Dedicated to the great recession of 2009
Here’s a conundrum: how did fashion start?
Think back: the bearded, shaggy ancestors
From whom we sprung exhausted all their smarts
Hunting mere warmth, thin sustenance to wrest
Their lives from chill starvation’s dark abyss.
If fortune smiled, they wove a rag of leaves,
Or, better, killed for meat and fur (true bliss!)—
They never fretted over cuffs or pleats.
So how, tell me, did fashion come about?
We don white shoes in May, discrete new gauds—
Loose last year, but tight just now—prayed (devout
Homage) to illustrated mags—stern gods!
Alas, the bottom’s gone. All our passion
Focussed on food—debt’s the death of fashion!
(5/7/09)