It's In The Jeans

I suspect that we’re living through an important period of evolutionary history. The human arse is becoming obsolete.

In years to come scientists will stand – not sit – in conference halls and lecture theatres discussing what happened to the gene pool in the 1990s to cause a generation to be born without buttocks. Maybe its mother nature’s way of evening things out - her response to the advent of home entertainment systems and office work. Maybe by forcing people to prop themselves up on hard points of bone instead of a handy, fleshy cushion, she’s encouraging us to be more active and spend less time lounging around. Then again, maybe she just has a profound sympathy for the manufacturers of padded upholstery products and is simply putting more business their way. Unless, of course, there’s a special piece of fashion equipment for sale in the kind of shops I never go in - some sort of ‘bum girdle’ that compresses and binds buttocks into contorted shapes using a method similar to that employed by Chinese women on their feet in the 19th Century.

Whatever the reason, I can’t see any other way to explain how teenagers manage to keep their jeans hanging off their hips in the current way. They don’t seem to be reliant on belts or anything. Is the inner lining stitched to the material of their underwear and then the waistband reinforced? I don’t understand how they don’t fall down – even when they go skateboarding.

It seems a particularly dumb style, a rather desperate and hopeful punt by the fashion industry to overcome a product wall. They’ve already tried dark jeans; stonewashed jeans; ripped jeans; jeans flecked with bleach. There have been skinny jeans; baggy jeans; flared jeans; turn-up jeans – there was even a period in the early 90s when they tried to get people to wear them backwards. All of these ideas have been through several cycles already, they obviously needed something fresh to make people spend money, otherwise they could just leave their old pair in the wardrobe for a couple of years until they come back into style again.

Although probably cooked up by marketeers - perhaps even in cahoots with the underwear industry eager to gain more exposure for their branded products – the history of the style supposedly comes from American gangsta rappers who, because of all the drive bys and pimping and everything, often found themselves getting arrested. When placed in the cells, the police would take away their belts to stop them hanging themselves - hence, their jeans would slip down.

This sartorial development was then copied by the kids on da streets who were all obviously very eager to be mistaken for criminals placed on suicide watch and the trend subsequently grew. It moved from the ghettos of Harlem to the fashion spreads of Vogue, eventually filtering down to nice, safe middle-class suburbanites the world over. It’s even ended up in South Yorkshire where it seems to have been modified further to fit the different environment.

The woman standing in front of me in the queue at the supermarket yesterday certainly managed to add her own unique flare to the style anyway. She hadn’t bothered with those shop bought jeans that are made to be loose fitting around the waist and shorter in the leg. Instead she’s wearing ones that are at least three sizes too small for her. She’s also of an older generation so is blessed with a full bottom, the jeans reach about halfway up it. The most startling thing however, is her decision to go without underwear. Those two wads of wobbly white flesh flopping over her waistband certainly grab your attention – on first glance she looks like she’s got four arses. It’s a ‘dagenham smile’ a builder would be proud of and I’m positive that if she were to bend over, the whole shop would actually be able to see her anus.

It’s a vision that’s difficult to push from your mind once it’s in there. I hope to god that no marketeers spotted her or we could be seeing a lot more horrors like that by next summer. The thought worries me so much that, for the good of society, I think she should be taken to an American prison to be shown how to wear her jeans properly.

Acting Your Age

It’s a good indication that you’re getting old when you start looking forward to baths. Fancying the housewives on TV ads for household products is probably a good sign as well. There are other little giveaways too. For example, I’ve recently discovered that I really like peas. Also, nowadays, when one of my friends announces that they’re going to have a baby, my automatic response is more likely to be: ‘Congratulations!’ rather than: ‘Shit, I’m sorry to hear that, what are you going to do?’

There are physical signs too. I’m beginning to feel the effects of smoking – a severe shortness of breath and a throaty, phlegm filled laugh. I eat the same amount as I always have but now I have a waistline that’s rapidly getting out of control and I’m starting to realise that there are some foods that I just shouldn’t touch.

Alcohol is another thing – I can’t drink like I once could. My hangovers used to be powerful and frightening. I’d wake up feeling like absolute death, the only way to cope being to throw up repeatedly and stand with my face in a bowl of cold water. At least I knew where I stood with them though, at least it got all the horror out of the way in one concentrated burst so that by mid-afternoon I’d be back to normal. I prefer those to the ones I get now. You couldn’t even call them proper hangovers, I just get incredibly tired and incredibly stupid. My head seems to be filled with thick treacle and I’m no use to anyone for about two days. Sometimes, I have to get hammered on red wine just to make sure that at least I’ve got a decent headache in the morning to remind me of what I’ve done.

These things all lead to the dawning realisation that I’m not going to live forever – a creeping sense of my own mortality. The future’s no longer off in the distance somewhere, vague and undefined like it was when I was younger. Instead it’s real and frightening, looming oppressively over everything I do.

The natural instinct of course is to panic. Generally this means grabbing everything you can and using it all as a barricade, safely cushioning yourself with a career, house, partner and all the rest of it. At that point you give up on the idea of changing the world and settle for simply changing the world around you.

The trouble is, those responsibilities tend to anchor you to the spot. As the wider world moves on and changes, your stable little one stagnates and narrows. Life becomes more about protecting what you’ve got rather than finding out what you want. Piddling little obsessions like guttering and bin collections and wind farms spoiling the scenery will start to assume levels of importance that you never dreamed of when you were twenty-five. Your opinions and beliefs will set rigid and you’ll use them as a stick to beat away any different viewpoint that might threaten the safety of your routine. Maybe you’ll write letters to your local newspaper moaning about how society is going to the dogs. Maybe you’ll even vote Conservative and start reading the Daily Mail – they say that you get more right-wing as you get older.

The prospect of that still scares me to death.

Ok, so I know that when I wear a cardigan, I now look less like a guitarist in an indie band and more like Val Doonican. I also know that when I see a 23 year old in a short skirt in January, I no longer think: ‘Christ, look at that,’ and instead: ‘Christ, I bet she’s cold’. But I’ll be buggered if I’m going to start acting my age. I still admire recklessness and adventure and freedom - I still want those things for myself. I’m not ready to give up on them regardless of expectations or peer pressure or my biological clock. It may be immaturity on my part, but if it is, so what? The day I settle for things is the day I do become old.