clothes horse

...or, memoirs of an aging fashionista. If you haven't been paying attention to fashion trends over the past three decades you may be wondering why young people are paying someone else to wrinkle their clothes and splatter them with bleach before they buy them, something most of us have been able to do for ourselves in all that time. 'Distressing' is not new but like everything else, it has gotten prohibitively expensive. This will not be a forum for railing against nonsensical clothing choices, in any age. It's the inseparable point to it all, sensible equals dowdy. I just thought it all needed to be put into a time line for others to see the rhyme if not the reason for it all. My own story begins in the early seventies when I first wrested free of the husky corduroys and button down plaids my Mom used to dress me in. Up to that point it wasn't all bad. I was usually able to bring her around to buying the shoes I wanted (She was/is a shoe nut, thank god). And at the time we were close to the same size so she just started wearing what I was jettisoning from my wardrobe. The first trend to seize me was the resurrected interest in the forties. It was not something many of the kids in my high school were hot for, but the few of us who were had an uphill climb finding clothes to suit. In the year that Mr. Blackwell described Bette Midler as having taken "pot luck at the laundry mat" we were scouring thrift stores on the Main Line hoping to strike pay dirt with some deceased GrandMa/Pa's finery. The girls I would accompany always had the best luck (they always do). They would find things cinched and gusseted six ways to sunday, scarves, turbans, beaded bags, and rhinestone clip-ons. I was lucky to find a hand-painted tie. Once I found an impossibly small German tuxedo, still in the dry cleaners bag and every bit the Joel Grey I was hoping for. Alas, his size, but not mine. I had to settle for another tie, this one red satin covered with Miro-esque thingies. Most desirous was the high-waisted pleated front trousers with the pegged legs a la Cab Calloway. When I finally realized the real deal was not to be had I ventured into a woman's clothing store and bought a pair- pleats but with a wide leg. A forties girl herself, Mom ran 'em through the Singer and I was stylin'! Emboldened, I pulled this trick a few more times and quickly made a name for myself at school with my new threads. I won't repeat it here, though. The truly magnificent platform shoes were not to be had at the mall so I would cut school to shop for shoes downtown. What drew me to the city kept me there, a tribe of like-minded slaves to high-fashion (read: setters of trends yet to be). After painstakingly making pariahs of ourselves in our respective home towns, we drew together to sew for each other and swap accessories. After a brief flirtation with the more readily thrift-shopped fifties look, where I affected a rumpled Jack Lemmon sensibility, I fell in with the Punk Rockers. Let the distressing begin. Most of what we had been trying to pass off as polished a few years before was already half way there. What I remember most about this time was the giant heap of communal clothing I and an ever-changing mix of transient roommates would dive into, customize, and wear to death. A rumpled white button down shirt would make the rounds, loosing first the cuffs, then arms, buttons etc. until down the road it would be a gray vest with a circled 'A' spray-painted on the back. Teased hair with some plastic cutlery stuck in it for good measure and we were ready for a night on the town. Practically the only thing we didn't share were our black jeans, whip-stitched on the inseam so as to render them irremovable. In a strange slant on Orwellian uniformity, by 1984 the look was mass-marketed. I worked for a time in a punk clothing emporium (formerly a Glam emporium) with lord knows how many Vietnamese men living upstairs silk-screening rude T-shirts around the clock. Embarrassed for the parade of kids eager to throw their money away on cheesy skeleton jewelry and pretty bored with making the effort to dress (down) up, I adopted a uniform which would carry me through for the next twenty years. Uninscribed cotton tees, Indigo Levis, and Converse high-tops. I had begun my painting career and these would eventually end up looking very much like what's selling at Abercrombie & Finch today. They would lose the legs and sleeves for summer and be replaced with a new ensemble in the fall. A certain black leather jacket (layered over a hoodie for winter) lasted me most of that time until I left it in the back of a cab. These days I've kind of fallen in with the pre-washed crowd, though I've jumped camp from the ass-quartering Levis to the more callipygious Lee jeans. My favorite shoes are Adidas 'Daroga' or flip-flops- no breaking-in required. And after kind of making peace with a gut that won't go away, I go with 'wife-beaters' and/or fitted button downs. I wasn't fooling anyone with untucked larger sizes. It's enough work just keeping my face slim. I tried wearing a polo but synthetic collars are just too torturous, plus Rhode Island 'boatie' just rings a false tone on me. And of course I wouldn't be caught dead in a pleated pant or a pegged anything. I've put together a few respectable outfits for dressy if not formal occasions with one clumsy but shiny pair of shoes. 'Didn't-overthink-it' casual takes all of my best effort. The work attire is unchanged- plasticized with dried latex paint they last twice as long, except for knees. Here is where I may have lucked out. Even in a progressive century men's fashion is extremely slow to evolve and most men even slower to pick up on it when it does. (I'm still seeing mid-thigh jean cut-offs, though mostly at the farmer's market). I've stubbornly resisted that six foot jump across the aisle from young men's into a world of sad raiment for color-blind golfers. Other men my age have side-stepped into athletic apparel but I'm firm on elastic waistbands being just one more way to spell defeat. If I'm lucky and the young men's doesn't go completely off the deep end with the extra large sizing and the cartoonish contrasting stitchery, as it now threatens to do, I'll get another ten years out of it. A few designers out there are looking after me. Needless to say if I were adequately funded I'd stay out of department stores altogether. But back to reality. I'll know when I've gone too far, I know what that looks like on other people. One night an older female friend of mine tried to pull off fuzzy boots, tight jeans, and a lace cammie. It's hard to look out of place in an Atlantic City casino but she managed it. If she wasn't letting me drive her convertible I would have taken a bus home. I learned then that large footwear is only forgivable on teen-agers and winter Olympians, some arms require sleeves (stay ever at the ready to concede on their length), practice any illusion at your disposal for de-emphasizing the neck even if you have to employ props, and arguably most important of all for any age- carefully scrutinize the ass for fit. You don't want to look like you're hauling around a bag of mice.