Friday, September 16, 2011

Charmless garments: 5


Slippery, shiny, unwieldy, and uncomfortable-looking: why in their right mind would anyone wear leather trousers? They cling where it doesn't flatter and flare where they want to. They get, presumably, uncomfortably hot. These, from Alexander McQueen, are just the first and worst that spring all too readily to the Google images list. Self-evidently, no one fatter than a stick would even attempt it, but you, yes you Victoria Beckham, should know better too. Black leather is only the acceptable face of leather trousers: any other colour whatsoever is infinitely worse (red, anyone? Are you in Whitesnake?) Creepy, without even trying to be. Leather in any quantity (ie bigger than bag-size), on a bad day, makes my stomach churn anyway: its smell, its texture, the fact that it's something's skin. Leather trousers? No excuse. I confess I've worn them, but in the form of ribbed, protective and padded motorbike pants. I looked, from every angle, like a rhino.

And incidentally, down with pleather: it's the equivalent of vegetarian bacon. Except that at least the bacon this travesty is modelled on looks good to start with.


3 comments:

architart said...

I used to have to wear vinyl pants when I worked as a bartender. Back then they clung to all the right curves but they were also uncomfortably hot. I used to pour a pitcher of cold water down my legs to cool off. The only advantage for me was that their waterproof properties kept me from being soaked by spilled drinks which was a common occurrence when the bar got packed on the weekends.

LottieP said...

They probably still talk about you, architart - "remember that bartender who used to pour water down her legs"?

Anna MR said...

I cannot help but smile and feel amused at your seething opposition to veggie bacon, Lottie dear. As something of a life-time vegetarian (twenty-four years, with a couple years of tentative, irregular and secret sinning, some thirteen-fourteen years ago, after a major life-change, as a way of seeing whether being veggie was really me. It was, and is), I can live most perfectly happily without any "fake meat" products, but I've learned to utilise soya mince and soya chunks - quick, easy, cheap, versatile - and seriously, wouldn't mind it at all if we could get veggie bacon at a reasonable price at the regular supermarkets over here in the Backward North. What's not to like? It's not made of pig, and the texture's nice and crisp. Textures, incidentally, along with something other than cheese to put on your sandwiches, is the only thing I personally sometimes feel my diet lacking in. Crisp crunchy and simple to make, veggie bacon is the answer.

I will spare you the details of my relationship with PVC and other fake leather produce. Hope you're doing well, honey.

x