A spiffy looking young man strode confidently through our halls today, complete with aggressive blue shirt, reddish power tie, and white collar. Blue shirt, white collar. All the rage.
Selinsgrove, PA, right before northbound route 15 takes its final turn toward Lewisburg. A grocery store embarrassingly announces its name, Giant, in a cheesy Knight Rider font. Light green letters and a dull orange facade scream 1989 while the store tries in vain to shush its announcement. “Shhh! Keep it down, judge me by my INSIDE,” it moans, cursing whoever decided that its once trendy color scheme was a keeper.
Dark button down shirts with bright white collars are cool now. A straight blue shirt will be acceptable eternally. Earth tones and basic colors will never NOT be in style. But guys wearing pink? Is public emasculation the wave of the future or just a fad? One can only hope.
I actually have an extensive array of long sleeve button down shirts – 21 to be exact. They range from several blues, through a handful of greens, past a couple sort of greys, a few sort of blacks, a yellow, a burnt orange, a brown or two – but no pinks, no outlandish stripe combinations, no mix-matched collars. Why? Because people that wear clothes that were once super cool are soon miserably tacky. Me? I’ll always be acceptably homely.
Amazingly, I have a successful policy of work clothes replacement these days, as I sort of care about my professional appearance. I bought a black car in the middle of the winter two months ago and haven’t washed it yet, but when it comes to shirts, I buy about 6 a year, swapping out the ones that have the most anti-seize copper compound lubricant from the lab on them. I give away clothes that wear out. Not ones that look absurd because I was shortsighted enough to think that friggin hot pink was going to stand the test of time.
for whom . . .
1) I wouldn’t call where you work the style nexus of the world. Nor anywhere in the DC metro area.
2) I can’t remember ever seeing earth tone button downs particularly in style. They don’t work very well with much of the basic blue/black/grey suit stable that is the bottom line of anyone from the budget conscious to the power brokers.
3) While I can’t vouch for “hot pink” shirts, pink shirts have been around and a staple for the style conscious guy for quite awhile. Same with the white collar contrast shirt.
4) Shirts with different cross patterns other than pinstripe or wide up-down stripe are definitely subject to fashion whims, but they have been in style for a few years now, especially in places like NYC where one really isn’t required to wear a tie at many offices nowadays. They can help one bridge the gap between office day and happy hour/date night. In addition, if you go through shirts as frequently as you claim, for whatever reason, then choosing a currently stylish shirt isn’t a huge risk.
5) Style, like it or not, has its place as a visual communication tool. “Acceptably homely” can have a cost you don’t pay attention to, and I highly doubt anyone purchasing shirts that are “super cool” (i.e., major designer, brand new and bold or whatever) aren’t particularly worried about holding onto that shirt for years to come. It’s part cost/benefit analysis, part personal impression shaping.
Of all opinions, this one should be taken least seriously. I did, remember, wear $9 velcro walmart shoes around Bucknell for 3 years – at least when I wasn’t wearing my brown shoes with shorts.
I do warn you, ye mighty Ozymandius Schaefer, to look at the mighty works of Giant and despair.
*geighness overload*
*cannot process*
What kind of liberal are you anyway? Don’t liberals like this stuff? Isn’t this exactly what you’re liberal about? Quit being such a haumaufobe.
I’m just a little taken aback, is all — I didn’t realize Sps was geigh.