If life is lived out in cycles then I'm at the stage of plaid shorts-all-over again. Twenty or so years ago I discovered my father's bermudas in a box of old clothes that my mother was about to hand over to her favorite charity. Constructed of weathered yellow madras cotton, with pink, orange and green checks and stopping just short of my knees, they were perfect for achieving that non-chalant (but obviously studied) prep school look that was just then enjoying a renaissance. You wore these with battered boat shoes or white canvas tennis shoes, a pastel-colored sport shirt and you held it up with a web belt of any primary color. If you sported a tan and spoke with the right accent, you might have gotten away with lying that your family owned a boat.
They were perfect for summer - indeed, defined summer by being worn at the beach, on campus or on lazy afternoons at home. GQ featured lean bronzed Scandinavian types lounging around in them, inexplicably looking serious even though they were surrounded by seriously hot-looking women. The Preppy Handbook, that satiric guide to all things preppy, was closer to reality when it showed them being worn by pale-faced chunky college students with beer bottles attached to their hands. Probably not unlike my dad's bermuda-wearing days in the late 1950s to early 60s, too.
Just recently, I came across racks of plaid shorts in the mens section of my favorite department store. They're now called cargoes and reach beyond the knees and - with a shape that's more tapered than their 1980s forerunner (actually closer in form to the 1960s version) - still evoke memories of vacations spent at the polo club and of my math teacher's long lectures during summer make-up classes. The twenty-something salesgirl assisting me explained that they are the latest summer fashion, to which I remarked that these were the thing in my time (without specifying when that was), to which she could only uninterestedly answer, "Oh, really?". I was going to explain further but stopped myself. After all, every generation should think that it has discovered something new.
They were perfect for summer - indeed, defined summer by being worn at the beach, on campus or on lazy afternoons at home. GQ featured lean bronzed Scandinavian types lounging around in them, inexplicably looking serious even though they were surrounded by seriously hot-looking women. The Preppy Handbook, that satiric guide to all things preppy, was closer to reality when it showed them being worn by pale-faced chunky college students with beer bottles attached to their hands. Probably not unlike my dad's bermuda-wearing days in the late 1950s to early 60s, too.
Just recently, I came across racks of plaid shorts in the mens section of my favorite department store. They're now called cargoes and reach beyond the knees and - with a shape that's more tapered than their 1980s forerunner (actually closer in form to the 1960s version) - still evoke memories of vacations spent at the polo club and of my math teacher's long lectures during summer make-up classes. The twenty-something salesgirl assisting me explained that they are the latest summer fashion, to which I remarked that these were the thing in my time (without specifying when that was), to which she could only uninterestedly answer, "Oh, really?". I was going to explain further but stopped myself. After all, every generation should think that it has discovered something new.
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