Fashion Woes Make for a Ripping Yarn

Torn trousers, too-tight shirts and odd shoes. All very hilarious, unless of course the sartorial crisis is happening to you

- Meon Valley Man

A FRIEND called Philip went to a wedding recently. He arrived early and went to relax in a coffee shop. But as he sat down his trousers ripped in a crucial place, revealing a flash of white underwear. He sprinted off to a department store to buy some black boxers so the rip wouldn’t show. But the flash of white turned out to be the lining of his trousers. So when his sister arrived in the vicinity, she found him in WH Smith’s, buying a felt tip marker to try and blank out the offending white.

It’s a place we’ve all been – the acute sartorial emergency.

For men, these often involve the last minute dramas of trying to squeeze into dinner suits that haven’t been worn for years. Waistcoats are hastily adjusted. New, more outlying settings for bow ties are identified.