You’re broke. You’re poor. You have no money. You’ve got zip, zilch, zero, none, nada, nil, nothing, naught. No matter which way you slice it, you can only afford the $1 pizza slices from that second-rate shop that’s probably a front for a money laundering operation when attending New York Fashion Week. You look like a cave-dwelling octogenarian, however, by some colossal stroke of luck, you’ve inherited a pair of pants that don’t look like the underside of an overpass. Luck has run out, though, as the laundry tag is missing and you just can’t risk destroying these pants before the week is up. Here a few tricks to keep your fashion high and your costs low.
The ‘Wear Them Again’
Nothing gets any easier than putting your pants on one leg at a time, but coming in a close second is putting your pants on one leg at a time a second time. Simply take your posh pants off in the evening, fold them over the back of a chair and then put them back on the next morning. It truly doesn’t get any easier. As long as you don’t experience any dipping sauce blunders, those chinos are primo (ish).
The ‘Flip’
So you got careless. You spilled barbecue sauce all down the front of your fancy pants, Fancy Pants! It’s not a lost cause yet though. Grab the waistband of the pants with one hand and reach your other hand down one of the legs. Grip the hem and pull it towards you, through the waistband, until the leg is fully extended and showing the interior material. Repeat the steps on the other, unreversed leg. Now your pair of pants is brand new. To an outside observer at least. No one knows of the several days old dried barbecue sauce rubbing against your leg with every movement – it’s gross but true. Your grisly galoshes live to fight another day, so long as you stay out of muddy puddles.
The ‘Jorts-ening’
It’s not your fault someone put a muddy puddle right in the middle of Central Park, but now it’s your problem. Soggy shins don’t look fab on anybody. Washing the pants will ruin them, so save the saveable bits. Break out the good scissors and stay above the waterline, because you’re turning these pariah pants into jorts. If the pants are already denim, great. One less step. If not, contact your local wizard with a zest for scientific denim-ological transmogrification to help bridge that gap. Once transmogrified, get snipping. This method also helps dispel the claims that you’ve been wearing the same pants for days. How can you have been wearing the same pants, if you technically aren’t even wearing pants? Now get out there and maximize the potential of your shoddy jorts, or “shorts.” They may look a little ragged, but it could be worse. You could have sloshed through an even deeper muddy puddle.
The ‘Double Jorts-ening’
You oaf. You sloshed through an even deeper mud puddle. Unoriginal problems are relegated to unoriginal solutions. You’re going back, Jack, and you’re doing it again. This time, make your snips at the hips and turn those shorts into shorters. The result is obviously an elegant garment. Difficult to pull off effectively, but not impossible. Try wearing them with a flashy top which will help distract people from looking at your bare legs. Or wear them with a long coat and knee-high boots. It may be a little too cold during Fashion Week to be out in a fancy speedo, but you should have thought about that before you decided to go traipsing around in the muddy puddle hot zones.
The ‘Statement Piece’
The week is almost at an end, but the once great fancy pants have been torn to threads through repeated abuse from an owner with an unrelenting desperation to appear fashionable. All that is left of the only good pair of pants you own looks like they came straight off the rack – gasp! No one was going to remember that pair of pants anyway, but they’ll definitely remember your determination to make them work with everything. Make a bold statement for your last day in the week, and ditch the pants entirely. Stroll the streets of New York naked from the waist down – it’s nothing the average New Yorker hasn’t seen before. Fly free, little birdie.
