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THE CHANGING FACE OF FASHION IN GUYANA

Aug 29, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A photograph in last Friday’s edition of the Kaieteur News showed the Mayor of Georgetown wearing what appeared to be “bell bottom” pants.
I do not know if it is the photograph that makes the pants appear to have the characteristics of a style that was popular in the early 1970s in Guyana. It may be that the Mayor could be reinventing the fashion, or it may be that this is one of his trousers from way back. I do not know.
But it had me thinking as to how many persons can still today produce from their wardrobes of clothing made in the fashion of the sixties and seventies.
I am sure that there may be some persons who can dig deep into their wardrobes and pull out a pair of bell bottoms.
I am sure that there are persons who still have shirt jacs, popularized during the Burnham era. But how many can pull out a dashiki outfit from way back then?
I know that there are new varieties of dashikis, but I doubt whether there are many persons who still have clothing dating back to the seventies.
Old timers usually can count the number of dress shirts that they ever had.
When you brought a dress shirt back in the day – that is a shirt used for social purposes – it lasted in excess of ten to fifteen years.
Your work clothes usually changed every year. This was because you wore it almost every day and therefore it became worn and discoloured after about a year.
But since in those days people did not go out as much as they do today, a dress shirt could last you an eternity.
Today there are some persons who have to go and buy a new shirt every time they are invited out somewhere.
It is not that the modern-day shirts are not of good quality. Rather it is that the younger generation do not want to be seen wearing the same shirt twice in a row.
That somehow is social no-go in Guyana these days.
There are some young ladies who go to the clubs every week and every week they must have a different outfit because they do not want their pictures to appear on GTVibes wearing the same outfit to more than one party, because this could lead their friends to gossip about them.
The other thing is that fashion designs and styles are changing so rapidly these days that your clothing quickly goes out of style.
This, of course, is boosting sales for the boutiques. But it is costing the young people quite a fortune to stay current with the latest design and fashions. But Guyanese seem to have the money to move with the trends. This is great to see.
The other reason why Guyanese are constantly changing their wardrobe is the amount of parties and social events that they are attending these days. There are many people who feel that Guyanese are going through hard times.
But if you go out on weekends to some of the popular joints you will get an entirely different impression.
There are thousands of Guyanese who are going out, spending a lot of money and being dressed in clothing that would back in our day buy a lifetime of clothing.
One young lady told me recently that the shoes she had on cost her twenty-eight thousand dollars.
Now that is house rent for some people; and there were about eight other young ladies wearing similar footwear.
If you go to a normal wedding in Guyana and try to estimate the total cost of all the clothing that is worn by the guests, the sum would be staggering.
And as I said, some people only wear one dress or shirt one time.
But in as much as Guyanese today seem to be able to afford to be outfitted with the latest designer footwear and clothing, it is still a good habit to be able to care of your clothing.
It is good to see persons still taking good care of pants, shirts and dresses they wore twenty or thirty years ago. It is about the pride in caring for what you spent your hard earned cash on.
This is something that needs to be inculcated in the younger generation. They have grown up in better times and therefore they do not have the same appreciation for the value of things.

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