beige_alert | Fashion is weird

I went to the beach today, and found myself pondering various things. Among them, clothing fashion as exhibited by beach-goers. Now, first off, if some people want to wear a lot of fabric, that's fine and they should feel free to do so. It is interesting, though, that women will wear everything from full-coverage to teeny-weeny-bikini, but men seem to range from baggy shorts to stupendously baggy shorts. Plus me wearing something in a style that, as women's bottoms in a two-piece, would be well over on the more-modest end of that category. But not so much compared to the other men.

Like, you might imagine "boy shorts" would be popular with "boys" given the name, but no! Not at all! The boys prefer "tarps." Pants that come down well past the knee but stop well above the ankle are capris, right? Previously, at least around here, it's a style I've seen nearly exclusively worn by women, but now evidently it's the latest thing for the boys on the beach. On the one hand, it's good to see new flexibility in what's considered acceptable for men or women to wear, but on the other, it's downright amazing that the trend toward ever-bigger, longer, baggier bathing suits for men has actually reached the point where some of them are not even technically shorts anymore. Mark my words, the next logical step in the trend to baggier men's bathing suits is the bell-bottom bathing suit. You just wait.