Don't Fashion

There is a great argument in my mind the past few days about fashion. I've never considered myself fashionable, but I would say that there are a few trends I've followed in my life. It started with Hypercolors in the seventh grade and has continued on through messenger bags and adopting some of the more typical Richmond, Va. summer trends. That is to say, I've never been very fashionable, but I've always seen those things that I like and adopted them.

The problem with this thought is that it isn't my own and will never be mine since I got it from 10,000 people. So, this thinking has cast a shadow over my attempt to "get into" fashion.

It all started when I wanted to change my summer style. That's what I kept calling it; my "Summer Style." I looked into getting new shorts--with nothing greater than a 7" inseam--and I had picked out several pairs of shoes I wanted. That was easy. I pride myself on my shoe whoring and a good pair of shorts are a fairly simple find. The problem lay with shirts. Do I go with V-neck shirts, a tidbit several of my friends were picking up? Do I go with thrift store finds? Or do I go with those perfectly faded Urban Outfitter shirts? Not to build it up too much, but I chose none of the above. I chose hawaiian. Yes, those great shirts that no one other than 55 year old, upper-class assholes still wear. I figured I can't go wrong. I am not only going in my own direction for once, but I have something that when matched with my 5" inseam shorts and my burly mustache, it gives me a certain Tom Selleck meets Richard Dreyfuss look. Sold!

So, I finally got my toes wet. I may have had a few friends laugh at me, but hey, it was worth it. I felt like the very embodiment of summer. It was a mental vacation. The kind I didn't even know I needed until it was already here. Everyday affairs like riding my bike became miniature holidays. My walk slowed. My mind seemed to empty a little more often, not filling with the same tired ideas and worries. I spent time just thinking about how nice Tahiti must be and what a great day for porching it was. I was in no rush and there was nothing on this earth to change that. Great. Good. I want more.

Fall and winter fashion is a a phrase that two years ago I would have looked down on ANYONE for writing as an opening to a paragraph. Now, it has become a bit of a quandary to me. It still makes me recoil a little, but now I'm also curious about it; circling it and sniffing at it like a cat who has seen its first real mouse. Now I'm interested. This all started with my roommate and fellow poster telling me about another blog that posted about fashion and they had a whole argument on the proper lengths of shorts for men. Needless to say, I was intruigued. I looked up the blog and it was filled with people who either had designer label fashion down to a science or people who were far more interesting. They had their very own fashion; different from other people on the page and much different from people I had seen. It was amazing to me. It was like discovering a new artist or a new genre of music that had somehow never reached my ears. Granted, it was something that I had never gone looking for before now. Fashion had always seemed almost like a surface level explosion of self-importance and/or self-conscienceness to me. It had taken new shape in my mind though these last few months as not a mental deformity turned physical, but rather as a way for a person to assert themselves and, in a way, to create their own form of art.

As of now, I've been looking at everything from Calvin Klein to J. Crew to Brooks Brothers--all three of which I would rather have been beaten by a mob of perturbed stock brokers two years ago rather than wear their clothes. I still see all these individual companies and the style they sell to be nothing spectacular, but there are bits and pieces scattered here and there that are worth trying out.

I can't say that I'm still that comfortable with the idea of spending a lot of my money on fashion. But you know what? A J. Crew washed-out white button up still looks good with a Uniqlo cashmere sweater and a Ben Sherman blazer.