Say it ain’t so.

Look, I get it. Fashion is cyclical. Everything old is new again. Ten years out of date—which is a startling percentage of my wardrobe—is frumpy, while at twenty years out, everything becomes fresh and fabulous again.

So Generation Z and everyone who remembers the early aughts, feel free to start wearing low-rise jeans, baby tees, butterfly clips in your hair, and gigantic logo-covered bags. Have fun! I’ve channeling my inner Paris Hilton by rocking my Murakami Louis Vuitton pieces for the past couple of years.

But. I followed a link on one of my old posts to Bloomingdale’s to see whether I could find a cute cardigan. I mean a real one, with buttons, not those always open numbers that appear to have taken over. I figured I’d try Ralph Lauren, as his is one of the last lines to feature the kind of normal clothes I had in mind. (And by “normal,” I of course mean classic, safe, preppy pieces that you can wear for twenty years.)

And what to my wondering eyes did appear but this.

STIRRUP PANTS. Are you fucking kidding me???

And do you see those flats? Please, please, Miss Long-Waisted, Pouty, Strangely-Monochromatic Court Jester, show us every inch of stirrup. Don’t pair your stirrup pants with boots. Leave nothing back. Get down with your bad self. Flaunt those partly covered ankles! 

But wait—weren’t stirrup pants a nineties thing? Or even earlier? Is my fashion trend calculation wrong? 

What. Is. Going. On. Here.

I was going to nominate Ralph Lauren for Normcore Designer of the year, but now he’s getting the nod for Time Travel Sleep Paralysis Demon.