I Shall Wear The Bottoms Of My Trousers Rolled

It's Fashion Week (I think), and that can only mean that once again, I have no idea how the real economy works. Again and again, they explain to me how twiggy ladies walking down the runway, wearing clothing that can charitably be described as hilariously ugly, can actually influence what real people wear. Almost nobody, I learn, wears the clothing actually on the runway. But, they tell me patiently, the themes and patterns and ideas that are invoked during Fashion Week (I'm not sure exactly what that is) can trickle down to our own prole casings. Just like last year's crop of post-modernist poems is a good harbinger of what to expect on this year's Hallmark cards.

For instance, I saw a designer whose entire output seemed to consist of big boxy David Byrne suits. We all know that nobody is going to wear those -- on account of they are hilariously ugly -- so what could he have meant? Maybe he just screwed up, or maybe the joke is on me and that's what's really in store. But I think this fashion designer is taking a leaf from the great poets. Boxy suits as boxy suits is a little obvious, he might say. Perhaps the boxy suits are a metphor for some boxy pattern, perhaps check or houndstooth, or maybe they symbolize some headier, more profound fashion trend that we can only guess at. It's a ritualistic industry, and I'm not the one to deconstruct it. Just remember that despite the outwardly superficial gloss, as Fashion Week draws to a close -- or is it only beginning? -- there are unfathomable layers of meaning under those clothes.