Of Genes and Jeans

The metrosexual, in touch with my feminine side and proud to take care of my appearance side of me spends a fair amount of time looking for the perfect pair of jeans. The other day I read boffins have calculated that the average metrosexual spends exactly sixty one years of his life looking for the perfect pair of denims. I find this distinctly believable.

And, being a Sri Lankan shortarse, my ongoing search for jeans and trousers, or should I say a trouser, is even harder than it would be for the average height Brit metrosexual geezer. Were I about six foot tall I could try on every pair of jeans in every shop, choose my style and buy it. I'd face none of that crap involved in searching for brands that are made with a short leg, none of the annoyance involved in rushing my way through every single pair to find the ones marked "short", sometimes just an "s".

When I was about fifteen and sixteen, way back in the last millenium in the days that were even before "those days", skin tight jeans were all the rage. And, like most Lankan kids, my Grandmother had a sewing machine. I learnt how to take in my own trousers, always taking them off first of course. It's surprisingly easy you know.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I'm trying to paint a picture to you, the reader. I'm trying to explain to you that, even from a relatively young age, I was vain enough to sit there and learn how to alter my own trousers so that they looked just right. There was none of that buy them and roll them up so that they're the right length thing for me.

A pair of jeans is the holy grail of clothing isn't it?

I can walk into a clothes shop and have a casual browse at the shirts, a cursory glance at the jumpers and a passing glimpse in the direction of the jackets. I may even steal a longing look at the smart trousers, pretending that I might need to wear some at some point in time. But the jeans always get my attention.

It doesn't matter that I've got more jeans than I need. It doesn't matter that most people don't notice what jeans others wear anyway, that they blend in to the background of a person's clothing like they're some sort of clothing chameleon.

The current state of the RD wardrobe is that I've got about three "perfect" pairs of jeans, one nearly perfect pair and then an also ran section. The also rans consist of about four pairs that are so close yet so far. Perhaps they look good but have a hole in a pocket, a nightmare for men as we lose all our coins. Or they're fantastic in every aspect except the fact that they're too tight. It happens to mens' jeans too you know.

The nearly perfect pair is a conundrum of a denim. It's a Gap pair, bought a few years ago and made from that vintage Japanese denim. What the hell vintage Japanese denim is I don't know, other than it's Japanese and vintage. It feels soft and has stylish looking stitching and detail on it, not too much mind. They look good, even if I say it myself, as I tend to in these parts, but the arse is a bit saggy, that's the "nearly" bit.

We have to be careful, us height challenged fellows. A flared jean on us makes us look as if someone's strapped one of the sails from a boat to each of our legs. Or worse, we end up looking like matey boy, Kelly from the Stereophonics. There's something about him that gives off a short bloke trying to act tall thing and it's not right.

We have less of a canvas and can't paint a complex and highly involved picture. It's one thing for a six foot plus person to wear a million piercings and have a billion tattoos, but on a much smaller form it's too busy and too crammed and the balance of skin and decoration goes haywire.

Then there's fashion to consider. How bad is that? Not only do we have to go through life searching that elusive but perfect jean but fashion means last year's perfect pair is this year's dunce's pair. Things would be so much easier if fashion just stayed the same, year in year out, but then we'd all look the same and that would be no fun would it?

What about you? How many pairs of jeans do you think a person needs?