Latest fashion fad must be a joke that has gone too far

Buckle up, because here’s the next fashion trend. According to the snide online reporting I just encountered, the world of haute couture has brought us the concept of inside-out jeans. No, I’m not kidding. Let’s have that again for effect: jeans worn inside-out on purpose. Yes, they cost money. No, I have no idea if they will really catch on but, knowing what people are like, if it’s not this idiocy it’ll be something just as bad. Our society is gloriously doomed by its own stupidity. Abandon hope.

The fashion industry does, of course, like to manufacture its own controversy. Catwalk creations are purposely challenging, from the half-naked to the near-hallucinatory, but these inside-out jeans are designed for ordinary people, if they can afford them.

They’re being sold online as luxury goods by the company Farfetch, which has an appropriate name and a business ethos to match. But this goes way beyond the inexplicable return of ripped jeans, with trousers that really are inside-out: pockets, buttons and all.

Oh, and they cost £920, unless you go for the version that’s cut down into shorts, which is something like £600. Honestly, I was converting the price from dollars so I could write about it here and I lost heart and gave up.

I’m aware I’m being middle-aged here, just like my parents when they shook their heads sadly at the baggy jeans I wore in the early ’90s, and doubtlessly like their parents when the miniskirt was the latest rig-oot in the dance halls of Dundee. My own kids are too young for anything too daft but I’m braced for it.

One day I will evolve into my final form of Paw Broon, and revel in it. But sometimes common sense has to kick in. People may be wearing jumpsuits unironically and man-bun haircuts without fear but inside-out jeans have got to be a joke that went too far, and I encourage anyone who sees them to point this out politely.

Ah, who am I kidding? If good taste is going out the window, I’m going to join in with the most ludicrous beard I can manage.