Fashion Rant

Once there was a time when you could buy blue jeans from LLBean and they were tough and would wear for a couple of years of what I do every day. My jeans have been pee’d on by a turtle, jumped into a swamp to rescue my elderly dog, collected seven pick-up truck loads of stones from a local quarry, built several buildings and they’ve been in messes that required a respirator for their occupant. They get scraped by hay bales, garden dirt gets ground into them, stove-wood tears them, sparks occasionally burn holes in them. They are on a first-name basis with horse manure, and they play with a four-year-old. You could accurately say that all of my clothes are “distressed.”

These days – if you are a woman - you try to buy a pair of LLBean jeans, and they want to know what kind of "wash" you want: stone wash, acid rinse, steep for twelve years in goat urine, or just given a gentle dragging behind an environmentally friendly hybrid car for six weeks. Needless to say, these damned things don't last hole-free for more than two turns in the wash. It seems that consumers want to look like they do actual physical WORK!

What’s a wizard to do? Well, maybe I’ll go over to Doris’ Fashion Nook in Amish country just outside of Rennselaer Falls. That’s where the lumberjacks shop, because that’s where you can get Carhartts and work boots. But do they have size 6 petite? I repeat: what’s a wizard to do?