Friday 7 October 2011

A leather jacket


A leather jacket, bought from Johnson’s, on the King’s Road, in 1991.

Why you should never go shopping with a bad hangover: part two.

Bought on the same day as the sunglasses, under the influence of the same hangover (port-induced). The sunglasses were at least a size too small, the jacket at least a size too big. The one thing you don’t want a leather jacket to be is too big; spindly + big leather = never a good look.

I hang onto it in the belief that when my son says, “Daddy, can I have a leather jacket?” I’ll show him this, and he’ll gaze with jaw-dropped awe, mumbling “Woah, cool...” or something like that. In fact, it will probably be “WTF?”  

But what interests me now is the failure (and reconstitution) of memory. I remember buying the jacket on the same July day as the sunglasses. But who would buy - and then wear - such a heavy jacket in July? Did I really buy it then? I don’t actually remember buying it from Johnson’s, but I ‘know’ I did. I remember sitting on the tube platform sweating and feeling so queasy I had to go back up to the street. And then what...?

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