Denim Days

Awhile ago I said I would blog about my new jean jacket, and unfortunately for all of you I was not kidding. See, I am enamored with this thing, mostly because a jean jacket, to me, is like a wearable time capsule that takes me back to 1993. I am not -- as much as I would like to be -- the sort of person who can wear a jean jacket and make it look chic. I inevitably look like a preteen ranch hand, much in the way that suit jackets make me look like a miniature train conductor. However, I covet my jean jacket, and imagine that some day I will put it on and will suddenly appear tan and willowy, as if I have stumbled out of a Ralph Lauren advertisement.

Seriously, though, this new one is a vast improvement over my actual 1993 jean jacket. First of all, I took to wearing that one with jeans, which was (unbeknownst to me) wildly ballsy as I now think of denim-on-denim as similar to Halley's comet in that it only works about once a century. Also, the jeans were stonewashed with ankle snaps and I wore them with blue docksider shoes and a neckerchief, but my eye starts twitching when I think too hard on the details. I know you won't believe how bad it was, so against my better judgment I will show you:


See? Even Hans Christian Andersen looks nonplussed.

But this new jean jacket actually IS Ralph Lauren and is NOT worn with jeans, neckerchiefs, or unibrows (or Eddie Vedder hair), and so I have high hopes. The nostalgia factor is still there, which is important to me, because while I would rather not look the way I did in 7th grade, I like walking down the street in my denim jacket and feeling the promise of summer as I listen to Arrested Development (the group, not the show) and SWV on my iPod. It takes me back to a simpler time, when work meant homework, when love was determined by M.A.S.H., and when an afternoon spent flipping through Sassy magazine with stack of crackers was my idea of pure happiness.

Denim Days