Short-pants for ladies

I had never seen anyone wearing something so absurd as what looked to be a fat man’s pair of woolen trousers cut off at the knees to serve as ersatz formal shorts. That is until yesterday, when I saw no fewer than six women wearing the embarrassing garment I’ve since been told are “gauchos.” That they are a hideous and soon-to-disappear fashion trend along the lines of Ugg boots goes without saying. But how is it that the gauncho sentiment could be invisible and then all of a sudden be beyond the tipping point all in one day? Were the marching orders for these women beamed out over the weekend on some scrambled channel that sane people can’t recognize or hear, a kind of dog whistle for fashion victims? How was this orchestrated? Obviously it has been an organized conspiracy that was going on for some time. For all I know, women could show up on Fifth Avenue all wearing tinfoil hats. I wouldn’t be all that surprised.