The best and worst fashions of the ages

 

This week it’s FASHION WEEK at Discussions with My Dog – to be honest its more about when fashion goes bad. Daisy recently picked up an injury to her paw, and for her own protection, we bought her some dog boots. Daisy thinks dog boots suck and she has been on a major sulk for several days.

This got us thinking about styles that, when examined with the cold light of history, were proved to be something of a disaster.

Fashions are cyclical. You’ll notice commentators will say “the thirties look is back this year” etc. One era yet to make a come back is the 60’s/70’s. Extra wide collars and flares were never a good look. At it’s height, the flares just kept getting outrageously larger. The queue for the Saturday night disco looked like the start of a yacht race with all that fabric flapping around in the wind.

In 1973 there was an oil crisis, most Western economies went into recession and were only saved by cutting back on the massive cost of material necessary to make those flares and collars.

One of my least favourite fashions is what I call the ‘low gravity look’. This is a favourite among teenage boys who wear their trousers ridiculously low, well below the hips with several inches of underwear showing. Spoiler alert guys – in ten years you’ll look back at the photos and wonder why you went out in public looking as though you had taken a massive shit in your pants.  

Although Daisy abhors dog boots, there is one thing Daisy hates more: the medical collars dogs have to wear after an operation – the ones that resemble a lampshade. Back in Elizabethan times, an extended ‘ruff’ collar was considered the absolute height of fashion. The Elizabethans also invented voluminous puffle pants. I can’t offer an explanation for ruff collars but back in the 16^th century, there were no public toilets, so it was useful to have some spare capacity in the trouser department if you were desperate to take a shit whilst out and about.

Finally, any blog about fashion would not be complete without a comment about stiletto heels. At some point in history almost every fashion has been experimented with by both men and women – except stiletto heels. I would say men are not foolish enough to totter around on a heel that has a surface area half the size of a postage stamp, but if you take low gravity trousers into consideration men are more than willing to wear abominations in the name of fashion.

Stilettos are in fact a very practical solution to a modern-day problem. Ladies are, on average, shorter than men. They have difficulty reaching goods on the top shelf in most supermarkets. This is why a six inch pair of stilettos is an absolute must on any shopping trip, as admirably demonstrated by this young lady.

Alastair and Daisy