Crimes of Fashion

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Now it begins. Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer has passed. All around people are bursting from their cocoons, shedding the winter attire. But it is not lustrous butterflies that emerge!
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Is The Circus In Town?
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The ensuing parades remind one of such festive events as Mardi Gras and Halloween. Leading such parades is usually an elderly gentleman with a paisley shirt and madras Bermuda shorts, complimented with black socks and sandals. Normally he will be accompanied by his wife who sports a large straw hat with daisies in the band, which accentuates the pink floral mu-mu which in turn meets white nurse's shoes at the ankle.
~ People dress in in light clothes to keep cool, not to look or be cool. As unsightly as some are, you find yourself gazing anyway. Maybe it's to get your brain to confirm what your eyes transmitted to it. You try, you fail to justify their choice of wardrobe. Where is Joan Rivers when you need her?
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Send In The Clowns!
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I was sitting at a red light as a small procession of three crossed the street without benefit of a walk light. They seemed oblivious to the sudden braking car, the blaring horn, the stream of profanities wafting from the driver's window, and the extended finger letting them know they were number one in his book.
~ The first in line, a small frail old man must have thought it fashionable to combine go-to-church-dress with a casual look. He was wearing a gray sports jacket with red and green plaid atop a pink shirt with a lilac bow tie. The buttoned jacket hid the belt that held up the the knee-high beige walking shorts. Lilac stockings, presumably chosen as a match to his tie, were strapped into brown sandals.
~ Behind him a lanky teen was clippity-clopping along in his flip-flopping sneakers. Showing support, I suppose, for his favorite teams, he had on a NY Yankees cap, backwards of course. A too-large Larry Bird basketball tank top was draped loosely over his skinny frame. The cut-outs for the arms nearly reached his waist line, his talcum-pale ribs exposed. The shirt hanging so low, there was the appearance he may not be wearing shorts. His sockless feet were bearing untied size-13 red Converse sneakers.
~ Bring up the rear of this procession, was a woman maybe in her mid to late thirties. Hatless, her sandy-brown hair framed her overly-made up face from one four-inch hooped earring to the other. She too sported a tank top, a red one, but it clung to her body. A rather large tattoo of a stemmed rose adorned the exposed are of an ample breast. Indeed, both were as much covered as they were exposed. Dangling between them was a gold chain featuring a small cross. Her much too-tight denim shorts would be envied by Daisy Duke. Her long legs terminated in a pair of red 3-inch heels, which matched the tattoo of heart just above her ankle.
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A Family Affair!
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It occurred to me as the old man and the teen waited until the woman joined them on the far sidewalk, that I had been watching three generations of fashion mavins! Father, daughter and son, out for a leisurely walk about town, had inadvertently supplied me with the fodder that would become this posting.
~ You can learn a lot by simple observation. Why, I even learned something today! I learned that I had to post-haste throw out my basketball tank tops, as well as those red sneakers in the back of the closet. And, oh yeah, that plaid jacket just has to go!
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No.172
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