MY BRIAN JONES'S DARK YELLOW CORDUROY JACKET

Many, many years ago, when I was a teenager; I bought a jacket. It was a dark yellow corduroy jacket and I was about seventeen years old. One day I saw a picture of the Rolling Stones on a magazin in which Brian Jones wore a dark yellow corduroy jacket.  "That is a jacket I like", I thought. After that I always wanted to wear a jacket like that. And one day my father saw beautiful corduroy jackets on display and on sale at a downtown clothing store in our provincial town. The owner of the store was a friend of his and he thought it would be a good idea to buy one of those jackets as corduroy was becoming the fashion in those days. He asked my older brother and I if we would want to buy a jacket too. “Well,” I said, “Let me see those jackets first. I'll walk by that clothing store and check what they have on the shop window." So, next day I was walking by the street where the clothing store was and lo and behold, the corduroy jackets were there in full display on the shop window, but what really got me thrilled was a dark yellow corduroy jacket that looked almost exactly like the one Brian Jones wore in that Rolling Stone’s picture. “Yeah! I like that jacket; I’ll tell my father to buy it for me." So my father and I went to the store on Saturday afternoon and after trying on several Brian Jones’s style, I ended up finding the one that fitted me perfectly. I couldn’t even wait to arrive home to put it on. I left the store wearing my good-looking jacket, and I felt my fantasy was coming true.

I wore that dark yellow corduroy jacket everywhere. I wore it in church; at the youth club, in the dancing halls. I felt very proud with my Brian Jones’ jacket everywhere I went. And the thing is I wore that jacket  three winters on a raw. It was a time—they were the sixties— when apparently young people began to feel free about dressing the way they like it, which was just a mirage: young people have never escaped from the tyranny of fashion. I knew it wasn’t the normal jacket I was supposed to wear in a provincial town, but I made myself the commitment of wearing those clothes I felt happy with regardless what other people thought about my jacket. My sense of personal integrity was very strong, even knowing that it was always a risk in a provincial town to show such disregard for conventionalism. I enjoyed my Brian Jones’ corduroy jacket until I felt tired of it. It was many years later, perhaps thirty years later when I realized what other people thought about my jacket.

Coming back from the United States after fourteen years living there, I started meeting old friends or acquaintances in town. And, oh surprise! I realized my elegant Brian Jones's dark yellow corduroy jacket was one of the few things some of these people could recall as an identity sign of my past as a teenager, even the ones I thought they were quite liberal and open minded at that time. Thirty years later some of them dared to confide me,—thinking that I was already mature enough to look back on time—and recall what a funny and silly jacket I wore. At a get together party some of those “good old friends” spent time recalling my yellow corduroy jacket as a weird eccentric taste; kind of ridiculous piece of clothe I wore which made them something to laugh at. All those supposed friends of mine were at that time struggling to stick to the normative fashion of the time as they were still doing. Being really free to dress as you liked took too much psychological pressure for young people in that provincial town in the past as well as in the present. Regardless how unusual or outrageous is the fashion of the moment, they must remind you this world is a world of enforced uniformity.

Looking back at those times I felt proud of myself for being able to wear my Brian Jones’ yellow corduroy jacket as long as I damn well like it. But thinking things over I also realized how easy is to become the target of prejudice, or if somehow it wasn't a stupidity by my part not being aware that my good-looking jacket served as a pretext for provincial jerks to laugh at my back. I guess we all shared our part of the prevalent stupidity.