Or so the song goes. When a person gets dressed and doesn’t think about it, how many decisions is he actually making based on knowledge picked up from his environment; knowledge he may not be aware of? Worse yet, what if he thinks he knows a little about the clothes and does not. When we read literature and the character is concerned with an item of clothes, are we to believe that it’s the author’s own interest, an interest that the common reader/man should associate with or is it indicative of the character being special, flawed, troubled or self absorbed? When you read a line in a book, like “He took out of the box his new white silk shirt, with the straight collar, placed on his back the navy gabardine suit he had carefully set out on the bed and stepping in front of the mirror carefully tied the small navy bowtie with white dots” is the audience to believe this is a normal man, a pimp, someone who spends all his money on clothes and is one step in front of his bills? Is this a laundry list the author just bought or would like to buy? Surely the average man doesn't wear a silk shirt during the day?


Men put themselves in clothing all the time and so do women. What’s the difference? Women can freely admit their mission, men cannot. A woman can admit she is dressing to show off her figure, attract men, and look more powerful, more valuable. A man, who talks about this more than once in the same week, is a Metro sexual, and that’s in NYC. If you are in Jacksonville, god help you. But he won’t, his only son could’ve cared less about clothes, but I digress.

What happened to men in the United States? The clothes they buy are meant to say something, but no one can talk about it? How did that happen? Is there any denying that clothes can be expensive, so if you want to look good why do you have to hold your breath throughout the entire process? Just shut up, hand over your charge card and expect to come out looking good? Maybe there was a social contract once upon a time when a man could rely on the places he bought clothes to put him in proper things

Also have we destroyed individuality here? If you don’t know what the choices are and let someone else pick them for you, how can you not look like everyone else? Think about, the average man is sitting around wanting to look a little different, doesn’t know thing one about clothes, then he sees an ad of an item and it clicks as resolutely “him”, he indulges in the advertiser’s dream, that the ad is just for him, seen only by him. In stealth, he races to the nearest stockist only to find that it is sold out because every other guy living his lie has already gotten there. But if sir will only consider taking the brown one… I suppose it makes it worse if you consider the ad writer might’ve looked like Jack Black in a pair of baggy jeans and a ripe smelling, cheesy logoed tee.  I once saw an older guy on the train looking over copies of ads with beautiful carefree girls in them trying to sell stuff to men. He himself had his belly hanging out of his shirt and mustard and sauerkraut on his tie from the 3rd dog he was currently victimizing. That’s caveat emptor to the nth degree.

When you put on clothes, who are you trying to be? Do you think about it at all? Would you admit it, or is this like air guitar; often performed, rarely admitted but everyone knows they do it? DO you dress for the girls, for power, for prosperity, for piety, for stoicism, because you’re anal, a bully, a fop, an overgrown slob? Do you dress like an attorney because you are one? Is there a way they have to dress, or do you break the mold; and if so, do you do it more tastefully, or less so? Do your co-workers notice your clothes, do you want them too? What messages are you sending all day, and what ones are you receiving and interpreting about other people’s clothes? Do you notice when a woman wears something racier, or does everyone, and you get sucked into the gossip?

I wonder if we send messages with our clothes, actually strike that, I am sure we know we send messages, the question really is do we truly understand the messages we are sending or do we just think we do? If you don’t know the language of clothes and haven’t experimented, how could you know? Is this the reason, in spite of their bad behavior, even girls go running to copy girls like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan because it’s guaranteed to get a boy’s attention? Maybe even girls have forgotten the art, the language, the nuance. Which further begs the question, who is dressing us and why don’t we have more control over it? Do the media get us to do that much?


But when you get dressed do you expect respect? Do you expect distance, to be noticed, to be listened to, obeyed, flirted with, and considered brighter, holier, wealthier, poorer, simpler, part of the crowd, apart from the crowd? Tell me who you are trying to be. And if it’s yourself, how do you know your choices reflect this? About me, I wear bold shirts and suits, and you know, by luck, by sheer luck, it suits my build and personality and few even think it odd or out of step (fewer now that heavy shirt and suit stripes are the mode). But have you ever seen someone in something and their body and personality can’t carry it off? Is it even your business? Or, is it important for the wearer to get that message and correct whether it is fair or not?

To be continued...