Sunday, February 01, 2009

I've long thought that I didn't have a particular style of dress. Mostly when I'm putting clothes on in the morning, I'm just trying not to look like an asshole. Recently, however, I've come to the conclusion that I do have a idea of what I'm trying to achieve when I get dressed in the morning and it's more than just the lack of assholeness. I've now realized that my desired style of dress is best defined as: non-descript, bordering on anonymous.

I don't want my clothing to say anything about me. I don't want my clothing to say that Mike is formal, informal, old-fashioned, trendy, grungy, invisible, or fearful of being identified by his clothing. I want my style to offer no information on who I am and to elicit no opinions from the people around me.

If someone starts a sentence by saying, "Mike, those shoes are really...", it had better end with "shoey".

So, I went to a party on Saturday night and wore some jeans and a black shirt that I found buried in my closet. It had been so long since I had worn that shirt that I forgotten I even owned it. It was a mock turtleneck, which isn't my favorite style (too warm!) but it had been worn so infrequently, that it was still a super dark shade of black. My few other black shirts are really just dark grey at this point.

Do you know what happens if you wear jeans and a mock black turtleneck to a party full of computer programmers? I do now. You get compared to this guy:












Doh! I was dressed in costume! Gah, party fail! That outfit is so tightly connected with Steve Jobs that there's a website where you can buy Steve's Outfit. Numerous people drew much delight from my outfit. The only saving grace was that I don't actually own an iPhone (although I covet them).

So, uh, I'm not wearing THAT again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever I end up dressed funny at a party, I just pretend that its a costume party. If someone questions my outfit, I just ask why they aren't dressed up, and ask if they read the invitation closely. This works even if the party had no invitations. Then they just feel bad that no one sent them one.

Mike said...

Next time I go to a party, I'm bringing someone clever enough, like you, to rescue me from such situations.

Anonymous said...

Well now I remember you having a striped shirt, and telling you that they all looked good on you but maybe one at a time... sorry...

Anonymous said...

I mean all the colors were good, but one at a time.

Now I'm married to a man who has stored away his size medium teal argyle acrylic sweaters because one day they will be back in fashion and he'll be a medium. He's 6"6' and 220. I think not. But I just smile.

Fashion is in the eye of the beholder. But I like Prosy's idea.

Mike said...

Meg, I think I recovered from your comment, either that or I've completely blocked it because it was too traumatic. And, Mr. Big has MULTIPLE teal argyle acrylic sweaters? Impressive.