woven into the cloth

This outfit is a uniform for me; those are my favourite jeans. I bought a pair of Seven jeans at a spectacular discount that were one size too big, took them to the tailor along with these (from Diesel), and told him take them in to the exact same proportions. Worked out pretty well. So in case these wear out (and it happens; all my old jeans are worn until the bum area starts fraying), I have a back-up pair.

They don't have the memories that come with these though - I once spent two months on the road in them, sleeping in trains, buses, planes, railway station floors. They got splashed with icy cold rainwater when a car dashed past us in Budapest. They were grimy with perspiration as I trudged through Florence in the Tuscan high summer (Italy in August - never again).

With a white shirt, pen in hand, they were perfect for the office, projecting a scruffy, slightly rebellious attitude so that I didn't have to.

Sitting down on a curb on some unknown street, they stretched comfortably as a friend and I had a slightly drunken, wholeheartedly passionate discussion about life and important things.

On a mini-bus rambling on a pothole-ridden dirt road in Vietnam, they stretched comfortably as I curled up in my seat, chatting with three jolly Israeli men (40-something, friends for over 20 years, backpacking together! I want to do that when I'm 40 too).

Every crease, every fray, every fade is part of a treasured memory. I can't say that about all my clothes.

P.S. - I was thinking this picture when I got dressed, and ended up wearing my Converse to instead. But I was too lazy to make a new collage.


From the series "Girl's Boat Race" by Wallace Kirkland, 1950


P.P.S - irrelevant, but fun to look at: real parisians at home >>> baudouin.fr
Thanks for If Jane from Nearness of Distance and Danica and Oh, Hello There for pointing it out!

Picture from tomboy style