Fashion Based on Poor People Clothes

Jeans ripped at the factory cost a fortune. 

Poor people wear jeans until they are torn.

Fashion designers in Beijing, Dusseldorf, Johannesburg, Milan, Montreal, Paris or New York give lyrical interviews about what inspires them to sew cloth, buttons and zippers and showcase them on runways.  Poverty or the plight of other people has never been admitted as an inspiration, but it is.

The torn blue jeans are a case in point.  Distressed jeans.  I think that is what the industry calls them.  Torn is not even the right word, because they are intentionally ripped at the factory to distress them.  They are not humans, but they are described in the human condition, distressed.

They cost a bit because they have labels such as Thembi – Johannesburg or Andrei - Montreal.  People buy them, especially if they are made popular by celebrities that act before the camera for 30 seconds before the director says, cut!

Jeans are work clothes.  They get worn out over time because they work hard or because it is one of two items an individual owns.  Fashion designers are inspired by such circumstances.

Homeless people under the bridge, in abandoned buildings, bus shelters, Salvation Army shelters, churches and other places where they rest their heads for the night should therefore demand a commission, because hobo bags inspire fashion. 

I’m not clued up to the rag trade so, I did not know that there is something called a hobo bag, until last week, where I saw one on sale.  $600.

The commission should not be designers serving soup in homeless shelters, with TV cameras capturing everything.  I mean putting proceeds from the hobo bag to good use and rent someone a studio apartment or give them a job.  You can afford it.  Your hobo bag was inspired by their pain.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.