Friday, April 23, 2010

Charmless garments: 4

Let me introduce this latest contender in the pantheon of Charmless Garments by stating that in my view it should only ever be worn by children under the age of 5 or by people trying to ingratiate themselves with the same (children's TV presenters or paedophiles?). Yes, it's the dungaree. A boundlessly unflattering item, to be sure, proven to give the wearer absolutely no waist, to contain unnecessary accoutrements of straps and buckles and the like, and sad to report, now featuring, in leather and in a wholly unpleasant shade of brown, in a modern style yet still absolutely vile (see for yourself!), in the window of ChloƩ in the Mandarin Oriental building in Des Voeux Road.

I confess to owning a pair when I was old enough to know better: they were from the legendary What Every Woman Wants, and were pale purple, slightly shiny, and made from brushed cotton with a zip at the back. I must have been 14 and had just started at a new school where everyone was cooler than me. One day I picked up on a strange atmosphere of barely concealed hysteria during a morning lesson. I had no idea what was going on; it just seemed as though suppressed laughter was crackling in the room. It was only some months later that someone kindly enlightened me that the hysteria had been caused by my dungarees: the zip at the back had begun to creep down as soon as I sat in my chair. The person behind me spotted this and alerted everyone else within view; as I sat oblivious and innocent, the zip continued to descend, helped along by a ruler wielded, gently but presumably with much pantomime, by the person behind me. (Oh the cruelty! That this should have been the only person I had ever wanted to impress only added to the retrospective, woeful, mortification.)

But you don't need me to tell you that the dungaree is rotten to the core. Just look at the picture.

6 comments:

Mancsoulsister said...

ahhh yes the good old dungaree!

I had a pair of these (probably made from this very pattern) http://static.artfire.com/admin/product_images/thumbs/9916_product_235301430_thumb_large.jpg - mine however were black with a cherry red underlay and cherry red turnups on the bottom. I used to wear them oh so stylishly with red baseball boots and a black t-shirt. A red beret at a jaunty angle completed the ahem 'look'.
So if Poobah ever tells you I am her 'cool school friend' you now know otherwise! :-)

LottieP said...

Cor blimey - I see what you mean.

Claire said...

The pinafore surely comes into the same category as the dung-aree.

Lottip said...

Ah - now I think the pinafore is more forgiving/forgivable, although I'm not entirely sure why; but in general, it can be stated that anything with a bib has no place in an adult's wardrobe.

Red Bull Dozers said...

that whole collection on that chloe link is pretty bad... check this out?!?!?

http://www.chloe.com/#/collections/ready-to-wear/summer-runway-2010/look-20/en

LottieP said...

Thanks for the tip-off, RBD - although when I followed the link and clocked those hillbilly patchwork monstrosities, it wasn't "thanks" I was thinking, it was "oh my God!" I was gasping.