About A Week: Too Many Pairs Of Jeans?
Peter Hinchliffe wonders why anyone would choose to own 15 pairs of jeans.
This chap stares out at you from a page in a glossy weekend magazine.
Words are arranged in a list on his pristine white shirt.
Plays the bagpipes.
Owns a pet snake.
Loves Hitchcock films.
Owns 15 pairs of jeans.
Only needs 5 hours sleep.
Still uses a typewriter.
Reads sci-fi.
Wears a Pulsar.
Oh I get it. This is a watch advert. The advertising men and women, presumably after sitting around a table for endless hours thinking up that list, want us to think that a man who wears a Pulsar watch is a person of character. Someone who sets his own rules, leads his own life, refuses to be ordinary…
Bagpipes, pet snake, Hitchcock films, still uses a typewriter… Hey I’ve still got my faithful old portable typewriter, though I haven’t hammered on its keys in a long while. It served me well during a long journalistic career. Parting with it would be akin to arranging for a relative to go into an old people’s home.
Only needs 5 hours sleep, reads sci-fi, owns 15 pairs of jeans…
Come on now! Fifteen pairs of jeans!
This Pulsar-owning person isn’t a man of discrimination. He’s an idiot. A materialist. He’s lost the plot.
Bagpipes indeed! Pet snake! He doesn’t understand the philosophy that guides the life of the jeans wearer.
Let me remind you, Mr Pulsar, jeans are built to last. To withstand the worst that a bucking bronco can do to the human backside. To spend long days protecting old-fashioned cowboy legs from scrub-brush, and modern cowboy behinds from the wear and tear of sitting in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck.
Didn’t you know, Mr Pulsar, that jeans came into being because of a pernickety chap in Nevada, who wasn’t satisfied with the quality of the garments he had been buying. He kept ripping the pockets of his pants.
His tailor in Reno, Jacob Davis, hit on the idea of putting metal rivets at the strain points in the man’s britches. Jacob bought his cloth from the wholesale house of Levi Strauss and Co in San Francisco.
On May 20, 1873, Jacob and Levi received patent 139,121 from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Blue jeans were officially born.
Blue jeans were for work, for hard wear, for keeping your legs reliably and long-lastingly covered when you went out to earn a dollar.
Blue jeans were also for leisure wear. For keeping the mosquitoes out when you went down to the lake to fish and ensuring your knees remained unscuffed as you slid into third base in a softball game.
In the Twentieth Century jeans became an everyman everywoman garment. An identifying badge that announced an intention to be laid-back and cool.
Jeans are the antithesis of collars, ties and suits. They announce that you are perfectly happy being who you are, rather than expensively dressing up to look like someone you are not.
Jeans last. A good pair of jeans is like a faithful pet dog. An essential part of your life, for years and years.
Of course some idiots ignored the jeans philosophy by marketing them and buying them as fashion garments.
And the biggest idiots of all ended up owning 15 pairs of jeans.
Me, I’ve got two pairs of blue jeans. One pair in the wash, one pair being worn, month in month out.
Mind you, Pulsars are nice watches. Once owned one myself.
Pulsars are made by Seiko. Same internal workings, but Pulsars are cheaper than Seiko.
A sensible two-pair jeans man would always buy a Pulsar rather than a Seiko.
Though they will never tell you that in the adverts.
