Clogs and Hoodies

I have a hidden talent. I am a trend setter. It’s not the first time this has happened but this time it’s clogs. I go to the garden center and get some gardening clogs same as I have done for years. I wear them everywhere. Everyone says ‘hey, you’ve got gardening clogs on’. I say ‘yeah but they’re comfortable and only cost 3 euros’. People smile indulgently. But then suddenly everyone is wearing gardening clogs and the price has rocketed to 30 euros and more. More colours, minute variations of design but still gardening clogs. I saw a kid today sitting on a wall. He had all the trappings of a complete pratt: designer everything, bright sunshine with hoodie up and what looked distinctly like 30 euro plus gardening clogs!!

I’ve never been one for fashion. I never have worried what I wear or usually what anyone else wears. Hoodies and clogs make me laugh though. How to conform and at the same time show everyone I’m not conforming? Buy a hoodie. How to show I am completely devoid of personality and intelligence? buy a thirty euro plus pair of gardening clogs to go with my hoodie.

I find the subject so interesting. I get embarrassed for the wearers of fashion. I mean what is it that makes you forget or ignore the fact that you are being manipulated? Shoes are a good example. I wear gardening clogs because they are comfortable and easy to slip on and off which is important going in and out of the house all day with mud and stuff. 3 euros is a reasonable price for a bit of moulded rubber, two would be better. I usually buy two sizes too big too so that I can slip them on and off easier.

When I was young allstar tennis shoes were something that people despised you for. They were the hippy shoes, shoes for the poor. All my life I have worn tennis shoes (or gardening clogs) because they are light, comfortable and above all cheap. Then suddenly they become fashionable or rather the manufacturer decides it’s time they become fashionable, and the price rockets. Now the height of fashion would seem, by the price, to be allstar tennis shoes….and clogs. I mean the manufacturers must be killing themselves with laughter. You take the same mould which you have been using to produce gardening clogs for the last 20 years and simply colour the plastic or rubber that you inject into the moulds, and produce…. Fashion accessories!! Overnight you become rich rich and more rich. (added later: The wife says that they are now fashionable and are called Crocs. They even have a website. Some cost up to 80 euros!! I haven’t laughed so heartily for years) I really have missed a fantastic opportunity in life, I should have got into fashion. A continuous source of easy money. It’s a good job I have never worried about what I wear otherwise I‘d probably feel obliged to not wear them any more in case people think I’m fashionable. I have just compared the version I have on my feet to those on the crocs website. Identical in colour, shape and design but not in price. Good on the Chinese.

And what about handbags. Now there’s a weird situation. Again the Chinese are making exact replicas of famous handbags and accessories. Griffes or what ever they call them, Valentino, etc. for clarity. The mark up is thousands of percent. Something that costs 50 to make and 5,000 to buy is beyond a joke. Or rather the joke is on you. Fascinating. I sometimes wish I’d been a social psychologist just to understand the mechanisms behind fashion. The ripped knee jeans, something again that you were once despised for suddenly become a statement of fashion and you can buy them in the shops for a hundred euros and on the market for 10 euros. A sort of false sobbishness arises which means that you can’t buy your faded ripped jeans on the market because the quality is not the same (I heard this!!). Quality of ripped faded jeans? ( Woozle drags himself across the floor tears of mirth streaming down his nose and dripping off his whiskers). Well I suppose you could go on for hours like this. I mean fashion is exactly that, fashion so all fashion products are the same. Buy Chinese every time I say.