{"id":3455,"date":"2016-09-05T09:59:11","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T07:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3455"},"modified":"2021-04-02T10:36:31","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T08:36:31","slug":"the-woes-of-a-wannabe-fashionista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3455","title":{"rendered":"The Woes of a Wannabe Fashionista"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"donald\"<\/a>I have never really cared about fashion. Neither did my family. I grew up in a house of short Hobbit-like creatures whose wardrobes consisted of sweatpants ranked in ascending order of formality. \u201cEatin\u2019 pants\u201d were a soundly logical dress requirement.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the males in my household wore shirts with condiment stains with such ubiquity that they were like inherited brooches.<\/p>\n

Moreover, fashion is not exactly aimed at the short and stocky, anything being marketed towards my ilk typically offer a \u201cstraight out of the Shire\u201d look. So I never really bothered all that much. And no doubt, for those of us not model-thin, \u201cfashion sense\u201d can mean an attempt to hide doughy parts of our anatomy, which often involves wearing dark, baggy, or large items of clothing in hopes of pulling off a smoke and mirrors sort of act.<\/p>\n

In the past year or so through adherence to diet and rigorous exercise I have gotten into better shape, so I have gone from stocky<\/em> to stocky<\/em>. More specifically, I’ve gone from stocky (as a euphemism for fat) to stocky (broad and sturdily built – aka: its real meaning). There\u2019s nothing like working hard for two years in order to make it out of euphemism.<\/p>\n

Still, the clothes I owned were now so large and baggy that I looked like a little boy who had sneaked into his daddy\u2019s closet and played a game of I’m Going to Work. These were not unpleasant realities, but the fact remained that I needed some new clothes.<\/p>\n

It is no shocking news that people will openly judge others for what they are wearing. This summer I was mocked for wearing Teva sandals, cargo shorts, and for considering a goatee. I was genuinely baffled by such points and thought that since I was about to do a little shopping, I might research what was considered \u201cfashionable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, women are being forced to remove burkinis on the beach, which means that the threat of a \u201cFashion Police\u201d was very real. And while that branch of public safety officer might have their hands full with the droves wearing socks and sandals and fanny packs here in the Czech Republic, I thought it wise to get a head start on what to wear and what not to wear.<\/p>\n

A quick survey of men\u2019s fashions for autumn 2016 was enough to tell me that these trends were going to take off without my inclusion. I don\u2019t own a bandana, I didn\u2019t look good in 1970s clothing the first time around, and I wouldn\u2019t wear something with sequins if I\u2019d won a bedazzler in a raffle. Additionally, extra long sleeves are a fact of life for a short dude, and as a man who has deeply embraced the European man-bag I\u2019m halfway to having a pocketbook (in my defense mine is a used Bulgarian gasmask bag bought in an Army-Navy store. My rule of thumb: if it\u2019s seen combat it\u2019s not a man purse).<\/p>\n

Oh, and I couldn\u2019t buy a sailor hat with a straight face. As I always had, I found What’s Hot to resemble clothing one might wear on a trip to Pluto or to a local pub’s BDSM night. I ultimately (nine seconds in) decided that What\u2019s Hot wasn\u2019t for a normal schmuck like myself and instead researched What\u2019s Not in order to avoid any grave miscarriages of fashion justice.<\/p>\n

I quickly learned that a lot of \u201cwhat not to do\u201d rules are common sense rules that I have been breaking for decades. No wrinkled shirts. Nothing too baggy. No socks with sandals (Forever Czech!). And no stains (sorry, mi familia).<\/p>\n

My attention was grabbed by an article entitled \u201c15 things women wish men would never wear\u201d because my sisters are my go-to fashion advisers and women in general are the demographic I\u2019d like to impress. I was relieved at first to find that many of the offending particles of clothing were things I would never ever<\/em> wear. Wife-beaters, skull caps (never understood these in warm weather), turtlenecks, and something called \u201cbling.\u201d \u201cBling\u201d for those of you who are white and over the age of forty-six, is expensive or ostentatious clothing or jewelry. The extent of my \u201cbling\u201d is a ring I bought in Jordan, a Fitbit, and a silver cavity in my lower right molar. I once wore a necklace, but I felt like a rapper, so I took it off.<\/p>\n

I was surprised to see that skinny jeans had become a big no-no. This is surprising because every pair of pants and every shirt in stores seemed to be in the \u201cskinny\u201d or \u201cslim fit\u201d category. What kind of message was this? But the one that really shocked me was a big no-no to Dockers.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with Dockers?<\/p>\n

According to the article, Dockers scream \u201cI have a soul-crushing job\u201d or “I work in a cubicle!” This was 50% accurate in my case, and it also explains why all Dockers were 40% off at Boscov\u2019s, which in turn explains why I bought four pair of them.<\/p>\n

Oh well.<\/p>\n

\"no<\/a>

no bling<\/p><\/div>\n

By the time I had read the article, I had already gone shopping. I was in the U.S. and time was a consideration, as I usually need to allow a few days for a tailor to cut three inches off the bottom of new pants. I bought polo shirts, jeans, Dockers, a (slim-fit) zip up sweater, and two T-shirts that in the right light could be from the 1970s.<\/p>\n

No bling. No baggy pants. No bandana. No wife-beaters. No sailor cap.<\/p>\n

In the end I graduated from \u201cout of the shire\u201d to \u201cgood-natured sitcom comedian.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have never really cared about fashion. Neither did my family. I grew up in a house of short Hobbit-like creatures whose wardrobes consisted of sweatpants ranked in ascending order of formality. \u201cEatin\u2019 pants\u201d were a soundly logical dress requirement. Additionally, the males in my household wore shirts with condiment stains with such ubiquity that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/man-sailor-costume-24019361.jpg?fit=1300%2C957&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-TJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5231,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions\/5231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}