Marcus Berkmann

Corduroy

issue 28 January 2017

Every Christmas, I ask my loved ones for at least two pairs of corduroy trousers. Off with a sigh tramps my girlfriend, who knows that fashion cycles dictate that corduroy will be ‘in’, and therefore purchasable, only every fourth or fifth year or so. For three or four years corduroy will be invisible. Shop assistants will look askance at anyone who dares even mention it. Then corduroy is rediscovered by whoever decides these things, and it’s everywhere. Cushions are in corduroy. Dogs wear corduroy. I saw a corduroy tie the other day. At such times we corduroy lovers stock up, conscious of the long corduroy-free winter that will inevitably follow.

I bought my first two pairs of corduroy trousers in 1979, when I was at university. One was blue, one was brown, they were both thick corduroy and I wore them both with great pleasure.

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