David Gordon Smith rues the day he got his trousers taken in.

I like to think that, besides any dubious entertainment value this column might provide, it also fulfils an educational purpose at times. After all, that's why we bothered to invent writing all those thousands of years ago, so that we wouldn't be condemned to repeat each others' mistakes ad infinitum. And mistakes, well, Lord knows I've made a few. So let me, dear reader, tell you a cautionary tale in the hope you will avoid falling into the same trap as I did.

I know Expatica readers are very busy people, what with your high-level jobs in international finance and everything, so let me give you the executive summary of this column straight away. And that is: let sleeping suits lie.

Should this moral seem cryptic at first, let me explain a little more. Back in 2002, when I was, for once in my life, feeling quite flush and had been invited to give a seminar in Frankfurt, I decided to buy a nice suit. And so I headed over to Peek and Cloppenburg in west Berlin (I always leave my home in the east when I need anything posh) and bought a suit for the princely sum of EUR 400. Which might not seem very much in the grand scheme of suits (and certainly not to the international bankers among you!) but it was unquestionably the most I had ever spent on two items of clothing.

I was helped in the selection process by an elderly, very dapper Hungarian émigré with a huge, tobacco-stained moustache, who was in charge of that section of menswear. I remember asking, in my considerable naiveté, if I should leave on the little tag on the sleeve that said Joop (I'll spare you the gratuitous exclamation mark). He gave me a pained look and said "bitte nicht" ("please don't"). You just can't get the customers these days, it seems.

This was an unusual time in my life for another reason. Apart from having money and a seminar invitation in my pocket, I was thin. Remembering this, now that I work at home and spend most of my time sitting on my posterior, when I'm not waddling over to the kitchen for snacks, seems like remembering another life from long ago. For a variety of reasons, possibly relating to (and I know this may sound far-fetched) eating less and moving around more, I had been losing weight for a few months prior to purchasing my suit.

Anyway, I started wearing my new Nice Suit on a regular basis. And miraculously, the ounces, if not pounds, kept slipping off. As a result, the suit trousers got looser and looser around the waist.

At this point I had a brainwave. Why not get the trousers taken in, I thought. Then they will fit properly, and, as an added bonus, it will be an incentive for me to keep trim, seeing as I spent all this money on this Nice Suit and I will want to be able to fit into it. (At this point, dear reader, you are probably screaming "noooooo" in slow motion like a person in a film witnessing a car crash. And you are right.)

Well, I'm sure you've guessed already what happened. I got the trousers taken in (I went back to Peek and Cloppenburg and got their alterations service to do it, paying over the odds but thinking, hey, it's my Nice Suit, it's worth getting it done properly). And then, inevitably, those pounds I had lost turned up again like so many prodigal sons, except with me as the calf that was being fattened up, and decided they wanted to stick around after all. For ever.

Before long I had to admit that my podgy frame no longer fitted into my Nice Suit. And I also had to eventually concede that there was little chance of said frame ever fitting into said suit again.

I bit the bullet and went to get my trousers taken out again (at my local alterations place this time, rather than P&C), which is, in terms of the humiliation factor, an experience comparable to going to the doctor to get your haemorrhoids treated ("How can I help you, sir?" "Well, the problem is, I am too fat for my clothes.").

To make matters worse, the trousers were still a bit too tight after I got them taken out. As is my wont, I tried to ignore the problem as long as I could, hoping it would go away by itself, but eventually had to concede I would have to get them altered again. I went to a third alterations place (too embarrassed to go back to either of the other shops again) and asked them to take out the trousers again. As far as they would go.

This time, thankfully, they were big enough to fit into. But it will probably come as no surprise to you that getting my trousers altered three times has done nothing to improve their cut. Also, they are still a bit too tight around the thigh region, which I like to think is due to my short-lived jogging phase of a few months ago, but you are free to make up your own mind as to whether my thighs are muscular or merely fat. (I bet you didn't think you'd be reading a discussion about the size of my thighs in Editor's Diary, did you?)

Of course, being the fretter that I am, I had to keep worrying about the tight thigh problem, checking my appearance in the mirror to see if the material looked too stretched in the upper-leg region and expecting the trousers to split at any moment. So the other day, when I went to get my suit dry cleaned, I asked the woman if it would be possible to (you guessed it) get the legs taken out a bit more.

She took a cursory look at the inside of the leg and saw that the trousers were already extended to within less than an inch of their life. She shook her head at the futility of it all. No chance, she said.

So now I have to accept that the trousers will have to stay the way they are. And believe me, I have learned my lesson. And, like the Ancient Mariner, I come to warn you: Don't get nice clothes altered unnecessarily! If your trousers are too loose, wear a belt!

In return for this important lesson in life, I ask for only one thing. The next time you see me at some expat-related event wearing a charcoal-grey suit, please don't point at my legs and shout "lardy thighs!" Otherwise I'll have to stop wearing the damn thing altogether.

30 October 2006

David Gordon Smith
Editor-in-chief
Expatica Germany
www.expatica.com/germany
david.gordon.smith@expatica.com

Letters to the editor may be published on Expatica in edited form; please indicate if you don't wish your letter to be published. I very much appreciate all the emails I receive but am not always able to reply individually to readers due to time constraints.