I have always been confused by fashion and civilization. For if civilization had to be proved by adhering to fashion, then many of our university professors are uncivilized. But what is this fashion that has to be adhered to, what do I mean by fashion? Different people have different definitions of fashion depending on so many other factors.
Factors like income, age, education, environment among others have much to say on what one thinks is fashionable. For example, I have found my views about fashion changing as I was growing up. In class one, it was fashionable in our rural area to have a playing wheel, this could come from the top lid of the twenty liter cooking fat container or a used up car tyre. The bigger the tyre one had the more fashionable it appeared. Today I find what is up to date fashion completely different from what I thought then, I want the latest smart phone, a car, a three piece Italian suit, and of course, a diamond teeth.
What I liked then was different from what my fellow mates of the same age, probably in class three while I was still struggling with class one, in urban centers. Neither were the slum dwellers in agreement in fashion with the street children nor with their mates in estates. The same as today, not every other graduate agrees with me on what is fashionable. High school pupils have a perception of the same which is different from what university mates have or even what their fellow mates have. One form two pupil will tell you fashion is toping in class and in science contests, another, probably a lazy one will tell you fashion is drinking, sneaking out of school and knowing a particular new dance style made in Jamaica. Despite the different perceptions, we have no means of gauging which fashion is ‘really fashionable’ than the other. Trying to compare the two is like comparing a basket ball player to a rugby one.
In conclusion, I don’t really know what specifically fashion is. But for me, I have constructed an image of what I think is fashionable. Wait, have I just constructed or is it really what is? Yea, it is what is in my world. Maybe then our professors are not that blind to fashion. If then we are the ones to mark what the world presents to us as fashionable, is not easy for each of us to mark as wrong some social habits that are a menace to the society? For example, to me it is not fashionable to sleep with a thousand girls, to sniff cocaine till my eyes can no longer open, neither is it fashionable to drink all my salary but African is. Oh my God! I forgot about civilization. I did not realize I was supposed to link the two. What do we do now? I have an idea, we can make a deal. I discuss with you civilization next, then on Friday night we meet at my favorite joint to see if the two link in any way. Do we have a deal?
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