🆓Let’s talk about pleats baby

Fashion comes and goes. Styles come and go, and sadly with fashion forward we say farewell to comfort.

One such style which has recently been very out of fashion in the world of skinny and slim fit us pleats. Subcutaneous trousers have been the thing just lately, providing no room for movement at all. Indeed, a friend of mine who recently went on one of my birthday Alton Towers trips commented that he had a serious issue with splitting his jeans.

Now I can’t really talk – some of my leather trousers are “slim fit” Chino style, and yeah it’s true. There’s very little give in the leather and they are indeed subcutaneous (and somewhat revealing!).

However, my first interest in leather trousers was piqued in the 80’s, the early 80’s. New romantic was the style. We had people like Paul Young wearing pleated front leather trousers on Top of the Pops and I fell in love with the style. I desperately wanted a pair, but as I’ve mentioned before, I was still growing and my parents rather wisely said no.

In the 90’s, even with the huge success of the TV show Bread where one of the main characters, Joey, pretty much existed in leather I bought my first pair of leather trousers. In the days before the internet was the huge phenomenon it is now, leather wear was hard to find so my first pair bought in the mid 90’s were jeans as it was all I could find.

Meanwhile, my leather journey continued and I passed through multiple pairs of jeans, each pair teaching me lessons about which leather I did and didn’t like. My third pair were my thick cow leather ones and they became a staple of my stage outfit for around 5 years.

I’d spent a few years keeping an eye out for a pair of pleated trousers, but my search had been fruitless, until one afternoon at work I was looking on eBay and I found a pair! Brand new, with tags. Of course I bid on them, and watched them, and WON THEM!

Later that day…

I’ve since worn them lots, although nowadays I’m a little slimmer and they’re far too baggy, but I still have them – almost 20 years later, and I’ve still worn them from time to time for my selfie photo shoots.

So I’ve come rather a long way, gone through many styles, but it has to be said for sheer comfort and wearability, nothing beats the movement given by a couple of front pleats in trousers. Whether worn on their own, with a nice sweater or as part of a full three piece suit, they’re still my favourites – and perhaps my next leather purchase ought to be a pair of pleated front leather trousers to replace my old rather worn out pair?

To wrap up, here’s a few