Simultaneously welcome and maddening, the sales are in full flow and thirsty for your bankroll. I went in quick and heavy over at Dover Street, leaving me now, mid-month, fiscally fragile. Still the continuing reductions taunt me.
More shirts I don’t need, more jackets… It’s like I’ve been hexed. Somewhere a fetish doll in my likeness is being repeatedly punctured with a tagging gun. 30% off. 40% off. Exclusive pre-sale invitation. Someone rid me of this accursed voodoo.
These Kolor trousers are the latest garment to fling their Hellraiser hooks at me. Dammit, I can already feel them reeling me in. 200 Euros for Kolor trousers, I mean, come on.
If you’re not a fan of Junichi Abe’s Kolor, you’re probably reading this bemused. We are, after all, just talking about a pair of beige cotton trousers. The thing is, for me, the relative banality of these trousers is a key part of their appeal.
I adore the brand Kolor, I admire the cut-and-paste ethos, the mash-ups of sportswear and tailoring, the experimental colour blocking, the weird tops with two different collars. I just couldn’t wear any of it. Miniature bomber jackets with ballooning Blackadder cuffs are not my personal vibe. These trousers, on the other hand, would let me to buy into Kolor‘s avant-garde brand values (and benefit from all the psychological underpinning that affords) while not looking like a space magician.
It’s the reason Comme des Garçons sell more tops with red hearts than shirts with nipple holes. To gently bastardise a famous marketing adage: the sizzle is the nipple hole, the t-shirt with a heart on it is the sausage you actually buy. (Although I want it clearly on the record, I do not fuck with Comme des Garçons PLAY.)
Anyway, the point I’m rambling slowly towards is that I’m as susceptible to being seduced by the sizzle and buying the sausage as the next man. Hence me gawping at trousers I can’t afford. I’m currently flitting between my bank app and the product page hoping the numbers will magically change in my favour.
If you’re reading this and like the look of them, please hurry up and buy the large. Save me from myself.