Keeping an eye on the bottom line

Looking backwards is clearly the way forward. We now have cars with rear-view cameras that can spot small children while reversing so we can avoid running them over in driveways.

We have new radios built to look like very old radios. I see there is a market for guitars that have been bashed and knocked about so that they look like well-worn classics of the 50s.

There is always a call from some quarters that we should go back - back to when men were real men and women were real women and nobody was gay.

Attempting to reverse social trends is a bit like trying to back a truck through a door that is closing - there is no way things will ever be the same as they were before. The heat and fire of brimstone being cast about by those claiming same sex marriage is a sin might want to go back to an age they perceive as simpler, to a time when hypocrasexuality (a new word has just been born) was the norm and ... well, everyone knew about Norm.

Then, of course, there's the retro-distressed denim fashion. It is hard to know whether this is distress brought on when seeing the price tag on some battered, tattered jeans or the thought of all that work being done to make something look as though it should be thrown away. (There may be a growing level of distress for those wearing the jeans as they start to understand the work environments in many factories where these high cost garments are made).

Now the latest fad is getting the reverse camera out to check out whether your new jeans look good from behind, then sending the image to all and sundry on the social network of your choice. It sounds a bit like asking your friends if they have seen your fetish lately and getting a reply.

Trying to see your behind when it is behind you has been impossible unless you were a contortionist, but now you can check the bottom line. Some shops are now offering special photo booths where you can take a picture of yourself from behind so you can see how your new jeans fit your rear end.

The plaintive call of the worried wearer - "Does my bum look big in this?" - can now be answered with a click of a camera (presumably without a wide angle lens) that will take a picture of your denim-clad posterior for posterity.

I see that the stocking and stacking of shelves with expensive brands of jeans is now called "curating".

Having had the cheek to steal this valued term from the art world, how long will it be before they start calling customers artefacts and dubbing anything made of corduroy as being post-modern?

Another very "now" trend is to put a bespoke in the wheel of the fashion cycle. Shoes, suits and now denim jeans have the halo of goodness thrown over them by being custom-made to the wearer's exact specifications.

I am of an age when, as kids, we wore jeans as farm clothes because they were cheap and hardwearing.

They often got torn on barbwire fences and became covered in stitched repairs, but it would never have occurred to my mother, as she patched our pants, that one day battered, faded and torn jeans would become high price fashion items.

Terry Sarten has been described as a musician, writer, social worker and elegantly scruffy jeans-wearing person. Feedback email: tgs@inspire.net.nz