It was only after making the purchase, getting home and delving into the bag of brand new clothes I’ve needed for a while that I realised the jeans had stressed holes in the knees. Of course, this is totally intentional, the shop didn’t erroneously sell me faulty leg-wear. I had actually erroneously picked up what I thought was a fully-intact pair of jeans only to become horrified at my own mistake for grabbing something “trendy”.
I’ve never really liked that word, “trendy”. I suppose it mainly stems back to when I was younger and never really cared for any item of clothing that bore text, images or any other form of insignia that was significantly recognisable. Clothes had to consist of blocks of solid colour, either plain or striped. In my mind, the idea of showing some kind of affiliation with Adidas, forest landscapes or Miami just seemed utterly ludicrous.
Naturally, this drove family members – mainly my mother – crazy. “Ooh, what about this one? This one’s really trendy.” The mere question would result in a sneer from me and a declaration of disapproval without any kind of rationalisation. As I look back now and attempt to rationalise my decisions, it occurs to me that what was actually being said in that kind of scenario was along the lines of: “hey, here’s something everybody else likes, therefore you should also like this.”
Like most people, I find it a bit aggravating being told what I should like or how I should be, which I suppose is easy to verbalise now but 7-year-old me must’ve struggled with the capacity to actually express it then. I have my own style which I like already. Plain. Admittedly it’s not the greatest sense of style in the world, but it’s subtle and seems to suit my mind.
From then on, things that are “trendy” have seemed to annoy me, even in the odd cases where I’ve slowly adopted the trend myself. Apple devices and software, for one example. The Great British Bake Off for another. But trends, for the most part, seem to be good indications of things I probably won’t care much for. At least not right away.
This brings us kicking and screaming back to the present day, where I’ve been internally sneering at the younger lads – the 16-25 demographic – whenever I’ve seen them wearing skinny jeans with holes in the knees. Maybe because my mind’s a bit twisted, holes in the knees bares a strange and sexual connotation. After all, why else would your trendy jeans have holes in the knees if you didn’t spend all your time kneeling down to socialise with somebody at groin level?
One of the other major trends I’ve noticed, clothing-wise, is the tendency to turn up the bottoms of the jeans to proudly show off one’s shoes and bare ankles. Wait, bare ankles? Surely people would wear socks with shoes, right? Apparently no. Suddenly going sockless is the new big thing, like trainers with hidden wheels or the Rachel-from-Friends hairdo.
At this point I’d like to clarify that my observations of sock neglect occurred largely throughout January and February, two of the coldest months of the year. While I was wrapping up in multiple layers – including the occasional extra pair of socks on my feet – countless youngsters were seemingly unfazed by the near-freezing conditions of the outdoors. This is bizarre. This is bizarre to me. This is how people lose their extremities to frostbite.
Maybe I’m just old. Maybe the frostbitten look is on the way. Maybe footless will replace sockless as the new big trend. With the cold rushing through holey fabric to the knees, maybe going kneeless is on the way after that. Maybe I’ll end up succumbing to it, albeit out of step with everybody else. And by the time I do slowly adopt what’s trendy today, everyone will suddenly be dressing plain and bland.
Like many other indie bands of the mid-noughties, alt-J (or “∆” as that particular button combination would have it) has always been a name I’ve heard but not bothered checking out. Somehow, I was imagining something somewhere in between “loud thrashing guitar rock” and “ambient hippie shit”, which is apparently where they’ve generally ended up. I think.
This one tends to veer more towards the quiet, easy-listening side of things, with vocals that sound like they’ve been recorded in a porta-loo. Nowt wrong with that, just as long as they remembered to flush afterwards. Warning: Video contains repetitive strobe imagery reminiscent of playing Tomb Raider III in a washing machine while tripping on something hallucinogenic.
∆ (alt-J) – 3WW
Jamie Walsh 
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