Text: Pau­li Määt­tä

Trans­la­ti­on: SIrk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

When I was in pri­ma­ry school, I got a pair of jodh­pur-type pants with side bags at the thigh. I had to wear them for school. It hap­pe­ned to be a very cold day, and we did not need to go out for bre­aks. I sat at my desk all day, hi­ding the bag­gy parts of the trou­ser legs un­der my hands, so no-one would see them. I was very fas­hi­on-cons­ci­ous at that age. Pants with bag­gy legs were not in fas­hi­on then.

The next time I put on bag­gy pants was 50 ye­ars la­ter. We have an old farm cot­ta­ge for a va­ca­ti­on home. I thought it would be fun and nos­tal­gic to walk around the me­a­dow dres­sed like an old-time far­mer in bag­gy pants, a flan­nel shirt, a ser­ge jac­ket and le­at­her boots with a hat on my head and a rake in my hand.

I have of­ten won­de­red about fas­hi­on. Why do pe­op­le want to be­ha­ve and dress in the same way? Is that due to a lack of self-es­teem or simp­ly to in­di­vi­du­als’ abi­li­ty and wil­ling­ness to adopt new things?

At le­ast there is an eco­no­mic as­pect to fas­hi­on. In the 1770s, af­ter the in­ven­ti­on and pa­ten­ting of the spin­ning jen­ny, it be­ca­me pos­sib­le to pro­du­ce lar­ge amounts of gar­ments very ra­pid­ly. No­wa­da­ys this ap­p­lies to most con­su­mer goods: as soon as so­met­hing is con­si­de­red fas­hi­o­nab­le, it is pro­du­ced in huge qu­an­ti­ties for con­su­mers all over the world. The whole pro­duc­ti­on chain en­jo­ys the be­ne­fit. When pe­op­le are no lon­ger in­te­res­ted in the pro­duct, it is rep­la­ced by a new fad.

Some tren­dy things are re­la­ted to ma­te­ri­al de­ve­lop­ment. Cars, for ins­tan­ce, are sold with more and more ac­ces­so­ries. Many of them seem use­less at first, but the users soon be­co­me ad­dic­ted to them. I would not buy a car wit­hout air con­di­ti­o­ning any more.

There was a time when strong co­lors were fas­hi­o­nab­le in in­te­ri­or de­co­ra­ti­on. Then there was a chan­ge, and de­sig­ners and spe­ci­a­list ma­ga­zi­nes be­gan to pro­mo­te a dif­fe­rent trend. I re­mem­ber we pain­ted all sur­fa­ces of our home white. That was in fas­hi­on for a fair­ly long time, but I do not know if white or light-co­lo­red sur­fa­ces are fas­hi­o­nab­le any more. Last ye­ar I pain­ted the wal­ls of one room in our home and proud­ly pre­sen­ted the out­co­me on our fa­mi­ly What­sApp. The com­ment was, ”You can’t be se­ri­ous!”

There are more things than bag­gy pants to fas­hi­o­nab­le dress and out­ward ap­pe­a­ran­ce. When I was yo­ung, so­me­o­ne de­ci­ded it was time save in the cost of hair­cuts. Yo­ung men let their hair grow to con­si­de­rab­le lengths. It was a glo­bal phe­no­me­non. I think pret­ty few guys had the self-as­su­ran­ce to keep their hair short.

I al­so re­mem­ber the bell-bot­tom pants. It was pro­bab­ly im­pos­sib­le to find trou­sers wit­hout legs as wide as sails. Then there was a time when it was per­fect­ly okay to wear patc­hed gar­ments. What about worn or torn gar­ments? It would be good for sus­tai­nab­le de­ve­lop­ment to patch worn-out gar­ments, and even when the patc­hes fall off, the clot­hes would still be usab­le. I would be re­al­ly tren­dy in this res­pect. But I cer­tain­ly can­not un­ders­tand that some pe­op­le tear brand new gar­ments. But ove­rall, the stran­gest fas­hi­on see­med to pre­vail a hund­red ye­ars ago. Ba­sed on pho­tog­raphs, fas­hi­o­nab­le clot­hes were so tight that pe­op­le could hard­ly bre­at­he.

A dif­fi­cult si­tu­a­ti­on may rise if a group on­ly ac­cepts new mem­bers ba­sed on tren­dy dress or be­ha­vi­or. Pe­op­le who can­not af­ford or do not want to act in a cer­tain way may be left out­si­de a group they would like to join.

Fas­hi­ons come and go. At one time eve­ry­bo­dy had a nail mat. We had one too. I used it a coup­le of ti­mes. We don’t have it any more. Ma­y­be it has been re­cyc­led. A coup­le of ye­ars ago just be­fo­re the pan­de­mic there was a hula hoop in eve­ry home. It was sup­po­sed to be a key to ove­rall men­tal and phy­si­cal wel­l­being. We were a bit late to buy this no­vel­ty and had to wait weeks to get one. Un­for­tu­na­te­ly, our hoop tur­ned out to be faul­ty. Though we tried and tried many ti­mes, it re­fu­sed to spin. It is still lying unu­sed in the cor­ner of the bed­room.

The world is al­so full of men­tal and in­tel­lec­tu­al trends and fads. Pe­op­le who are see­king wel­l­being, a pur­po­se for their life, or just en­ter­tain­ment will find more than enough ad­vi­ce and inst­ruc­ti­on. The me­dia are full of ide­as and va­lu­es that seem alien to a Chris­ti­an. And so is li­te­ra­tu­re. It is ea­sy for like-min­ded pe­op­le to gat­her around a cer­tain theme on so­ci­al me­dia.

Faith is not a mat­ter of fas­hi­on or no­vel­ty. This has been known for a long time. The Bib­le tel­ls us that be­lie­vers in the old ti­mes al­so had to bat­t­le against fal­se be­liefs and he­re­sies of many kinds.

We need the word of the Bib­le as well as ser­mons and texts ba­sed on the Bib­le to stay on the right road. It is com­for­ting so­me­ti­mes to lis­ten to old ser­mons. The spo­ken lan­gu­a­ge may be a bit dif­fe­rent, but the con­tent is the same as to­day. Old wri­tings al­so con­ti­nue to be to­pi­cal, alt­hough the world around us con­ti­nu­al­ly chan­ges. God’s word will stay fo­re­ver. It is enough for us to rely on it at all ti­mes.