Some Surprising Spottings of Dungarees

A few years back a friend and I idled away some time in the pub trying to come up with ideas for strange or offbeat television shows that, whilst made up, had to be just about plausible enough to have actually existed. In the same way that you might have trouble convincing a young person today that the Black and White Minstrel Show was a genuine piece of Saturday night entertainment or that there was once a time in which Jim Davidson not only appeared on television but was apparently given money to do so, we attempted to come up with the most boundary-and-decency-pushing idea for a TV show that we reckoned we could convince people had actually existed.

I forget what the eventually winner was, but my favourite remains Adventures With Lesbians, an ultra-PC Channel 4-type show from the 1980s in which a group of inner city schoolchildren went around solving mysteries with the assistance of a group of lesbians. Whilst the pub conversation that led to this has now led me largely incapable of discerning which programmes of yesterday really did exist and which we made up, I think it was vaguely inspired by a programme in which children went around solving crimes with the help of some old people, and in the same way that that programme (if it existed) was meant to encourage children to see old people in a new light, Adventures With Lesbians was meant to do the same with members of the Sapphic community and show children just how much fun they could be. We even went as far as to come up with a theme song for the series, of which the only lines I can still remember are:

‘When you are a lesbian

You can wear what you please

But you may well choose Doc Martens

And a pair of dungarees’

Now, I couldn’t help but recall that catchy ditty last week when, within the space of a few days, I saw two young women wearing dungarees with no apparent sense of irony or self-consciousness (or, indeed, style). And they weren’t even the hotpant/dungaree hybrid that shows a decent amount of leg; they were full on dungarees, of the sort I had previous thought were only ever worn by those in the aforementioned song, or toddlers. (And I should probably point out that I do see women wearing dungarees fairly often but that’s because I live in the noted lesbian enclave of Stoke Newington; so if you think the lyrics to the song were in any way perpetuating a stereotype then I suggest you pay it a visit, and give particular attention to the newish retro shop with a whole rack of dungarees in the window.)

Now, I know this is a blog about male style but it’s still worth keeping an eye on female trends as, like viruses, they can mutate and jump from one species to another. So, what’s the deal with dungarees? I can kind of see the attraction of putting toddlers in them; they’re kind of a romper suit that you can wear outside. And for plumbers, they are presumably useful for having lots of pockets (though I’m only assuming that plumbers wear them, and I admit this is based on Super Mario). Similarly, I assume that Mumford and Sons wear them but can’t honestly say I have any pictorial evidence to back that up other than a faint suspicion that it’s the kind of thing they would do as part of their faux-Americana thing. But regardless of whether they do, we can still add inbred hillbillies to the list of dungaree enthusiasts.

Were the people I saw wearing them doing it for a bet? My suspicions tell me not. For I have overwhelming reasons to suspect that both those I saw are affiliated with some well known young women’s magazines, and those people aren’t really know for their developed senses of humour or irony. Now, whilst I don’t read women’s magazines with much regularity, I’m not aware that dungarees have been tipped as the next big thing; whilst though it’s possible that they have,

I’ve come to suspect that people who work in fashion feel under so much pressure to be ahead of the game that they try to be ‘early adopters’ of future trends simply by wearing everything they can possibly think of and hope that one of them comes into fashion a few months later. Of course, the downside of this is that whist on one or two occasions you may well correctly anticipate a style and be lauded for your forward-thinking cool, it will also be the case that some 97% of the time you well end up looking something of a twat.

Still, my suspicion is that whilst dungarees may indeed be the next big thing in women’s fashion they won’t affect the male scene. Or, at least, I pray to God that they don’t. Still, in a way I hope they do, simply because it would be so funny watching grown men walk around dressed as toddlers. But, then again, the theme tune from Adventures with Lesbians mentioned Doc Martens too, and they never seem to go out of style. They’re kind of the cockroaches of the post-apocalyptic style world; both the idea of them, and quite possibly the boots themselves, seem destined to outlive civilisation itself. So, if that well known 1980s children’s series was right about those then who’s to say it didn’t also predict the dawn of adult dungarees?