To people who say, “Oh, as soon as I threw out that item, it became fashionable,” I’ve often made this observation, “If you wait long enough, fashion will come round, like platform/wedge shoes, mini skirts.”
Talking to the person I was treating yesterday for a herniated disc, I was further reminded of this. I was telling her about my first hike (of two) along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
I’d gone to Peru with my old cycling jeans, so that I wouldn’t look like I had a lot of money (well, a lot more money than the locals).
The air up there, being at 4,000+m, is rarefied, so I was struggling after half an hour of walking up to the first pass with a rucksack of food and cooking utensils for the three nights’ camping. I was taking more and more time out, sitting down on the boulders by the path. At first, it was every 20 minutes, then 10, then 2. Before long, the lower edges of the seat of my jeans had got worn through to form two elongated gaping holes. I had to tie a shirt around my waist to hide the bare flesh revealed underneath.
That was in 1986. The grunge era of the 1990s and 2000s saw distressed jeans coming back into fashion (from the late 80s in the hard rock / heavy metal era, according to google), with some going for 4-figure sums.
If only I’d kept that pair of jeans from my 1986 Machu Picchu Inca Trail walk…
(Peru, 1986)
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