Fashion styles come and go and come back

“Try as you might, in fashion, you can’t outrun the past.”

– Jacob Gallagher

So, there I was reading the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. Somewhere between advice on investing money I’ll never have and Dan Neill’s wonderful descriptions of driving cars I’ll never own, was an update on fashion.

That’s where I discovered that “distressed jeans,” a 1990s favorite, are making a comeback. These are the denim blue jeans that have rips in the knees and elsewhere.

I also discovered “distressed” might refer to your bank account if you bought some of them.

“French luxury label Givenchy sells plenty of eroded denim, most notably a $2,100-ish pair with rips from hip to hem,” wrote The Journal’s fashion columnist.

I know inflation’s bad, but that’s three times what I paid for my first car (which was also “distressed”.)

I am not here to complain about fashion foolishness or “kids these days,” or anything like that, I just wanted to share my amazement at how clothing fashions so often seem to come back.

It’s America’s most consistent success at recycling.

If your closet’s big enough, just keep your old clothes. You (or your grandkids) will be wearing them again one day.

Well, maybe not all of them.

Top hats disappeared after the stock market crash of 1929. 

Knickers – despite the late Payne Stewart’s valiant fashion reboot 20 years ago – seem to have vanished from our nation’s notice. And I haven’t seen anyone saddling up saddle shoes.

But so much of what we once wore, seems to keep coming back.

It’s almost like young people want to show us how we really should have worn it, looked it, styled it. Or maybe they just didn’t know their new is our old.