Zeitgeist: Swishy Trousers, Existential Dread
Cinema, books, and fashion as spring briefly appears, then disappears again
With spring teasing us with her presence, it’s been a season of retreating indoors. Cinema, reading, and the early beginnings of thinking about summer and what lies beyond, fashion-wise.
My last post, campaigning against the onslaught of greige fashion, received a warm response. Particularly an appreciative nod towards Sharpened Lead’s slightly feistier origins. Noted. I’ll make space for the occasional rant, though the gushing isn’t going anywhere.
The Stranger
Starting a post about The Stranger, or L’Étranger, by commenting on how dashing Meursault, played by Benjamin Voisin, looks in his perfect 1940s pleated trousers, a boxy short-sleeved shirt, linen suiting (yes, even that), and a precisely placed period wristwatch feels, admittedly, a little gauche given the seriousness of the material.
But still.
Shot in luminous black and white, François Ozon’s adaptation honours The Stranger’s existential weight while bringing in a distinctly 2026 awareness of colonialism and its aftermath.
If you’re anything like me, reading L’Étranger was one of those teenage rites of passage, read somewhere between On the Road and whatever else your subcultural heroes insisted mattered. Less felt than intellectually admired at the time.
This version lands differently. It’s long, just over two hours, beautifully acted, and set against a stunning pre-independence Algerian backdrop. More than anything, it hits harder. The emotional weight, something I don’t recall fully registering as a teenager, lingers.
Fittingly, the film ends with The Cure’s Killing an Arab, a title that feels even more jarring now than it probably should.
The search for perfect Pleated trousers
Which brings me neatly back to those pleated trousers.
I’ve got my heavy flannel winter pair sorted, a post on those soon, but I’m still hunting for the ideal swishy summer version. Likely second-hand/vintage, though I’m very tempted by a made-to-measure high-waisted pair from local legend Scott Fraser or something from Husbands Paris.
In the meantime, Percival’s Lyocell option (above) looks like a strong interim solution.
Spring reads
The book stack continues to grow at an unreasonable rate.
I’m halfway through The Dog Stars, the post-apocalyptic read that is this month’s Boys Book Club pick (live event next week), now also now a major film starring Jacob Elordi.
Also newly added, Lázaro by the super-young Hungarian author Nelio Biedermann whose childhood summers were spent exploring castles once owned by his family, former jewellers to the aristocracy. Described as historical fiction with real sweep, it’s already been a bestseller in Germany. Promising.
Also on the list, Playworld by Adam Ross, this year’s Christopher Isherwood Prize winner, a coming of age story set in 1980s New York that feels utterly locked into its time and place, following that familiar but still compelling arc of youth tipping into something more complicated. Especially in that location.
And, via Disneyrollergirl, The Wonderful World That Almost Was, tracing the friendship turned romance between Paul Thek and Peter Hujar in 1960s New York, and its afterlife beyond. It promises that particular mix of downtown New York art world, intimacy, and myth making that’s hard to resist, especially as that whole Fire Island and Warhol orbit continues to be endlessly strip mined for inspiration.
Throwing Fits: Nick Wooster
The Throwing Fits podcast episode with Nick Wooster was an unexpected delight.
I’d braced for the usual insular New York menswear discourse, but what emerged was something far campier and far more entertaining. Alongside a forensic breakdown of Wooster’s wardrobe, and his LA walk in storage situation, the conversation veers into increasingly hilarious territory. Hookup app success rates by country, the particular fetishes his persona seems to attract, and reflections on coming out.
Unexpectedly queer-friendly, and also a reminder of the sheer scale, financial and otherwise, of American fashion ambition.
Dries creeping in
Those Dries Van Noten satin quilted trainers are suddenly everywhere.
I’ve spotted the low-profile style recently on Harry Lambert, aka Harry Styles’s stylist, and Jeremy Langmead, now firmly back at the editorial helm at Mr Porter.
They’re squishy, super-low profile, and quietly subversive. A far more wearable alternative to much-discussed ballet flats for men or even the ruched The Row-adjacent loafer moment.
Further proof that DVN has slipped into true IYKYK territory, less hype, more inevitability.
Auralee in the flesh
Fashion PR open day season is upon us, and the standout for me so far is Auralee.
Seeing it in person is a different experience entirely. The palette, with those almost 90’s Microsoft software tones, feels pitch perfect, and the fabrics remain irresistibly tactile.
A thick fleece lined MA 1 and a blue leather bomber stood out in particular. Pieces that quietly insist on being touched.
Spring, in theory. The trousers are ready, at least.
I want those trousers, but fuller in the leg, and ultra petite for my 5'2 frame. (I tried looking up vintage cricket trousers with no luck lol) Will cue up the Throwing Fits episode. I usually can't bear TFs but will go on your recommendation!