The fashionistas and their sisters
will look at you and say
“What kind of twerp’ll
dress in purple – purple’s so passé?”
 
And they will turn their backs on you
or stare at you and frown
because you thought what they call ‘taupe’
is really nothing of the sort
but just a shade of brown
 
and there is simply no excuse,
when they’d describe their outfit ‘puce’,
for calling it instead dark pink
(although that might be what you think)
 
Beige has never been the rage (but ‘biscuit’ is okay)
and ‘pumice’ is the name today
for what we used to call light grey
in this year’s new enlightened way
on every catwalk stage
 
But when you’re looking through the rows
of all the new designer clothes
think, before you throw away
the stuff you bought just yesterday,
 
though pink may fill you with dismay
and puce is what you want today
that nice dark pink was what you chose
and ‘puce’ was Granny’s ‘Damask Rose’