Rusty Saber: Teen fashion trend baffles observer

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I wonder: How do fads get started? I mean, there had to be a time when a fad didn't exist; at a given moment "something" happens, and, presto, the latest in thing is born. I confess, I'm baffled.|ret||ret||tab|

Chief among my wonderings is the strange predilection of teen-age boys to wear blue jeans large enough to fit the Washington Monument. You've probably seen teens wearing them pants so big they are worn at half mast, and it looks like they might fall the rest of the way down at any moment. The cuffs are ragged and frayed because the wearers walk on them. |ret||ret||tab|

Usually, an equally immense shirt augments the attire, topped off with basketball shoes laces untied, of course and a baseball cap worn backward. My question is simple: How in the name of Huckleberry Finn did this particular fashion statement get started?|ret||ret||tab|

Regarding the monster pants, I can visualize this scenario: For an as yet unknown reason, a 100 pound boy wore pants belonging to his 250 pound father. At school, the boy spent the day fearing his pants would fall down, or that he would break his neck when the inevitable happened and he tripped over the legs of the pants. |ret||ret||tab|

Here I'm just guessing in order to fill in the blanks because I can't visualize anyone with a measurable IQ actually saying this, but I assume that another lad exclaimed, "Wow, cool pants, man! Where did you get 'em?"|ret||ret||tab|

It must have happened something like that. The gargantuan shirt, untied basketball shoes and baseball cap worn backward just sort of emerged to complete the fashion statement. This is as good a story as any.|ret||ret||tab|

Another mystery to me is the proliferation of body jewelry. Once only women poked holes in their ear lobes and stuck earrings in the holes. Then men wanted to get in on the fun by poking holes in their ear lobes. |ret||ret||tab|

Soon we got used to men wearing earrings. I can't imagine why, but today, virtually no part of the body is immune from being poked with holes to hold hunks of metal. I can't come up with a scenario to explain how body piercing become an in thing.|ret||ret||tab|

Basketball player Dennis Rodman, that role model for recalcitrant adults who refuse to grow up, wears two rings on each ear, one in his nose and two in his lower lip; that's just the ones that can be seen. He's so full of holes that if he should fall into the water, he'd probably sink faster than the Titanic.|ret||ret||tab|

Not all body jewelry is worn on the face. If it's possible to poke a hole in any part of the body, some of the in crowd will stick a ring in the hole. |ret||ret||tab|

I recently saw a young man at the mall with both his head and eye brows shaved. He was wearing rings above both eyes. He looked like Mr. Clean gone berserk. I would describe the remainder of his attire as informal Count Dracula. We're talking major fashion statement here.|ret||ret||tab|

The navel notwithstanding, most, er, I guess we can say spots-below-the-neck where body jewelry is worn can't be mentioned in a classy publication like SBJ. However, someday a trendy dude or dudette will poke a hole through a knee or ankle and install the ultimate in body jewelry. |ret||ret||tab|

That may not be true. The ultimate would be a hole drilled through the head with a ring hooked through it; a handle on the top of the head, like a suitcase. Now, that would put the wearer on the cutting edge of fashion statements. If not the cutting edge, surely, the poking edge.|ret||ret||tab|

Where did the recent tattoo fad came from? Time was when tattoos were the realm of sailors, motorcycle riders and others anxious to show how tough they were. Now, tattoos are right in there with body jewelry. |ret||ret||tab|

Some basketball players' arms and shoulders are so cluttered with tattoos that they resemble maps of major cities. Is it mandatory for wannabe big-time basketball players to be covered with tattoos?|ret||ret||tab|

Like the aforementioned body jewelry, some tattoos are tucked away on parts of the body visible only when wearing the skimpiest of bathing suits some can't even be seen then. At what moment in time did tattoos become respectable? Will the time come when they will no longer be respectable? If so, physicians whose specialty is removing tattoos may think they have won the lottery. |ret||ret||tab|

So many questions; so few answers.|ret||ret||tab|

|bold_on|(Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University and a Springfield public relations consultant.)|ret||ret||tab|

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