Okay, I tried. I really tried to get into Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Well to be honest, I gave up after the first chapter bored me out of my gourd. I will sit through the brickbats of the literati, but keep in mind, I am 68 years old, not in the best of health, and entitled to spend my declining years reading something that doesn’t put me to sleep.
But nothing is totally without merit, and I found that the philosopher and I did agree on one subject, and that is the idiocy of spending huge amounts of money on clothing. Of course the prices are not comparable. He spoke of spending a couple bucks for a sturdy set of pantaloons, while I consider it a bargain if I can get a good pair of jeans for under $30. But he was facing the same silliness over fashion in 1854 that plagues us over a century and a half later.
“When I ask for a garment of a particular form,” he wrote, “my tailoress tells me gravely, ‘They do not make them so now.'” Oh, and here is another line that I just love: “The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same.”
I do not speak with the fervour of an emancipated slave. I don’t believe I have ever cared if what I wore was in style. This is not to say that I haven’t taken pleasure in a new dress that made me look a little less dumpy. I just never cared if it was being worn this year or last year or ten years ago or a millennium ago.
That is right, when I belonged to the Society for Creative Anachronism, I wore the garb of a medieval peasant. And I wore it not just at SCA events, but around town and even once or twice to work on casual Friday. My theory was, if it looked good then, it’ll look good now, and I don’t have to pay Paris a fortune.