Bernard O'Shea: Here's my foolproof hack to making jeans fit perfectly

Bernard O'Shea: I I once got caught trying on a pair of skinny jeans in a trendy designer store.

Sometimes the clothes do not fit or make the man.

I rummaged inside my wardrobe, pulling out the same jumpers, jackets, and trousers I’d been looking at for the last five years. I can’t throw them out. I still think that a day will come when I’ll fit into them. I own blazers that have seen at least four rounds of fashion cycles. I have hoarded trousers that have a 32-inch waist. To put that into perspective, the last time I fit into a 32-inch waist was in 2013.

The same goes for my shirt rail. Some have the hallmarks of certain trend epochs. I pulled out a nice white shirt and thought, “Why don’t I wear this anymore?” I laughed as I looked at the tag “slim fit.” When was the last time I was a “slim fit”? I found it hard to imagine that I once had a low BMI score to fit into a slim fit.

For the last few years, I’ve noticed a trend in male fashion. Some of the high street stores don’t have anything that fits me. It's almost that unless I have a six-pack and zero percent body fat, nothing in some high street store will do me. The skinny jeans craze, for instance, ultimately passed me by.

Even when I was a decent weight, they didn’t fit me. I once got caught trying on a pair in a trendy designer store. Unable to get them off me, I had to ring my then-girlfriend now-wife to aid me in delivering them off my big hairy culchie legs. Eventually, I got them off only to realize that I had made the only pair of loose-fit jeans the shop sold. I sheepishly put them back on the rack, but the staff knew. It doesn’t take forty-five minutes to try on jeans.

I’ve no issue with high street brands identifying a targeted market based on age and size. If that’s what works for them and how they generate profit, that’s their business. I have free will; I don’t have to give them my money. I’m wondering about the niche market they have left out. Me. On a recent rare visit to a very well-known high street retailer, not one item except for their hats fitted me.

I’ve bought this brand for twenty years. Surely they could stock a few XXL polo shirts on the shelf. When I asked the friendly store assistant, he told me, “Eh, I think XL is the biggest size it goes up to. I can check in the back if you want” I thanked him and told him it was all right. I knew what was in the back. There were no answers in the “back". There are no answers for a load of worn-out 90s lads like me, aimlessly wandering through shopping centres at the weekend thinking should they throw out their extensive cd collection and what time Match of Day starts that night. Time is cruel, but waistlines are crueller.

Bernard O'Shea. Photograph Moya Nolan

Over the last two years, I've ordered most of my clothes online. The problem arises when you have to send items back. Regardless of how efficient different retailers are with this online tennis match, it’s a pain in the butt. There is an answer—the metaverse.

At first glance, the metaverse is all about NFTs, online gaming, and avatars. But one thing is sure in time; we will be more immersed in the metaverse to get our dopamine retail therapy kicks. Essentially the metaverse is the shifting of the current online world-shifting virtual world. You can inhabit it with an avatar. A digital representation of yourself. This might sound like a bizarre jump from pulverizing a pair of skinny jeans to talking about virtual reality but think about this.

Say I walk into a jeans store in the metaverse. I’ve my avatar designed to the exact dimensions of the Bernard, who’s sitting on his couch wearing a virtual headset. I’m looking around the store to see all the goods and staff. I ask to try on a pair of 38’ 32’ jeans. I am looking in the mirror, and they fit my avatar perfectly. I walk up to the till and pay for them. Then I take off my headset and return to my typical day. My jeans arrive two days later, and because I've tried them on in the metaverse, they fit me perfectly.

But while we're waiting in line for the metaverse experience, there is one more straightforward method I picked up to make your tight jeans fit you again, and it doesn’t involve a keto diet or HIT training.

The old tried and tested way was to submerge them in warm water and put them on. This, however, is a very messy ordeal and can result in your kids screaming, “Daddy wet his pants”, as you try to peel them off your legs. I may or may not have tried this method. It does work if you can stomach either walking around in wet jeans or have the time to sit in the bath wearing them for an hour.

It involves a much more manageable, drier, and more straightforward method. Last week we were heading out for a birthday dinner, and on cue, my three-year-old decided that he needed to smash a banana across the arse pockets of my tight denim. I tried to wipe it clean with a wet cloth, but I had to take them off and run them under the tap.

I’ve dried things before in the microwave, so I folded them and put them in for 60 seconds. When I put them back on, they were stretchy, and the waist fitted me not so much like a glove but like a pair of good GAA shorts from the 80s, not the ones that go straight up your arse but park outside it.

The only caveat was that I smelled of microwave popcorn for the day. So if you are trying to make those old jeans fit again, check what was in the microwave prior. Luckily for me, it wasn’t buttered popcorn. That is barred in the house as it took weeks for the smell to go away. That is most definitely another story.