The Pinnacle of Fashion

I will probably never understand current fashion trends, especially those of our youth. It does not matter when it might be, when I say current fashion trends, it is always now so the trends are always current and therefore I will never understand current fashion trends.
I always explain to my students how I understand that they truly believe that they have arrived; fashion wise that is. I grew up through the stunning attire of the seventies and eighties. I recall bell-bottom cords, feathered hair, leg-warmers; I even spent some time myself emulating Don Johnson’s Sonny Crockett of Miami Vice. We were certain that we had finally perfected dress. We dabbled in the past, collecting bits and pieces from the fifties, sixties and seventies, but we had, at last, compiled a collection of fashion which would stand the test of time, clothing and hair which would last for the ages to come. Today’s youth are no different. I look back at old yearbooks and with today’s young people at my side; mock the attire of my times of yore. And yet as I ridicule my youth, I am aware that my students and all young people in the United States believe that they have reached the pinnacle of fashion.
So we all do it, we all go through the crazy trends and try extremes in the way that we look and dress. I will not understand, however, what I believe is known as a faux-hawk; a hairstyle of young men arranged by utilizing gel, mousse, superglue or whatever necessary to form the hair into the equivalency of what looks like a chicken in desperate need of being culled.
I also have great difficulty with young men who wear their pants at the base of their bum cheeks as to advertise which brand of boxers they are sporting. For the love of all that is good, if you are that frantic for the world to see your undergarments just wear them over your pants or just don’t wear the pants at all.
But the immense hang-up I have today is the purchasing of a pair of pants, hooded sweatshirt or of any other clothing that looks as though it has gone fifteen rounds with a rabid pit-bull. I generally throw away clothes before they get to the point that I have seen in the mall, let alone wear them in public. The more worn the clothing is, the more shotgun-like holes which the clothing possesses, the higher the price. I should just start selling my worn our jeans on eBay and I could retire by forty-five.
Yes, I know this too shall pass. But, I pray that it will pass quickly, like Henry the VIII’s wives.