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The tides of fashion

17 Nov 10 | Re: What is considered attractive

My wife doesn’t like it when I walk around with my wallet, mobile phone, keys, handkerchief and sundry other objects in my trouser pockets. She doesn’t like the way they bulge out, spoiling the line of my trousers.

“But darling,” I tell her, “bulging pockets are a sign of wealth.”

But are they? In the past, the wealthy gentleman would indeed have walked around with bulging purses of gold. Later on, in the 80s, the wealthy adopted filofaxes and Walkmans and Discmans and giant cellular mobiles that must have bulged out like anything. But since that era, perhaps the wealthy gent’s pocket has been tending to bulge the less. Coins have been on a downward curve for some time, being replaced by notes, and now notes are being used less in favour of cards. The costlier phones tend to be smaller and thinner, and MP3 players are ever-shrinking, or disappearing altogether as they are integrated entirely into futuristic phones-cum-media centres. My bulging pockets might be making me appear quite the unsophisticate.

It is ever thus with fashion, which always changes to match the behaviour of the wealthy. The classic example is paleness. At one time, the rich stayed indoors and the poor worked in the open, so paleness was sought after. Then the rich started going on foreign holidays and tans became sought after. Then the poor started going on specifically sun-seeking foreign holidays, and tans stopped being quite the thing. Then a lot of not particularly sophisticated people started using fake tan and sunbeds, and I think paleness is probably due for a revival. So it is with the pocket bulge - it was in, but I fear it is now passe and I will have to seek alternative means of carrying my personal effects. A bag?

Posted by SIR GALAHAD at 13:19

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