Monkey Denim
September 9th, 2003
I’ve picked up Lara’s habit of checking out what jeans people are wearing whilst we’re out and about. Like checking people’s trainers, this has become a bit of a compulsive habit for me, and I’ve come up with a theory which might explain this:
I reckon that in our brains there’s a low-level social monitoring routine which is dimly aware of who’s in our immediate vicinity. This bit of mental software requires social status information about the people nearby before it can suggest to a higher brain function appropriate behaviour towards them. This might make a bit more sense if you think in terms of upright hairless monkeys, wandering about expressing dominance or deference to each other depending on perceived social rank. We find ourselves giving people the quick once-over, and then either turn up our noses, or resist the mild urge to pick fleas from them.
All theory’s should carry general predictions and mine predicts that however you rate your own status (i.e. by cars, jewellery, watches, soufflé quality etc.), that’s what you’ll look for first when you’re checking someone out.
Incidentally, This kind of reasoning is called Evolutionary Psychology and, like most EP, it’s almost certainly nonsense.
A side effect of all this jeans watching is a growing realisation that people just don’t seem to check their backsides adequately when they’re trying on a pair.
How the denim looks across your arse literally makes or breaks a look, and the single most vital question to ask should be: ‘how do the pockets look across my cheeks?’. Too high? too low? too far apart? The arrangement of pockets and stitching on the backside is the ‘face’ of the jean, and constitutes the main part of a pair’s personality, in the same way that the arrangement of headlights and bumpers dictate the character of a car.
Next time you’re trying on a pair, ask yourself ‘do I want to be a Ford Ka or an Austin Maestro?’ and, for the love of God, get someone else’s opinion.