mr Mag00
rising member
- Location
- Deepest Dorset
*scratches head*
eco-pants
- Thread starter dellzeqq
- Start date
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Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
dellzeqq said:
I hear you dellzeqq, but I think it's poor form to act in such a way.
It was a great piece in itself and should remain for the edification of others.
One liners can be full of wit and equally as erudite as paragraphs of purpler prose, who knows, with the dawning of a new day more satisfactory responses to your work may have been forthcoming! Some things need to foment in the mind for their true value to be appreciated.
ok - I'm feeling spectacularly sunny (I'm just off to Box Hill on my lovely new bike) and a little contrite - so here it is (again).
I still live in hope of starting a thread in P+L that the usual bores can't turn to mush, though...
For the last thirtyfive years I have worn the same underpants. Well, not the same underpants exactly, but underpants to the same design. White Y-fronts. I dallied with little stretchy jobs in the late sixties, and I have tried boxers, but, being massively well endowed, I need the support of a proper pair of men's pants. Something with a bit of structure.
I generally buy half a dozen pairs of pants at a time, and discard them when they get too stretched, or fray around the edges.
This morning I reached into the drawer and pulled forth a pair of pants slightly different from the rest. They had blue threading in the waist band. These hadn't seen the light of day for a while, but I recognised them straight away. These were, so to speak, the madeleine of pants. I remembered the frisson on seeing these pants being taken from a polished mahogany drawer at an outfitters in West Norwood -the kind of shop that one doesn't see these days, and was a rarity then. I'd gone to the outfitters out of nostalgia because it was there that my mother took me to buy my school uniform in about 1961. They sold plimsolls that smelt of rubber, and serge shorts that chafed your legs. This, mind you, for a school that these days would be described as 'stressed' or 'in an area of deprivation'.
The latter visit to the outfitters was in 1989. So these pants were nineteen years old. Those of you versed in atomic theory will know the meaning of 'half-life'. In such and such a time half of a particular isotope of a metal will become another, more stable isotope. It is exactly the same with pants. I'd imagine that half the pants I've purchased over the years have lasted eighteen months or less. Another half will have lasted between eighteen months and three years, and so on and so forth.... This, then was a pair of pants not just of exceptional longevity, but, on the face of it, one pair in 2 to the power of almost 13. The Methuselah of pants.
They'd seen trousers come and go. Gap jeans and chinos. Cords. Satin Armani jobbys. White linen, black linen, even a pair of dark green linen trousers with a tie waistband. All consigned to the recycling bin.
And now, the bad news. The pants of yore are no more. They've got a hole in them. A hole that wasn't there this morning. And so, when I take them off in half an hour's time, they will be ex-pants.
They have, by virtue of their longevity, become eco-pants. Prashant Kapoor who knows more about this stuff than anybody on the planet has suggested that cotton clothing is, pound for pound, the least sustainable purchase you can make. I have half a dozen shirts that I dare not throw away despite not having a clue what moved me to buy them, because Prashant (who is always impeccably turned out) would describe throwing away cotton clothing as a waste. When do you wear a pink shirt?
I can discard my eco-pants with a clear conscience. They've served their time, and they go to the Valhalla of Underwear secure in the knowledge, that, if ever we were to call upon a pair of pants to save the planet, then they, the Y-fronts with the blue threading in the waistband would be the ones we would call for. Eco-pants, I salute you!
I still live in hope of starting a thread in P+L that the usual bores can't turn to mush, though...
For the last thirtyfive years I have worn the same underpants. Well, not the same underpants exactly, but underpants to the same design. White Y-fronts. I dallied with little stretchy jobs in the late sixties, and I have tried boxers, but, being massively well endowed, I need the support of a proper pair of men's pants. Something with a bit of structure.
I generally buy half a dozen pairs of pants at a time, and discard them when they get too stretched, or fray around the edges.
This morning I reached into the drawer and pulled forth a pair of pants slightly different from the rest. They had blue threading in the waist band. These hadn't seen the light of day for a while, but I recognised them straight away. These were, so to speak, the madeleine of pants. I remembered the frisson on seeing these pants being taken from a polished mahogany drawer at an outfitters in West Norwood -the kind of shop that one doesn't see these days, and was a rarity then. I'd gone to the outfitters out of nostalgia because it was there that my mother took me to buy my school uniform in about 1961. They sold plimsolls that smelt of rubber, and serge shorts that chafed your legs. This, mind you, for a school that these days would be described as 'stressed' or 'in an area of deprivation'.
The latter visit to the outfitters was in 1989. So these pants were nineteen years old. Those of you versed in atomic theory will know the meaning of 'half-life'. In such and such a time half of a particular isotope of a metal will become another, more stable isotope. It is exactly the same with pants. I'd imagine that half the pants I've purchased over the years have lasted eighteen months or less. Another half will have lasted between eighteen months and three years, and so on and so forth.... This, then was a pair of pants not just of exceptional longevity, but, on the face of it, one pair in 2 to the power of almost 13. The Methuselah of pants.
They'd seen trousers come and go. Gap jeans and chinos. Cords. Satin Armani jobbys. White linen, black linen, even a pair of dark green linen trousers with a tie waistband. All consigned to the recycling bin.
And now, the bad news. The pants of yore are no more. They've got a hole in them. A hole that wasn't there this morning. And so, when I take them off in half an hour's time, they will be ex-pants.
They have, by virtue of their longevity, become eco-pants. Prashant Kapoor who knows more about this stuff than anybody on the planet has suggested that cotton clothing is, pound for pound, the least sustainable purchase you can make. I have half a dozen shirts that I dare not throw away despite not having a clue what moved me to buy them, because Prashant (who is always impeccably turned out) would describe throwing away cotton clothing as a waste. When do you wear a pink shirt?
I can discard my eco-pants with a clear conscience. They've served their time, and they go to the Valhalla of Underwear secure in the knowledge, that, if ever we were to call upon a pair of pants to save the planet, then they, the Y-fronts with the blue threading in the waistband would be the ones we would call for. Eco-pants, I salute you!
- Location
- the post-brexit wasteland
a fine piece of prose sir…
Vaguely reminiscent of, um, it'll come back to me.... Proust, yes 'In Search of Lost Time'. I knew, like old underpants, the memory would return. Sadly, I have a wife that washes out the stains of my past. My conquests long since vanished (please, note the product placement) to the fosse septique of fondness and nostalgia. To be remembered, in it's fullest odour, tous le cinq ans avec la vidange (sounds much more fragrant in French).
I still cling to those memories, much like I cling to those undergarments - literally since the elastic has gone. Equally the memories now have holes. Darn those memories! For they will fade, the colours already having long since run, and in time the threadbare will be bare - bare buttock. The cheek of such memories! Memories make an arse of us all in time.
I still cling to those memories, much like I cling to those undergarments - literally since the elastic has gone. Equally the memories now have holes. Darn those memories! For they will fade, the colours already having long since run, and in time the threadbare will be bare - bare buttock. The cheek of such memories! Memories make an arse of us all in time.
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
Oh very good...yello said:
purplepolly
New Member
- Location
- my house
Quote:
Originally Posted by numbnuts
this is the second "eco-pants" I've seen today
And the other op lives in the same area as you - do you ever get together and talk about underpants or is he too busy moderating another site?
Originally Posted by numbnuts
this is the second "eco-pants" I've seen today
dellzeqq said:
And the other op lives in the same area as you - do you ever get together and talk about underpants or is he too busy moderating another site?
I can't match the elegance but I shall do my best to match the sentiment.
I'm afraid to say (or a frayed to say) most of my clothes are nostalgic. Shirts and tops in particular seem to last me, though I can't say the same of trousers or indeed socks and underpants. Nevertherless I cling on to those items until their last breath. Frays and fading are of little consequence and holes unnoticed until the very heart of the item falls out. I fret briefly over it by putting it in a drawer for repair and garage use before finally shuffling it off in a ruthless clearout period. Nevertherless it lives on in my memory. Even at this moment a pair of trousers from 1985 pushes it's way to the front of the nostalgia queue. Similiarly I can remember the horrid cardigans of my boyhood, striped and scratchy, the things only parents buy. To this day I loathe cardigans of any sort.
Tops are different. My oldest t-shirt still in use is now a stately 20 years young. Each top evokes a different emotion and I pick them almost according to the mood I'd like to take on that day. Of course I must bend to the practicalities of cleanliness, which in a diminishing wardrobe, take a larger precedence and the older items must be worn sparingly. Of course some are saved by having the good fortune to only fit me in the summer months when I'm most active. They can retire after September.
I'm afraid to say (or a frayed to say) most of my clothes are nostalgic. Shirts and tops in particular seem to last me, though I can't say the same of trousers or indeed socks and underpants. Nevertherless I cling on to those items until their last breath. Frays and fading are of little consequence and holes unnoticed until the very heart of the item falls out. I fret briefly over it by putting it in a drawer for repair and garage use before finally shuffling it off in a ruthless clearout period. Nevertherless it lives on in my memory. Even at this moment a pair of trousers from 1985 pushes it's way to the front of the nostalgia queue. Similiarly I can remember the horrid cardigans of my boyhood, striped and scratchy, the things only parents buy. To this day I loathe cardigans of any sort.
Tops are different. My oldest t-shirt still in use is now a stately 20 years young. Each top evokes a different emotion and I pick them almost according to the mood I'd like to take on that day. Of course I must bend to the practicalities of cleanliness, which in a diminishing wardrobe, take a larger precedence and the older items must be worn sparingly. Of course some are saved by having the good fortune to only fit me in the summer months when I'm most active. They can retire after September.
it's a sort of inverted thing with clothes, isn't it? You've changed and the clothes remain more or less the same. Those pants had seen a few things (if pants had eyes, they'd be on the front, looking outwards, obviously - it would be boring looking in at the same thing all the time).
What I mean is that objects aren't simply the key to memories, like the madeleine. They're witness to events. Not particularly eloquent witnesses, although yello's would appear to have enough about them to appear in court as forensic evidence, but they were there (possibly discarded on the bedroom floor) when...
What I mean is that objects aren't simply the key to memories, like the madeleine. They're witness to events. Not particularly eloquent witnesses, although yello's would appear to have enough about them to appear in court as forensic evidence, but they were there (possibly discarded on the bedroom floor) when...
I've always thought of them as the memories, hence the nostalgia but is it not the same just the perspective is different, at least for clothes. A house would be different. I tend to think of a house in terms of what it's borne witness to or an old tree but not personal items, they belong to my memories.
Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
T-shirts are the thing with me. I never go out and buy a T-shirt, I mean from a regular shop, they're all purchased generally from some event. In my youth they were from Surfing competitions primarily. The Newquay surfmasters 1981 shirt in grey was worn until transparent quite proudly into the mid 90's. The same was true of my Pink Floyd the wall original Earls court T-shirt circa 1980. It was about 15v years until I bouht another Pink Floyd shirt, this time for the Division Bell/DSOM tour. Interspered with Rock shirts, Surf shirts have been cycling T-shirts. I've bought a L2B shirt I think nearly every one I've done, this year will be something like number 14 or 15. Other charity ride t-shirts also fill my drawers. But, I'm reaching a tipping point. 46 next week, fat of gut. I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable about everyday T-shirt wearing, maybe it's OK with shorts, but with jeans... I'm beginning to wonder. There will be a day when I have to give-up the T-shirt, it will hit hard when I cross the line after yet another L2B and will not be heading straight to the T-shirt tent to collect my reward, my prize, my badge of honour...
Rhythm Thief
Legendary Member
- Location
- Ross on Wye
dellzeqq said:
Possibly a little over zealous modding on my part ... sorry. (Although, to be fair, it did look to be more suited to the cafe at a glance.)
Haitch
Flim Flormally
- Location
- Netherlands
Having invested your clothes with a memory, don't wear it out. In my wardrobe, for example, I have a T-shirt I last wore while eating a Russian egg salad in the Hilton Hotel in Cairo in 1982. The longer I do not wear that T-shirt the more pleasure I have in it.