Editor's Blog Apr 25th 2012
Bad To The Bone!
With the first Gibraltar fashion week over and summer quickly heading our way, I am spending more time thinking about what I will be wearing in the coming weeks.
I have always said to myself, the only reason I wear clothes in the summer is because it would be illegal not to do so. Clothing for me has always been a tricky issue. Never at the forefront of fashion, I have always gone for clothes that are comfortable and functional, never caring too much about what’s hot and what’s not.
As a youngster I used to hate my school uniform, my mother never lets me forget that I used to eat my ties and used to lose my pullovers with frequency. The poor woman would go nuts every time I used to come back home in a T-Shirt.
Being the middle child with an older sister, at least I never had have to suffer the indignity of hand me downs, my stuff was normally new, cheap, functional and uncomfortable.
Moving into my mid teens in the eighties, fashion took a turn for the worse. You could be defined by the music you listened to. The advent of ‘New Romanticism Punk’ or ‘Rock’ meant that you would have to choose between the lesser of the three evils. New Romantics flamboyant with silly fringes just meant expenditure and upkeep. Plus we all had a name for these guys that wore eyeliner and lipstick and danced with their knees locked together while swinging their arms from side to side, we called it mincing.
The Rockers were much more alluring to me, I already loved the music; their clothing consisted of a white or black T-Shirt with your favourite band emblazoned across the chest. Faded jeans and a pair of sneakers would give you functionality and to top off the whole badass look, a leather jacket, preferably with more studs and spikes than Conan the Barbarian.
The Punk look was something that you could easily slip into, by trading your sneakers for high top Doctor Martins, soap to spike your hair and braces which you would allow to hang down your thighs, greatly increasing the chances of a near fatal trip, or at least a broken nose because you didn’t have time to get your hands out of your pockets.
Those were the days, and they still are in a way. I feel great when I am in my jeans and T-Shirt, I still own a leather jacket, sans spikes, and I do love my Adidas, of which I own several pairs.
I fear that there will come a time when I will have to hang up my leathers. Just kidding! I have found away to keep my identity without looking out of place, as I get older…. I bought myself a large motorcycle.
Ed.
