Clothes II

I learned years ago that if you read 24 consecutive issues of GQ or Esquire, you'll absorb pretty much everything they have to say or will ever have to say.

The classic navy blazer is part of the foundation of a man's wardrobe blah blah blah. Chinos were popularized by GIs returning home from WWII blah blah blah. English suits are blah blah blah, but Italian suits are blah blah blah. The classic rep tie is blah blah blah for any blah blah blah. The Duke of Windsor blah blah blah. Your cummerbund should be worn blah blah blah your symphony tickets blah blah blah. Only a blah blah blah would wear a button down shirt with blah blah blah. Lightweight worsted wool is blah blah blah. Your martini should be stirred, blah blah blah Bond, James Bond blah blah blah.

(I think James Bond is the single most-frequently referred to fictional character in men's fashion magazines. And when they talk about James Bond, they mean Sean Connery as James Bond. There is still no other.)

I thumbed through one of the magazines -- I couldn't tell you which -- at Borders yesterday afternoon.

Blah blah blah.

I can see now that my fascination with clothes back in the eighties and early nineties was in part a way to try to buy an identity for myself because I didn't think I had come with one pre-installed.

Maybe I didn't, but now that's okay. The sage neither seeks attention nor avoids it. Having no identity simplifies life enormously, and simple is always better.

But at work, where I am about the only guy in the building who doesn't wear suits or even ties to the office, I think my non-business business dress draws attention. It has become a manifestation of ego. And as I've written before, the way I see ego now is that it's just more clutter in my life.

But I don't like dress clothes anymore. Too expensive. Too uncomfortable. Too high-maintenance. Too boring.

And yet.

And yet it seems like it is time to begin dressing to not draw attention. Neither overly natty, nor assertively counter-culture. Bland, frankly.

Further complicating the issue is that I do not have the physique of Sean Connery as James Bond. I have the physique of Edgar Buchanan as Uncle Joe on "Petticoat Junction." My own fault: I am a sloth. But I'm an off-the-rack 48R, up from a 42L in my twenties, and nothing I buy is going to make me not look like an overweight middle-aged man.

I do not want to look like a copier salesman. But I'm too penguin-shaped for the clothes I'd like to wear.

On the other hand...

The Sartorialist's Blog