Today I had to travel into the city and deliver the final bits of my semester work to school. This outfit here was my attempt at marrying the messy city sidewalks with a natty sort of Boston-by-way-of-Britain look:
What we have here is a lot of things at once: dark plaid shirt and repp tie, in the style of our man Ralph Lauren; an odd pair of narrow cut grey flannels with western pockets that I keep thinking about giving away, but don't know who to give them to; the varsity sweater from a recent post in its freshly cleaned state with new buttons; Bean boots. All this was accessorized with the Barbour and a Black Watch cap.
It all seemed to make sense while I was wearing it, but upon seeing the photos I'm not too sure. What do you all think, kindly readers?
But back to the idea of finding an excuse. Today I used the fact that I had to go "into town" as an excuse to wear a tie. In reality, this outfit was worn in my car for 2 hours, on the street and in the building for 1/2 hour, back in the car for another hour. Upon returning home I immediately changed clothes and set about the housework I had neglected all morning.
As I face a month without my trips "into town" as an excuse, i come upon this dilemma: I enjoy writing this blog and hearing from you all, dear friends. But I fear that house cleaning and trips to the supermarket are a poor excuse for trotting out the proper haberdashery, even or a foppish sort like yours truly. Sure, I'll wear red pants on Christmas day and all that, but then what? This could leave me a bit shy of subject matter.
Also, I've got an awful lot of dress clothes for a guy with no job. As I try (unsuccessfully, so far) to enter the design profession, I find that wearing a 3/2 sack suit with a button down oxford and striped tie may actually be a detriment to me. In a field where youth, innovation and a familiarity with technology are prized, who wants to hire a weirdo in his thirties who dresses like their grandfather and doesn't really like (read: "hates") computers? I keep losing out to unshaved faces and untucked shirts. How can this be?
What is a fellow to do?
