The circle of fashion

Few things generate as much amusement as old photographs. As children, whenever we visited our ancestral home, we spent hours scrutinizing the pictures that crowded the entire wall. Everyone shared the picture space- grand-parents, grand-uncles, grand-aunts, father, uncle and the entire extended family. The photographs went back in time, some predating India's Independence by almost a decade. Elaborate turbans, overcoats, dhotis, nine-yard saris- these folks were clearly from a different planet! And there was a picture of my father in his school days- in shorts which came just below the knee,  a half-shirt with over-sized collars, studs on both ears, hair brushed back and tied in a pony-tail and ears sticking out like jug handles! It tickled us to no end. We were forthright in passing judgement on father and his dress sense. "You look like an absolute buffoon appa! Straight out of a circus! Whoever wears shorts which flops below the knee...with legs sticking out like thin pipes! And with that hair-do and ear-studs, you look like a girl! Didn't you have better fashion-sense then?" Father's response was quick. He insisted that was the fashion and joined the laughter!
This candid conversation set in the late-seventies was apt. By my time, fashion had changed. Boys did not wear ear-studs. The hair-do was different- it now covered the ears in full. We wore "bush" shirts and nylon shorts- shorts which came till the thigh and no more. And each time we walked with a swagger in those shorts and floppy, long hair, we pretended we exuded the style and élan of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe!


The wheels of time rolled. A few decades later, my childhood photographs were subject to a similar scrutiny, this time by my children! "Why would you have wear shorts hugging your thighs appa? With such long hair covering your ears, you look like an unmanicured poodle! Woof-woof!" Sometimes, we are forced to eat crow!
Fashion had come a full circle. Now, in my children's generation, shorts extend till the knee and beyond. The pony-tail is cool. And today, if you had ear-studs (albeit in one ear), it would be a style-statement. It was as if my father's photograph would blend seamlessly with the current generation, while my childhood picture would invite ridicule! What irony!


The swinging sixties and right up to the late seventies were wild times. Bell bottoms were a rage. It was skin-tight till the knee, and below that, ballooned to monstrous proportions. We clashed with the tailor to have the cuff as wide as possible till he gave up. Any wider and you will trip over your own toes, he warned us! It is baffling how fashion can uniformly take over an entire country when there was no social media. The credit for the take-over has to be paid somewhere-  it has to go to the movies. Perhaps it was Elvis, perhaps it was John Travolta, we don't know, but through them, bell-bottoms came to India to our own Amitabh and Rajinikant. It captured the imagination of the masses.  In those bell-bottoms, we walked, rising to our full height, hands stuffed in pockets and hair aflutter and with the foot-cuffs flapping against each other. And alongside me, walked grandfather, wearing full-trousers of his time. Grandpa's trousers were a sight. I was frank and told him he looked like a radish, in pants which were overly baggy at the top and tapered to cling the ankle. Clearly, his trousers and my bell-bottoms were a study in contrasts. My disdain for grandpa's fashion tastes was short lived. A decade later, in college, I wore pants exactly like grandpa- baggy at the top and tapering at the ankle. The fashion pendulum had swung. I am sure, wherever he was, grandpa would have laughed uproariously and  thumbed me in the nose!


How did the bell-bottoms vanish? Like those dinosaurs which once strode the world like a veritable colossus, how did they meet sudden extinction? How did we wake up one day to find the whole world abandon those bell-bottoms and opt for a measly pair of blue jeans? And those safari-suits? From a school principal to a top business executive, any person of standing wore safari-suits in pastel shades. It looked elegant with a double collar, multiple pockets on the torso, a shoulder-flap with a button and matching colored pants. What fate did the safari-suits meet?


Fashion is fickle. The surest way to stay in fashion, is to wear the same styled clothes day after day. Sooner or later, fashion itself will dog your heels and ensure that you are in-step with the times! It's like boarding a Mumbai train where you simply stand and submit yourself to the flow. End of the day, fashion is about the ridiculous getting acceptance based on the sheer weight of numbers. In such a world, with sufficient following, even a head shaved vertically in half and a moustache worn only on one side would still be cool. We don't know.
Fashion is cyclic. You don't have to throw your old clothes away. I have kept my bell-bottoms intact- starched, pressed and set on the hanger. When I wake up tomorrow morning, the fashion-wheel would have turned a full circle. I am certain. There will be a spring in my steps as I wear my bell-bottoms...one more time..with the foot-flares flapping against each other. And to go with it, a "bush shirt" unbuttoned till the chest and a black belt fitted with gold rings. Say it with me...aloud, in a low baritone, the words trailing in a husky whisper, "Bell-bottoms ke din vaapas aa gaye hain! The bell-bottoms are back!"