You’d dress your child in that?

 

I often wonder what people are thinking when they leave their house in the morning. I mean… geez… at some point these people we are looking at with disbelief either said or thought something close to the following:

“Oh yes, that’s what I wanted. That looks good.”

In other words, that person you’re looking at actually dressed that way… fixed their hair that way… teeth, makeup, shoes, and everything else involved that way… on purpose!

I suppose there’s no accounting for taste. That would be a simple explanation. After all, there are people that let children wear a New York Yankees t-shirt. And not just in private. Not when doing sweaty, dirty, wear your junk clothes because they’re going to be destroyed by this work. They wear these Yankees t-shirts in public. So perhaps this is well beyond understandable thought and sound decision making. Still…

The fundamentals of the thought are… they intentionally dressed that way. Where it gets frightening is when you realize they didn’t just make their choices and believe they did so without an error. No. The truly alarming part is that they feel the look they had when they opened the door and stepped outside was the look they wanted.

Are you kidding me?

Hey… look… I’m not asking for full on conformity or formality.

Jeans and a t-shirt are the foundation upon which I build my reliable everyday image. And sure, I get that it’s an amazingly boring approach.

I still comb my hair the way I did about thirty years ago. Might be forty. I long ago gave up on fads and trends and the latest. None of that worked for me. (And the not working wasn’t even close to working.) About the only things that have changed over the years are the number of grey hairs and the idea that it’s a bit shorter (and gets cut slightly more often).

There is no way I’ll apologize for that though.

Not when stylish is something I don’t understand… beginning with the idea that tucking in the front of a t-shirt while leaving the rest hanging out is apparently cool. (To me it looks lazy. As if you thought leaving it untucked looked wrong, but couldn’t be bothered to invest the energy to fully tuck it in.)

Not when stylish is something I don’t understand… continuing with the idea that today’s suits appear to be judged perfectly fitted when one or two sizes too small.

I’ll stick with jeans and t-shirts.

And yet that still beats some of the ideas I see intentionally displayed on the street, in restaurants and stores, and… where it gets really funny… in places of business and more formal settings.

There are certain social moments when we make the jokes that letting yourself go is acceptable behavior. One such moment is after you get married, when being attractive to appeal to a potential partner is no longer important. Another is arriving home after a long day, thrilled to find some pajamas, when comfort and television is the goal.

I’ve found where you live and what you do can influence your decisions as well. There are differences between working outside or doing physical things for a living as opposed to commuting with others in close quarters and setting up shop at a desk all day.

But those aren’t the decisions that make me laugh, make me shake my head, or make me realize that we are in fact all quite unique snowflakes at heart.

And maybe that’s just it. The unique snowflake part. Because often when you see those walking fashion question marks, a good portion of it features items and decisions that go to one extreme or the other… either caring too much or caring too little.

At least I hope that’s it. Because the alternative is they really do think they look good.


If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me at Bob@inmybackpack.com