I feared it was coming but not this quickly.
Each occasional visit to a high street clothes shop
reminding me of your increasing rarity dug me
further into denial that the end was near.
Manikins that once struck a comfortable, cool pose
now stand with a silent air of suffocation
above shoppers with no choice but to squeeze
down your replacement’s tight, imprisoning legs.
As hiphop heads and the rest of the country that
don’t want to look like Brand or Fielding,
wear breezeless, drainpipe sheaths of restraint,
the world becomes a more conforming, less free place.
The last survivors of your near extinction
sit in the warehouses of premium internet stores
and come with corny movie backstories on handcraft
circa an impossible £400 and £20 import fee a piece.
The buttonless, stained, ripped and shrunk remains
stuffed at the back of my creased wardrobe
wont see much more life beyond December and weave
reminders into my day with each tare, that it is time.
It’s time to spend each morning before leaving the flat
pouring baby oil down my legs to squeeze into
a life of chafing, a constant damp of sweatiness and
surely by the laws of physics, infertility.
It’s time to look like everyone else on this skinny land
who aren’t suited doctors, city bankers or lawyers,
forcefully stuffed into an around the clock reminder
that there is no free will when it comes to fashion.
Then again, there’s always slim-fit chinos.