where the beverages end in a vowel and cost more than my last pair of jeans.

Suitably energized by cappuccinos and skinny lattes we set off in search of fabric designed for slimmer waistlines than mine.

I chose what appeared to be acceptable items for a man of my age and headed for the unisex changing rooms to see if any of them would make me look thinner; knowing only too well that the mirrors provided are designed to flatter.

I was stopped on my journey by daughter number one wishing to inspect my find. One by one she held each item of clothing up to the other members of our party and they all joined in the laughter.

After enjoying themselves at my expense they lead me away to another section of the store to be shown the type of trousers that I apparently ‘really liked’.

I muttered and moaned but still found myself trying them on and then coming out of the closet (in the old sense of the phrase), to do my own version of a fashion show. After telling me that I looked fantastic and that they made me look years younger they were kind enough to ask me what I thought of them.

‘Call me old fashioned’, I said ‘But I like the notion that I can FADE my own denim ‘after’ I have bought the jeans’. They looked at me as if my two score years and seven had afforded me no right to an opinion.

Not to be defeated the girls encouraged, or should that be harangued, me to try on the second pair of their selection. I emerged this time with several areas of flesh showing as the jeans in question were ripped in at least three places and both the pockets and the hems were frayed making them look like the pair that I had thrown away just two weeks earlier.

‘It is the fashion’, said my youngest ‘Everybody is wearing them’.
I tried once again to voice my objections.

‘Call me old fashioned’, I said ‘But I like the notion that I can RIP my own denim ‘after’ I have bought the jeans’.

This time my wife agreed with my complaint; pointing out to the girls that they were trying too hard to make me look younger.

We left the store without making a purchase only to enter another, seemingly identical, shop. It seemed to me that, even though I was the central figure of the day, I wasn’t really needed.

I made my escape and found a gadget store; joining all the other husbands who I presume had run away from similar shopping treats, I imagined owning a remote control spitfire and a walkie talkie watch.

My mobile phone rang and interrupted my enjoyment of a plasma ball; it was my wife complaining that I wasn’t putting as much effort in the day as they were.

When I arrived at the department store the females were loaded up with enough clothes to kit out an army.

You might think that I would have been daunted by this sight but I had a cunning plan; I was ready to agree to eight out of the first ten items I tried on whatever they looked like. It seemed the path of least resistance and would speed our journey to lunch.

It is for this reason that I sit here writing wearing brand new faded and a pink T-shirt. You might think that I am defeated but I take comfort in the fact that I refused to by the ‘man bag’ that they insisted were all the rage these days.