ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-07-25)
Last month was Fashion Day, and I celebrated by wearing clothes. I've never been much of a clothes horse. A horse looks great in just about anything. I'd be more of a clothes shar Pei, because I'm tall but not fat, and people who design clothes assume that large means large all over. So clothes hang on me like a wrinkly dog. I sometimes feel I should just wear the shirt with the hanger still attached.
And yet nothing is more fluid and ethereal than fashion. What exactly are this year's styles? There used to be a television show where you could watch slinky models sashay down the runway, walking a slalom as if they had to avoid traffic cones on either side of their hips, with a look on their faces that said, "Oh, you again," but what they really meant was, "I don't suppose you have an extra Kit Kat bar, do you?" And then, as you were taking in the designs, which might have been what looked like an over-the-shoulder bath mat, or like a mass of feathers with two human legs sticking out the bottom as if a covey of ring-necked pheasants landed on someone who didn't notice it, just as you were getting used to all these good-looking women parading around in a promenade, an old woman flashed onto the screen to explain why all of this was "important," and her name was Elsa Klensch, and darned if that wasn't my exact involuntary reaction.
I think if you have a "look" that's worked well for you over the years, you should stick with it, regardless of the current trend. I've always worn cowboy boots, even though I would never wear any other type of wrangling gear, such as a ten-gallon hat or one of those bolo ties that looks like it could get caught in my coffee maker. By the way, if you're looking for a cowboy hat in Europe, it would be 37.85 liters.
Everyone has had a fashion moment they are not proud of, and you can only hope that nobody took pictures of it. These days, people selfie just about every waking moment of their lives, so be expecting more and more moments of future reckoning. Years from now that selfie at the zoo might be hard on your kids' eyes. "Mom, Crocs with socks?" "Hey, what about the zebra? Vertical stripes? Come on." If you wore a "fascinator" to the Queen's ball, you ran the risk of being less fascinating then it by comparison. If you were invited to the Met Gala and showed up in a baseball hat and team jersey, you may have misunderstood the premise completely.
Sometimes you're complicit in a fad without even knowing it. "You're not going out like that, are you?" My wife says. "You mean, personality-wise?" "Those pants are ripped." "Are you sure you weren't looking at my muscles? I can't see the rip, it's in my blind spot." And yet, there was a time when teens would pay extra to purchase jeans ripped in strategic places, places where jeans would never have ripped if it was their own idea.
Halloween is the perfect time to see what works on you. Maybe you want to see how you might look in a pirate hat, or lederhosen, or with a tail, or as a gladiator. All looks that are on the way back in, if you're willing to wait long enough.
We haven't even touched on accessories. To me an accessory means someone who can drive a getaway car after the fact. On the other hand, I could really use a purse, because I have three or four different pairs of glasses, depending on how important it is that I read something correctly. Plus, I'd prefer to conceal the fact that I have concealer. Barbie came with all sorts of accessories, why can't I? I'd look just as good in a pink Corvette as she does, maybe better.
There used to be dress codes, at least before the advent of covid-19. "Business casual" meant something. And now, "business casual" is essentially the same as "nudist colony formal." Today, if you see someone in a suit and tie coming toward you, just drop everything and run. They're either holding an insurance policy application or a subpoena.
Even uniforms are starting to become extinct. And maybe that's okay. I can understand a soldier wearing a uniform, so that he knows not to shoot at a guy in the same outfit, especially from the same outfit. But does a bellboy need a full get-up with brass buttons and epaulets, even if nobody is shooting at him? Question: which one of these is of higher rank: bell captain or major disappointment? Some uniforms are downright impractical. A chef's costume, with that wacky hat that ironically resembles a badly cooked souffle, is something that could inadvertently catch on fire and then set off the sprinkler system, in rapid succession. Why do superheroes have capes, when they could easily get caught in the car door and ruin your entrance by cutting off the blood supply to your neck?
I have to go now, the fall collection is out, just in time for spring.
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