PARIS: SUMMER; WHY THE PANTS?

              I’m writing this from Paris.   In boxer shorts.   I’d love to think that the pieces I write are an accurate depiction of a life.   Any life, really.   Sometimes, they are a depiction of my life.

              I went out last night.   I think everybody did.   The streets were not necessarily filled, but there was also not much room on the concrete to walk.   The city feels tight and imposing when you are alone at night.   It was boiling.   Or, at least I thought it was boiling.   There was never much wiggle room with how to dress regarding pants or shorts.   Maybe it was the Australian heritage that made one assume that shorts could be worn absolutely everywhere; the only exception to wearing near-complete casualwear was the need to remove Birkenstocks or thongs and opt for a closed shoe – usually white – which I abhor.   It is not like anybody tells you that you can’t do it.   But people scream with their eyes, and sometimes thick skin can wear thin.   Paris can be both a reason for and a place where one can be worn thin. It can be the rudeness from waiters at opulent restaurants, where they will shrug and whisper between themselves at the punk in tiny cotton shorts.   It could also be a place where the worries of the world clutter like pans on kitchen tiles, reverberating around the room even after the rim sits still.

              I thought about this as I looked out onto the courtyard in my little striped boxers.   I couldn’t stand wearing the same pants I wore yesterday.   Looking out into the little razorblade windows trying to find the room where George Dyer died.   It turns out that it was at Hôtel des Saints Pères.   Then again, I doubt it made a difference where it actually happened.   I still thought about it, even if I was in the wrong room.   In the wrong place.

                          Paris.

I have always preferred how I look in pants.   It would lengthen my legs and allow more pocket space.   But far out, those things can get hot.   I was a snake in old skin and was as sweaty as the buttery croissants dropped to me from room service.   I was also in a rebellious phase – if you would like to call my wearing boxer shorts as regular shorts ‘rebellious’.   I thought it was anyhow.   The recent re-popularisation of baggy jean shorts is a splendid resurgence into the fashion world – if you are tall and slim (as usual).   However, the joys of Italian summers and the French coastline bring not only tourists (and their own styles) but people from all walks of life.   All ‘hot’ in their own way.   This is where the jean shorts (albeit tight) has never left popularity.   All it takes is a quick walk to a beach from Marseille, and one can encounter 43 ways to style tight jorts.   Note that the styling of such does not necessarily mean the styling is good but that it can be done.

              Some people prefer tight jeans.   I cannot comment.   Word counts stop me from doing so.   Paris has the same idea with the tight pants.   It does slim down the legs and is easy to throw on – discounting the need to jump and shimmy your way into them if they are really, really tight – and it can be an easy solution to a wardrobe disaster.   Whether it is appropriate date attire?   It depends on who you ask.   Whether shorts are proper date attire?   How hot is it outside, and where are you going?   The thing is, shorts inhabit a purgatorial status in Paris, sort of an in-between with the dirty modernism of the 20th century and the grey conservatism offered by 5-star hotel hosts across the lobbies and courtyards in the 1st arrondissement.   To assume this limbo is concentrated within Paris would be reductive.

                                     Tapered views are as old as tapered pants.

                            There are too many ill-fitting shorts in the world.

                                                                                               Too many bad cuts.

              More than pants.   The bad cuts can’t always be helped.   They aren’t tripe.   Sometimes, when one is on vacation, the wardrobe is the most stressful part of the day.   I do wish I could relate. Sometimes I do.   The hands hold your hair back as you look out across the hotel room floor at the suitcase, which has been stripped away and separated into a disintegrated mess of tops and pants and socks and shirts.   It is splayed, thick, thoroughly thoughtless, and utterly disorganised like lobsters and scampi in hotel bins.   The stresses can be justified like layers in winter.   It can also be stupid, like wincing at doubled-up looks when alone for entire days.   No one knows that it’s the same pants and top combo.   Relax.   Shorts can be the most valuable item in one’s suitcase – excluding the obvious sock and underpants rule.   For that reason, even in Paris, it is necessary to at least have one pair – for whatever gender you may be.   Of course, Paris is for pants, even in summer.   But that doesn’t mean you cannot wear a pair of boxer shorts and style them with a baggy shirt when the pants get a bit ‘too much’ in the dry heat.

              The sun shone down at my eyes which had greyed under lids and been shaded by matted hair; exhausted and drooping.   I walked outside with my shoes thrown on and stinking socks from the day before.   My socks were scrunched up over scraggly feet strapped into bold black runners absorbing heat.   Sunglasses and a bowed head drowned light as I looked down at my legs which were more exposed than one would typically see in the city of love.

Somehow.