Red Trousers Forever

Dress Like a Man in Red Trousers

I possess red trousers ranging from Nantucket pink to something like the scarlet worn by cavalry officers (let's remember their military tradition). Come this spring they will be out again regardless of the tedious social categorisation that appears to have been applied to them. If observers feel the need to use them to rank and stratify, I will not be kowtowed into keeping them hidden. They do not deserve such treatment, and that is the coward's way not the British way — I am not prepared to give in to prevailing whims and fashions like a politician.

(Did I give up my covert coat when Nigel Farage was pictured in his? It is a classic coat, so I certainly did not. Actually, politics aside, one can admire Nigel's fogeyish dress sense against the social conformity of the plain blue suit in Westminster.)

They also say that hipster appropriation is killing the red trouser. Nonsense. 'Old Red' is an equal-opportunity trouser — it can make anyone look smarter. If social observers want to start criticising people for their style choices, I suggest they start with men who choose to dress like children: hooded sweatshirts, 'onesies', shorts, t-shirts with brainless pictures and logos, beanie hats and flip flops. What do social observers, let alone the psychoanalysts, say about that?

So the red trousers are here to stay, as are my summer trousers in orange, lilac, yellow and Madras check and so on and so forth.

Flora Watkins provides a sterling defence of the red trouser in Country Life. You should read the whole thing. It also has an excellent list of where you can obtain your red trousers and strike a blow for autonomy and freedom, even if we are all wearing them.

Incidentally, along with Tweed magazin, no reader of the Tweed Pig should be without the latest copy of Country Life on their tea trolley. I suppose one's choice of magazine signifies something too?