No one will ever accuse me of being on the cutting edge of fashion.
Although I’d be a prime candidate for the show “What Not To Wear,” the hosts would undoubtedly kick me off for my loyalty to the concept of “comfortable.”
If you’ve ever watched the show, you know that Stacy and Clinton have no time for people who utter those words.
Forget comfort, you have to look good. You have to wear pointed-toe shoes. You have to dress up to go to the supermarket. There is no excuse for clinging to those old T-shirts, not even for sentimental reasons.
If you want the $5,000 and a makeover, you are at their mercy. And they’d have a heyday with me.
But there are occasions when I realize that I was ahead of fashion trends.
WAY ahead.
That struck me again when I was reading an article recently about the hoodie, which apparently is being threatened in some area school districts.
In case you really aren’t in on fashion, a hoodie is simply a hooded sweatshirt. But it’s become the trademark of hip-hop, skaters and, unfortunately, those who often find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
So some school districts already have banned hoodies or are thinking about it. They can hide students’ faces. They can send the wrong message.
There are any number of reasons that they’re inappropriate, school officials say.
Back when I was growing up, you didn’t have to worry about kids wanting to wear them to school. They weren’t called hoodies and they weren’t socially acceptable.
I lived on a small farm, so a hooded sweatshirt was a necessity on cold, windy days for working outside or heading to the barn.
We’d wear them to sled and ice skate, too, because the hood was great for keeping your neck warm.
But we’d never wear them “in public”; after all, no “normal” kid would be seen dead in them back then.
We also were ahead of the curve when it came to jeans, only then they were called dungarees.
Yes, dungarees. Again, they were essential for farmwork and, in later teen years, they did became a lot more popular for leisure time.
You couldn’t wear them to school because of dress codes, so again, they weren’t the everyday outfit of most teens.
When you became a bit more refined and fashion conscious, you no longer called them dungarees.
But since there was one brand far more popular than others, most jeans were simply called by the Wrangler brand.
You had to have Wranglers — yep, I loved those Wranglers.
So, I suppose I could claim that every now and then I’m a predictor of fashion.
But I doubt that Stacy and Clinton would buy that — especially when decades separate the era in which I wore something like a hoodie and when they finally become a fashion essential.
Guess I’ll just stick with being comfortable.
