Style and the Imminence of Middle Age

I bought some new clothes at Urban Outfitters today. I will be 39 in three months, and I agonized over buying a skin-tight white tank-top---would I look ridiculous in it, mutton dressed as lamb? In the end, after too much time spent weighing the pros and cons, I decided to add it to my purchases. I'm getting ready for my third marathon and I've been lifting weights for a few years. While I'll never have the bulk that so many of my gym compatriots have (truthfully, I'm the kind of guy who moves the weights on the machine from 240 lbs. to 90) I'm still fit and toned and my stomach is flat enough that I was able to pull it off. I've also been lying on a tanning bed two days a week. It felt good to wear the tank top around town, after I got over the initial feeling of not being properly covered.

During the office Christmas party, I was flirting with a woman from another department who told me,

"You're a handsome man, but you've got to get some new clothes. You have a pretty blah sense of style."

"Hold on," I protested, "I'm wearing the WORK UNIFORM. Khakis and button-down. I have a closet full of hipper clothes that I'd never wear to the office."

Her laughter stung a bit. I resolved to improve my wardrobe.

My teenage years were spent in the 80s. I owned a pair of parachute pants, a few Ocean Pacific shirts and there is a prom picture of me with a mullet. I kid you not. Anyone growing up in that kidney stone of a decade is bound to have truly warped sense of style. And politics too, but that's a story for another time.

When I was dating Mar, she came to my place one day with a shopping bag from Express containing clothes she had bought for me. They were the sort of clothes I never would have purchased for myself, but I've been complimented on them many times and I have learned from the experience not to trust my own fashion sensibilities.

My new rule? Buy what looks ugly. Do the opposite of what your instincts tell you to do. The western shirts on the rack? You used to make fun of western shirts when you were growing up in Iowa? Buy three. The t-shirts with the horizontal orange-blue-red-grey stripes? The kind that look a little like Charlie Brown's zig-zag? Put 'em in the cart. You wore shirts like that in sixth grade, wear 'em again now. The large sunglasses with the orange metal frames? Wear those puppies right out of the store.

To paraphrase Socrates in the Apology, the only thing, the only thing I know about fashion is that I know nothing about fashion.