Any ZZ Top fan can tell you that every girl’s crazy about a sharp dressed man. Yet, the definition of a sharp-dressed man is constantly changing.

As I write this, I am wearing a T-shirt and shorts, the staples of my wardrobe for the past 19 years. In those 19 years, I have never been affected by a fashion trend. (After seeing “There’s Something About Mary,” however, I’m giving button- fly jeans another look).

Yes, I made it through elementary school without smurfs underwear, I never owned a pair of Zubaz in middle school and I still couldn’t tell you what the inside of a GAP or Ambercrombie and Fitch store looks like.

Yes, I even live 5 minutes from the Mall of America, and the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought there is a meal at Hooters (you gotta love that food!).

Yet, this immunity to what is “hip” gives me the unique ability to analyze fashion from an outsider’s view and fill you in as to how silly clothes today really are.

Let’s begin our study with a look into the world of pants.

For a while people were wearing pants that fit. You had a 34-inch waist? You bought a 34-inch pair of pants. Very simple.

That all changed a little while back, probably when some jeans company screwed up an order and wound up with a zillion pairs of insanely large pants.

Through slick marketing, they were able to turn this disaster into a gold mine. They convinced us silly consumers that huge pants are a hip necessity.

Because of this, many people now, when purchasing pants, worry about so many intangibles. They think to themselves, “I better make sure I can fit a refrigerator in these pants.”

While it is nice to be ready for such an emergency, they forget that pants with a 98-inch waist look absolutely ridiculous.

After the success of these appliance-sized pants, designers decided to outdo themselves. Soon, cargo pants were invented, as in “imagine how much cargo you can hold in these things.”

You could fit a small country in the amount of pocket space these pants have.

And when they were made, the people knew nobody could actually fit in them, so they put those nice little handles on the side to hold them up. Sorry, but I’ll take my generic shorts any day.

Yet this is all part of the latest trend, which is to take a normal piece of clothing and make it look absolutely absurd. Knowing that we as consumers are mindless puppets, I think the designers all got together to play a fun little game with us. They all made a bet to see who could sell the ugliest clothes.

Leading the way in this slick little game would have to be Tommy Hilfiger. Some of the clothes he makes are undeniably stupid looking. Unfortunately, once people see the Tommy name, they just assume it looks good. This is a big mistake.

Before that joker came along, nobody would have dreamed of buying a pair of pants with red stripes running down the side or a nice shirt with big red and white squares on the back. Why? Because they look stupid.

But nobody cares how they look as long as they’re sporting the Tommy name. This is the only reason anyone would by one of those big puffy yellow parkas that basically make people look like snowmen the dog mistook for a urinal cake. I bet that man could take a dump on an orange pair of three-legged jeans and still sell millions of them at $130 a piece.

So fashion today is all screwed up. That’s why, in search of fashion sanity, I look toward the future. Unfortunately, when I see the models strutting down the runway, I see no ray of light. If those folks are supposed to be an indication of up- coming fashion, we’re all screwed.

Judging by the runway, “less is more” seems to be the fashion slogan of the future. That’s right everybody, it’s time to get naked! From the bits and pieces of fashion shows I’ve seen, the models’ “clothes” consist primarily of itsy-bitsy thingies stuck to their not-so-itsy-bitsy thingies. Imagine what could happen when this sort of thing hits the mainstream, or even worse:

“Julie, what are you running around naked for!?”

“Naked? No, no, I’m just wearing the latest trend. It’s a ‘Birthday Suit’ by Tommy Hilfiger.”

“But you’re not wearing any clothes.”

“Sure I am. Don’t you see the Tommy logo tattooed on my ass?”

Yes, I fear that I may one day be the only clothed man in a naked world. On an unrelated final note, I’d like to thank the DPS for not beating the snot out of us after Saturday’s game.

Also, so that we are all prepared for those pesky new goal posts this week, I’d like to let you all know that you can pick up a cheap blow torch for around 10 bucks at the hardware store.

Go Cyclones!

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Peter Borchers is a sophomore in advertising from Bloomington, Minn. [email protected].