FashBlog.com

By Simon Woodhouse

I don't hate clothes (how could I, I'm wearing some right now), and I quite like standing in front of the mirror and seeing a relatively well-dressed reflection looking back at me, but on the odd occasion when that happens I'm absolutely baffled as to how I might have managed it. Clothes keep me warm and hide my less than attractive body from the world at large, beyond those two things, I'm not sure what they're for.

I've often heard the old saying 'clothes make the man'. Where this comes from and who first said it, I don't know, but it sounds to me like the sort of thing marketing people get paid a lot of money to think up. This leads me to further wonder what came first - marketing or fashion? It's a chicken and egg type of thing.

Now I know I could solve my hopeless dress sense by simply opting to wear whatever's in vogue. I could buy one of the numerous men's magazines that cater for style gurus, take it to my local mall, and stock up on whatever the Adonis like models within said publications happen to be wearing this month. But this is where I hit another problem - I never seem to like any of the latest clothing trends. I'm not sure if this is a subconscious thing on my part, my inner sense of individualism rebelling against being told how to look. Or perhaps I just can't see myself in the same light as the square-jawed supermen that are male models. So, whatever the reason, going to the mall for me is usually a source of bewilderment and frustration. I'm like a little boy lost. I wander into one of the trendy clothes shops, try to browse like I know what I'm looking for, and nearly jump out my skin when an assistant (usually twenty years my junior) asks me if I'm after anything in particular. The thing is, I am after something in particular - something that I'd like to wear, something that won't make me appear to be a sad thirty-eight year old who's trying to recapture his college years. I've got another point to rise while I'm on the subject of people who work in clothes shops. Again, this might just be me, but I often get the feeling they expect me to be grateful for being allowed into their shop. And this feeling seems to increase in line with the price of the shop's merchandise, i.e. charity shops have no atmosphere of pretentiousness whatsoever, but high-end gentlemen's outfitters are tripping over their own sense of self-importance. Knowing this, however, doesn't help me deal with my terrible dress sense.

Perhaps I should look at it in a different way. Maybe I should see the hit and miss nature of my appearance as a good thing, a way to challenge myself and at the same time win my own small victory over the world of fashion. If I can manage to look halfway decent while still wearing clothes I bought five years ago, then I'm scoring a small victory for the forces of self-expression. Or perhaps I should just give up on the whole idea of dressing in any way like a normal human being, and instead go and live in a cave in Outer Mongolia and clad myself in dead reindeer skins. But what if I get to Outer Mongolia and find that reindeer skins are out, yak skins are in, and I don't like the way yak skins look - ahhh!

Ok, I think I can see the problem a bit more clearly now. I've been shaking my fist at snooty shop assistants, good looking male models and the fashion industry as a whole, when really the problem is me - I'm too fussy whilst at the same time not really having a clue as to what I want. Or I know what I want, but I don't have the patience to seek it out. So what can I do about this? Not a lot probably. I'm too long in the tooth and set in my ways to suddenly develop a love of shopping, I'm too proud to let anyone buy my clothes for me, and I'm too self-conscious to dress in the latest trends. I think I'll just be better off carrying on the way I am, dressing in a random mismatch of clothes and hoping for the best.