Who Wears the Trousers?

Ok, that is IT. What is happening to the trousers of today?! I’ve just been to town in search of  jeans and have returned both emotionally and physically damaged. I’m not searching for anything in particular. No specific format. Just a nice jean, that befits a woman in her late 20’s, who goes to the office, but then hey let’s face it, who also likes to have some fun and I am sorry, but it seems that a woman like me (normal build and detectable brain activity) is simply no longer catered for on the trouser scene of today.

If aliens landed on Earth in the middle of the night, broke into Topshop using their advanced breaking in tools and began looking for clues, I am sure that after a few hours spent spindling their long, green fingers through the rails of clothes, they would report back to the mother ship that women on Earth are quite clearly a little bit mental in the legs department. 'Your majesty, we are no further forward in discovering how many legs they have and we'd respectfully like to abort this mission.'

Let's just look at jeans for example. If you want to buy jeans today, you can’t just buy them, you have to first decide what type of statement these jeans will make for you and this statement can no longer be ‘I want to drop my dinner on these and be able sponge it off with a flannel’.  No. Things have changed. The choices are now as follows: Bootcut Jeans. These are for women who want to say ‘I’m going to work now, but then I could go for a drink after if you want? I’m tall and I’m adaptable to any situation’. But beware ladies. For bootcut jeans must always be purchased just slightly too long for the leg. If you buy your bootcut jeans in the correct size, the bottoms will swing above your ankle and will make you look like an ankle-swinger and bloody fool. If you go for bootcut, you've got to go long.

Then there are Flares. Flares are nothing new of course. But today they are still an option for the average jean buyer. If you do make the choice for flares, you will look unusual, so bear this in mind before you purchase. When you’re standing at the Sainsbury’s checkout and the person behind you scans their eyes across the contents of your trolley and then down to your flares, what will they think? They’ll think you’re deranged is what they’ll think. Their eyes will flick back to the trolley and quickly re-examine for excessive tins of cat food. Either that or they’ll think you’re off to a fancy dress and haven’t made much effort. Let’s face it, flares make you look weird and there’s no excuse for them. Pack it in flare wearers please. It’s over.

Next, there’s the inexplicable Skinny jeans phenomena. Whoever’s idea this was should be buried under a crushing pile of denim and left there. There is nothing at all good about skinny jeans and no good can come from buying them. If you do make the mistake of buying them, you can’t even get them on and you certainly won't be able to get them off so make sure you pick a pair you're prepared to wear for a while. They cut off your circulation and they make you look like an utter prat if you’re not more that seven foot tall, which you’re not. There are racks and racks of them in every shop. Thousands of weedy little leg- torture-tubes. Women who buy these jeans are trying to be fashionable. They are victims of fashion and granted, in a moment of weakness you’ve probably selected a pair to try on yourself. You’ve eyed the dangling leg-tubes and thought, ‘can I cram my legs into those?’ and then you’ve decided ‘YES. I can give it a bloody good go’ and marched towards the dressing room. ‘One please’ you declare to the assistant, who is likely to be embattled in her own pair of skinny leg- prisons and drawing the curtain across you begin to fitfully stuff your legs into the jeans as if wrestling two crocodiles into a rucksack. If, against all the odds, you do get the damn things on, you’ll probably need some help getting them off. You have been warned.

Then there are Boyfriend jeans. I’m honestly not making this up. Boyfriend jeans are supposed to give off the impression that you’ve borrowed them from your boyfriend. The owner of these jeans will be a pretty cool chick. She’ll have a boyfriend (of course), a chilled out vibe and probably doesn’t have a job. Her boyfriend is saving up so they can go to Goa and she’ll take the jeans along with her to either wear in a casual way to a beach bar, or tie around her head in an improvised way. She probably also wears her boyfriend’s shirt as a mini-dress. Generally, we are jealous of this woman and begrudgingly note that the only time we wear our boyfriend’s jeans is if we’re cold in bed.

So that’s the jeans. Fancy any of them? No. So then there’s the actual trousers. But oh Lord the trousers! We can’t bear it! There is a most peculiar type that has emerged in fashion recently. The ‘harem’ trouser or ‘parachute pant’, which disguises itself as a nice maxi skirt and then BANG, becomes trousers when you get it on. Who would EVER, ever in their right mind, wear trousers like this out of choice? Silken, enormous, floating trousers, brightly coloured patterns and elastic waists! They are ludicrious! They are the trousers of a clown! If you’ve bought any of these in a moment of dazzled confusion, or perhaps the circulation was cut off from your brain in a skinny trousers trying episode and you’ve found yourself in harems just to get the blood going again, for goodness sakes take them off whatever you do. There is no occasion on this Earth, where harem trousers are appropriate, unless of course you’re MC Hammer or Aladdin. If you guys are reading this, never stop rockin’ the harems. They totally suit you.

So I despair. What is a girl to do? If only someone would make trousers in the variety of ‘normal’. They’d make a killing I reckon.