I just don’t do ‘shopping’. If you doubt that, just go look in my wardrobe. I don’t mind food shopping. But clothes? CLOTHES???? I can’t even do it online. How the fuck are you supposed to buy shoes online? How can that work? But I needed new jeans. And realised that no-one was going to bring a clothes rack to my house, so I had to… go shopping!!

For men (in particular, but not exclusively) of a certain generation, jeans ARE Levis. There’s just no other. They were my first, my last, my everything. In denim. I’ve even visited the place where it all began. Nimes. In France. Near Montpellier in the Languedoc. Because that material was named ‘of Nimes’, or de-nim, as those bloody foreigners would say because they just don’t bother pronouncing -es at the end of words. Because they’re lazy. Anyway, me, Levis, the love affair.

When I was 12, having nagged my mum for possibly 3 years, every single waking hour, (I’m guessing here but probably not far from reality), she took me to Ilford, that fashion hub of the Western Hemisphere, and bought me a pair of ‘shrink-to-fit’ Levi jeans. Just for the record, in 1968 there were no other jeans around. I took them home, put them on and sat in a bath of warm water for half an hour. In my jeans. It’s what you did. Proved they were real. At the end of 30 minutes the bath water is dark blue. As were my legs, the towel, the bathroom floor, hall carpet, sofa…

But they were ‘primed’ and ready. When dry, obvs. And I loved them for years. Then forgot about them until Nick Kamen wore a pair to do his laundry and I fished them out again. Ok, they were long gone but I re-entered the Levi world and have stayed there ever since.

The ‘original’ Levis are called ‘501’s. No-one knows that code. It’s a secret. Just me and Levi Strauss have the secret. But then, with the surge of popularity following that advert, they brought out 532s and 786s and 943s and all manner of styles, quite alien to the ‘old’ purists for whom Levis just ARE 501s.

But last week in the Levi shop in Brent Cross (God fucking help me!!! I HATE Brent Cross!!!) they had 501-ladies, they had 501-taper leg, 501-extra bollocks room, a whole manner of the things. Because ‘501’ is so core to their history, they decided to use it with add-ons. Rather than just, kind’a, use some extra, different numbers. Maybe they ran out of numbers.

The girls who served me was clueless. Beautiful (hence forgiven) but fucking clueless. Her father wasn’t born yet when I was in my bath with my shrink-to-fits. But she sprayed the changing room with anti-virals really nicely for me.

I have Levis that are over 20 years old. Which are so shredded that they then morph into… cut downs! And you wear them for another 20 years. I have a drawer full. So I look at buying Levis as an investment. Mainly as an investment in not having to go to Brent Cross until I’m 85.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx