the bridal issue (2)

“Later this week” freely translates into “next month, apparently, but I have a sense of style, not time. So, on with the show.

Last time I promised to discuss the last few topics when it comes to bridal dresses, patterns, advice and friends. Let’s get cracking.

Patterns
I find it difficult to talk about tradition when it comes to bridal wear, as most of what we now consider traditional in the dress only really started happening in the last 70 years or so, which means that “traditionally” really means “before wedding dresses”. In that sense, patterns can be considered tradition, as patterned fabrics were a part of daily life and therefore used in wedding dresses.

The modern, tradition, however, shies away from patterned materials to an extent. You find laces, which are obviously but subtly patterned, and some applications of the decorative arts around waist, hemline and shoulders, but one does not really often find patterns, as such, in bridal couture.

Which leaves us with simpler pattern-based questions, or really, line based questions. Most people will tell you that horizontal lines are fattening, and vertical lines are slimming. This is, regretfully, false. Horizontal lines actually make you look taller, and vertical lines make you look wider, especially if the lines are really close together.

Now before everybody starts rushing towards the oft-neglected horizontal line, there is such a thing as taste, and most wedding dresses I have seen with a horizontal pattern seemed to lack a good deal thereof. The charming lady in my little image up there might look tall and statuesque, but imagine that same picture in yards of white satin and frills and it looks suspiciously less charming.

As with almost everything when it comes to fashion, less is usually more. Any combination of lines can be flattering, providing you follow the following simple steps:

• Your body cinches in around the waist, upper breast, wrists and ankles. If any lines are in your dress, they should be there. So your hemline, waist, shoulders and sleeves can have a definite horizontal line, either in embroidery, contrasting fabrics or thread. Everywhere else will more than likely make you look shorter.
• Your body has natural vertical lines in your legs, arms, and torso. If you already have a cinched waist, your legs will look longer, and you need to do nothing to make them appear even longer than that. The same goes for your arms, as the lines of the fabric will likely already give you long, slender arms. Your torso, however, might be in want of some help, as you have probably cut it in two already with a sash or the shape of a corset. If you feel your torso does not get enough attention, I would suggest going for simple corsetry or stitching, not straight up and down and in a color that in no way contrasts with the rest of the bodice.

This is bad

This is better



This is good

•  A straight thin line looks like a cut or slit, a broad straight line will distract from the shape of your dress. There really is no perfect width here but if you are going for a definite pattern, make it definite, and don’t wimp out on the last stretch, as it will look cheaper than just getting it wrong.

Your friends, and the advice you should take.

None, obviously, as this is your day and nobody is going to stand in the way of how you really want it and live.

But, if you do decide to take advice from anybody, avoid the following :

• Friends who are soon to get married : as they will either steal, or graciously allow you to copy ideas, and you might end up with two weddings that look too similar by half. Subconsciously, they will likely try to sabotage your wedding in favour of their own.
• Friends who have “opinions” on the state of matrimony : Need I explain this?
• Friends who are bitterly single : Again, you are not seeing this one yourself?
• Friends that make you feel somewhat uncomfortable in the area of appearance : Not just your too skinny model-friend, but also your slightly overweight best mate from college. If at any point during the picking of the friends you think “But I/She/He might be uncomfortable when I get undressed in front of them or try on several outfits” just scrap them. You will be discussing and trying on a lot, and you don’t need the aggravation.
• Outrageous friends : As you want timeless and stylish, not hip and happening but ultimately tacky.
• Sales-clerks between the ages of 20 and 45, and older if clearly unmarried : because they combine the annoyances of the outrageous friend with the persistence of a shark smelling a good deal. Even as a mixed metaphor, you should be able to see this is a bad thing.

Advice you should take :

• Mine : Obviously
• Friends who have been married for a while or are not “in that place” right now : They can have a clear eye unclouded by jealousy or subterfuge, and can bring experience and honesty without losing too much ground themselves.Sales-Clerks over the age of 45, clearly married or working in an established salon : they have experience, they have seen women get married before and if it is a good establishment, they should not be more interested in their commission than your happiness.
• Someone who makes you laugh : Not for their advice, necessarily, but bring them along to keep bride-zilla at bay.
• Your parents’ : Nowadays they will not be paying for the thing anymore most likely, but they have paid for a lot of things up to now, and they have a vested interest in seeing their little one look pretty, and jealousy or uncaring commercialism is probably far from their minds. They also have some experience, have probably been to some weddings with well- and badly dressed brides and can tell you what other’s did wrong so you don’t have to.



Obviously the lists above are not definite, carved in stone or immutable. You probably know who you are going to ask for advice and who not, and if it feels good, go for it. But from my first category I would take most things they say with a grain of salt, most definitely.

This ends my two-piece on bridal wear, I hope you find what you are looking for, or put it on and you’ll “just know”.

I am certain you’ll look beautiful, and radiant, no matter what, and if not, that nooooobody will let you know until yonks later.

the bridal issue. (1)

Two weeks ago, I gave you some pointers on how to arrive elegantly dressed at a wedding you have been invited to, with a swift cliff-hanger on bridal couture. Now we all realize that the world of the trousseau is slightly wider than one can easily cover in two paragraphs so I’m giving this another shot.

Wedding dresses are a big thing. They are on average ridiculously expensive, you will only wear them once (even if you do get married several times over the course of your lifetime it is very tacky to wear the same dress twice) and to be perfectly honest, given that you are dealing with a slightly biased audience, it is very easy to not really look as good as people tell you you do but you’ll only really find out when you are looking at the photos a little while later. And you’ll probably won’t mind anyways.

But I will.

So for my sake, let’s go over a few things that are easy to do wrong while shopping for a dress and how you can easily avoid a raised eyebrow from the fifth row messing with your head.

Fashion
Wedding dresses used to follow modern fashions very, very faithfully. And then flapper dresses happened, and two world wars, and when the sartorial and political smoke cleared, they didn’t anymore. For the last 80 years or so, wedding dresses have been modeled along Victorian lines, with long waists, bustles and petticoats and florals featuring very heavily. In economically more affluent years, fashions become sleeker, and in these years the Grecian lines come in, with high waistlines, clear lines and simple shapes with little decoration being the norm.

If there is anything in the world that embodies artistry, elegance and style, it is the kimono, a simple garment that has weathered every storm to come out clean, elegant and with the utmost respect and understanding of tradition. Wedding dresses should do the same thing, showing grace, purity and style, but also show that what you are doing has a sense of timelessness, tradition and respect to earlier generations.

Do not:

• Purchase a hello Kitty wedding dress (Google can find it for you), “the dress from that video-clip”, “The dress from that movie” or a dressed themed in a way that your mother or as yet unborn child would not recognize.
• Buy a “Fashion dress”, including short skirts, showgirl skirts or dresses in colours that are completely hip right now but will not be soon.
• Get a dress that is “Just like the one X had” whether X is a friend of yours, or a bridal magazine, or a celebrity. Your wedding is YOUR wedding, not a copy of somebody elses.

Do:

• Get a timeless dress that would have looked good and that you would have appreciated seeing in photo’s 50 years ago, and 25 years ago, as it will mean you will probably appreciate it after that time as well.
• Realise that a wedding dress is a uniform. The colours and shapes have been pretty much set. But as with any uniform, it is the individual details and chamrs that make it stand out. Nobody else in your life has your exact combination of features, and you would feel strange if they did. The same should go for your dress.
• Allow yourself to be inspired by dresses you liked, but mostly by those that were worn well by people who look like you. If you are not a 6ft Amazonian blonde, getting all your inspiration form photos featuring 6ft Amazonian blondes will ensure that you will not look good.

Form
Yours, mostly, should dictate the shape of your dress. As with all clothing, if it neither obscures what you have yourself nor pushes it into a new shape altogether, you are probably good. But wedding dresses are a little bit special in this regard, and allow a little leeway when it comes to the shape you are providing…
Do not:

• Overemphasize your natural features. If you are busty, do not also go for tight corsetry and push-ups, as it will just look cartoonish and cheap. Also, if you have the slightest feeling that people in your audience will think “Oh there she is again with her…”(and they will) you should adjust to avoid. 
• Overestimate your abilities. The run-up to your wedding is stressful and busy, and you will probably not go to the gym 17 times a week or stick to a very rigorous diet. By all means strife for losing some weight, but don’t expect to drop several sizes for the big day. Shop accordingly. 
• Underestimate your abilities. You probably have a few amazing features that a wedding dress will allow you show off to their fullest, and there is nothing wrong with allowing it to do so. Just don’t go overboard, or veer into tacky.

Do:

• Be honest with yourself. You could be a little chubby, or your upper-body could be somewhat long, or you could have disproportionate arms. These things happen. Don’t hide them, but find a dress that makes them less noticeable.
• Allow your personality to shine through in your choices. If you are a natural tomboy with no tendency for girlishness whatsoever, do not go for an enourmous frilly ball-gown. Adjust what you wear to what makes you feel comfortable, and pretty. Not just on of those two.

I am realizing this is getting somewhat lengthy so I am going to get back to the final topics (patterns, advice and friends) on wedding dresses later this week. Watch this space!

Wedding Style

There are, on a rough average and regardless of how often these occasions occur, about three circumstances where it is important to be timelessly, elegantly dressed, styled and behaved. These are those moments that are distinct links in time, and that are irrevocably linked to the absolute, unavoidable passage of time. These circumstances are birth, marriage, and death. And the occasions associated with them baptism, weddings and sepulchral ceremonies.


Obviously being well-dressed for either your baptism AND your funeral is mostly the responsibility of other people, and being well dressed for attending either a baptism or a funeral is ridiculously important as it is two of the absolute best occasions to sniff huffly at badly dressed people and being one of them quite distances you from this pastime. But weddings?

Either as one of the bridal party or a guest, people please.

While at a wedding you are, barring a few hopefully decidedly private moments, constantly surrounded by professional photographers (if you are lucky), amateur photographers (if you are not) or both (if the bride and groom are exceptionally cruel) and more than likely also submerged in a sea of broken whites, clear silvers and glowing ivories, so showing up in a fully denim outfit with your hair shaped and coloured like a cranky dessert is not just a bad choice but a bad choice that will be in photographs that people will still be looking at long after you, yourself, are in fact dead and buried.

So, how to actually BE well dressed for a wedding? You will basically fall into one of four basic categories, to wit : A male guest, a female guest, a male member of the bridal party, and a female member of the bridal party. There are, obviously, subcategories, as being a well-dressed bridesmaid is not the same as being a well-dressed bride, but as a rule of thumb that is your first decision: Am I a guest, or am I one of the bridal party?

As a guest, male or female, you have a few basic questions you need to ask yourself and somebody “in the know” of both the ceremony and the reception or celebration.

1) What colour will the bride be wearing?
2) What colour will the groom be wearing?
3) If applicable, what colour will the accessories of the bride and groom be?
4) What colours will the bridesmaids and groomsmen be wearing or sporting?
5) Which colours will the main decorations be in?
6) Will the ceremony be in a church, town hall or at another location entirely?

From here, it is very simple. You do not wear any of the colours that are the answers to questions 1, 2 and 3. If the answers to questions 4 and 5 differ from the first three, these are also off limits entirely except when explicitly requested by either the bride or her direct representative, in case of a themed wedding.

The answer to question 6 will tell you what mode of dress you should adopt for which part of the day, if the invitation itself does not already spell it out. If nothing is mentioned and you are unsure, only the bridal party will wear morning dress or full formal outfits, as a guest you are best of with simple, semi formal dress. If the ceremony is held in a church, be aware that it is a place of respect and worship, and therefore showing more skin than strictly needed, or in places that can be assumed “unfortunate” will be a source of both shame and gossip for years to come.

As a man:

• Simple formal dress, preferably two pieces, as three-piece is rather more formal than most occasions require. If you are planning to dance and the dances are not formal styles (waltz, quicksteps and slow-foxtrots are formal dances, during a wedding) you can consider a waistcoat or vest as they remain “dressed” even when you take of your jacket, vests or waistcoats should match the suit, but not clearly be part of it. If the dances are formal styles, you really should keep your jacket on, and buttoned, while dancing.
• A tie and pocket-square in matching, but not identical, fabrics that match the “feel” of the evening.
• Shirt can be white, and really should be, or ton-sur-ton on the fabric of the tie, when you know what you are doing and can pull it off.
• Black (and polished!) shoes
• Little or no jewelry. Remember, watches are strictly a day-time accessory. Cufflinks, however, can be metal or jeweled and even a bit “novel”.

Following the list above is not heavily exciting, but you won’t appear foolish, underdressed or like you have just come from work. Which you will appreciate, during the obligatory slideshow at their fifth anniversary.

As a woman:

• Simple sheath-dress, just over the knee, not too décolleté, or a long-ish cocktail dress. Full length is very formal, and should really only be worn by the bride and het mother and mother-in-law.
• No spaghetti-straps, strapless concoctions, or bow-tied halters. You are there for the happy couple, not for happy coupling.
• “Pretty” rather than “stunning” high-heeled shoes, with a bit of sparkle.
• The hair tied up in a simple chignon, or pulled back from the face in anything but a ponytail.
• Bare shoulders, open backs, stunning up-does and incredible necklaces and bracelets are the province of the bride, and just the bride.
• As are strappy shoes, garter-belts, stockings, heavy corsetry, jewels-in-the-hair, cleavage and other direct sexual references between ankle and crown. Sorry.
• A clutch-bag, but smallish and not garish or bejeweled.
• No opera-gloves, large rings, cloaks, manteaus, or other trappings of high drama.

Following the list above will make you look elegant, mature and more than likely incredibly attractive without outshining the bride. Which, let’s face it, is what you are aiming for.

As a member of the bridal party, your life is likely to be a lot easier than any of the guests, as most decisions will be made for you by a rather frantic young woman who is more than willing and able, and probably hunger crazed enough to boot, to simply eat you if you do anything that stands between her and the best day of her life. If you are a man, expect to be told what to wear, where to show up, and who to talk to during. If you are the groom, this counts double, as there will even be somebody telling you what to say during peak moments of today’s performance. Some people consider this sufficient practice for the marriage itself.

If you are a woman and not a bridesmaid, you are either the mother of the bride or groom, in which case matronly elegance is really all that is expected of you. You will likely be heavily involved in the proceedings so should have a pretty good idea of how you can look your best, but some pointers never go awry.

• Your clothing colour should, if you are the mother of the bride, be a darker or dustier version of her colour or accessories. Muted plums and purples for red accessories, darker blues for sapphires, and greens and browns if the bride is in emerald. If you are the mother of the groom, the same goes, but for his accessories. If the whole shindig is done in white, ivory, darker golds and silvers are your thing. Consider that in photographs you will likely be close to your child, and you want to look matching, but not like you copied his or her outfit.
• You are one of the few women who can get away with a floor-length dress apart from your daughter or daughter-in-law-to-be. Go for it, I say.
• Nothing overtly sexual is required, and you should certainly not flash any skin that might be considered inappropriate. Regardless of your charms, today is for somebody else to show of.
• Jewelry can be flashy and even somewhat outrageous, providing they are family pieces or gifts from the happy couple. If you buy new jewelry for the ceremony, keep it understated.
• Shoes should be closed toed, with somewhat of a heel, but steer away from boots or ankle-boots.

If you are a bridesmaid a friendly bride will have selected a dress for you that will make you look elegant and somewhat demure. Do not, ever, alter it without discussion. If the bride has allowed you to pick out your own dress, follow the rules for a standard guest, but in pre-selected colours, and a more upscale formality. As a bridesmaid, you can have a more spectacular hairdo and jewelry than the rest of the guests, but no more than the bride.

If you are male, you are the groom, father of the bride or groom, or a groomsman. You will likely be asked to be somewhat formally dressed, in pre-described colours. Follow what you have been given, but:

• Never dye or change your hair shortly before the wedding
• Do not get into fights or otherwise bruise or scar yourself shortly before the wedding
• Always learn how to work your accessories. No watches after 5 pm, a cummerbund is tied so the creases point upwards, and only Tom Ford should try to get away with a square-folded pocket-square.
• This is one of the few occasions where your accessories will probably exactly match in both colour and fabric. It is a shame. Never do it again and this will be forgiven.
• Black shoes. Always. No contest. If black shoes do not go with the outfit chosen : complain. But wear them still.
• Try to subtly, but decidedly, move the decision makers away form novelty colours and fabrics. Powder blues and shiny fabrics are not what you want to see in ten years time when you have to re-live your wedding. Do not risk your life for this, be subtle. This is real practice for marriage.

As the bride you are likely to be well aware of what you want, and more than able to make your own decision, informed solely by your mother, some close friends, every gay man you have ever met and a billion-dollar-industry of bridal magazines, shows, expositions, soirees, party-planners, flower-people and what not (made up mostly out of every gay man you have ever met).
But, some small comments before you embark on your journey towards the graceful and elegant vision that will stroll down the center isle of the church:

• A wedding dress made up of horizontal stripes will make you look taller, but also invite comments on the wisdom of horizontal stripes.
• The bodice of your dress should not elongate your waistline. If anything is optically lengthened, go for the legs.
• Cap sleeves are better than spaghetti-straps.
• No visible zippers. If you absolutely cannot be sewn into your dress on the day and have to have a visible closing mechanism, a row of small buttons is fetching and classy. If buttons are too persnickety, and they often are, hide the zipper somewhere in the material.
• During this day you will likely have stockings, garters, a garter belt, high heels, a constricting bodice, bare shoulders and arms, open shoes and some cleavage. These items are there to subtly keep in mind what will happen that evening after you have been whisked of by your husband. Anything else that will put the mind to the marital arts is tacky.
• Your dress should not be a copy of a wedding dress from any movie, video clip, book or illustration. With the exception of the dress and veil combination in “How I married an axe-murderer” which I think is too short, but gorgeous.
• A “Novelty” wedding dress is a wedding dress that you will deeply, deeply regret. As are most too short dresses.
• Speaking of copied dresses… A “showgirl skirt” is deeply unacceptable unless you have exceptional legs, and want to hear about them every time you show people the photos. Which means it is acceptable roughly never, regardless of how good your legs are. (You know who you are, Guns and Roses…)
• The standard rule: If it looks good on the model, it might not look good on you, but if it looks bad on the model, it WILL look bad on you” applies here more than anywhere.
• As does: “Just because you can get into it does not mean it fits.”

So far, so rules. Weddings should be elegant, classic affairs that you can look back on in years to come with a tear in your eyes and a smile in your heart. A tacky, novel wedding plan is an invitation to re-new your vows a short time later without all the embarrassment, and possibly with half the church filled with different people. Keep this in mind.

Fashion, cyclical nature of,

Fashion is not often seen as the most democratic and fair system of social interaction, given as it is to focus on those of us with slightly thinner than average bodies and slightly better than average faces, but there is an underlying balance in fashion as in all things that govern the chances even for those not currently shaped as in vogue as others. It has been said that fashion is a form of ugliness so bad we change it every 6 months, and with some unfortunate exceptions this holds relatively true. This means that those things in fashion now will soon not be, and those things not in fashion will be within an overseeable period of time.

The reason for this is as superficial as it is logical: Money. Or better yet, sales. And the money and fame that run concurrently with sales when discussing shops and brands.
If you are currently selling skinny jeans by the bucketload you know you are selling only to those people that wear skinny jeans. People who don’t aren’t buying. But soon enough the skinny jeans wearing crowd will have their fill of them, the market becomes glutted and it is in the best interest of stockists everywhere to start promoting the non-skinny jean, as the demographic of non-skinny jeans wearing people is ready to start buying again. Fashion is designed by the magazines, who are influenced by advertisers, who are influenced by sales, and see a real good thing in selling products to that group that holds the most money. So by setting up a relatively predictable cycle of opposing fashions the industry ensures that most of their own can stay in business while providing overall to all punters.

So if this year the a-line dress is very popular and worn under a bolero and over three-quarter length leggings all in primary colours, you can be almost certain that the next mode will be baggy pants topped with a cut-waisted upper body and the one-layered look in pastels or basic browns and grays will reign for a few months. Taken over two years (the rough time a buyer for a store needs to prepare for a new fashion trend) the see-saw of fashion will have ensured that people of all possible shapes, sizes, skin-tones and preferences have crossed the threshold of the store at least once, with a good chance of getting money from all of them.

But that is basic, day to day fashion, what about the vintage craze? What about the materials and forms which were fashionable three decades ago? Why do we feel the need to renaissance every conceivable style this and former centuries have seen? This is a process that is a lot more subtle, as it seems not to be inspired as much by direct sales but by the whims of designers. And it is. Obviously nothing is ever cut and dry black or white, and many things tend to inspire the look of an age, but bear with me here for a moment.

When I was younger my mother had one friend who everybody always commented on was very well dressed. She always had on high heels, always wore sleekly cut jackets and was usually not afraid to show a bit of cleavage. Her hair was usually swept and pinned up and she wore those kick-ass eighties glasses that give off a sexy-librarian vibe even if the gender of the person involved is not what is sexually attractive for you. Now when I think of a well dressed woman or when my friends ask me for advice on fashion, I notice I move into the friend’s direction very easily, after all, in my mind that is the template for a well dressed woman.

Fashion designers also have mothers, and more than likely these mothers also had a friend like that. So fashion designers also grow up with an image of a well-dressed woman (this all applies for men as well, obviously) somewhere in their head, which almost unavoidably bleeds through in their work. So when a new alternative need to be found for this season’s neckline it is very easy to just import the well-dressed-friend-of-mum’s neckline into existing shapes. And suddenly the 70’s neckline is back in fashion (which is itself a reflection of a 40’s neckline, because the person who introduced it into the 70’s also had a mum, and she also had a friend). But it is now used to augment and add to daily fashion that is inspired by many designers, and thus by many designers mum’s friends. This together will give a feel of an age in current fashion that grows naturally from all these borrowed elements.

These cycles together repeat ad infinitum, always inspired by best practices, new options in production and new fabrics and dyes to use to create an ongoing image of fashion as a constantly reinvented world where everything stays the same and everything comes back into fashion if only you wait long enough. Obviously, this is only an apparent truism as there are things that have, through impractically, lethality or stupidity become unfashionable for ever. The real test of ongoing style is the ability which items will be modish again in ten years and which shouldn’t even have been today.

Ties, what to do and what knot to do.

Much as we have American sit-coms to thank for an encroaching childishness in the work-place, I personally can thank a specific American sit-com for a marked improvement on my style and sense of dress. Having changed recently from a long string of temporary jobs to a job that I hope will be the beginning of a long-enjoyed corporate career, I have also changed my style of dress from preppy-casual to a standard of suits and dress shoes, along with a modest but expanding selection of shirts and ties. Having been blessed by good advice in my past and a slight penchant for dandy-ism in my present, I do believe I have managed to weather this awkward and uncomfortable change with a reasonable amount of success, as evidenced that people still comment on my sense of style well after the novelty of suits should have worn off.

Suits (and shoes) will have their own entry on this blog, but I would like to start the subject of office-style with those accoutrements that allow for a little bit of flair or a great bit of garish insanity by adding a personal note to any uniform outfit; the tie. For every well chosen colour and knot-style walking the corporate hallways today there are several half-knotted wool concoctions holding together unbuttoned collars, which is a shame, as there really is not that much to the art of dapper deployment.

Personally, I like symmetry in my ties, so the traditional slanted stripes are not really a preferred part of my collection. Give me a solid colour or centralized pattern at any time. Others might prefer the college-look of blocky stripes slanting over their tie, and there certainly is something to be said for both options. There are things to keep into account however, as not every choice of pattern or colour goes with every type of shirt or suit.

• For double-breasted or high-lapelled suits (three front buttons or three-piece suits), don’t choose a thin tie or a thin knot, but cover as much of the space between the lapels as possible without going overboard toward the cravat-point. For lower-lapelled suits (one or two front buttons) a thinner tie and less obvious knot will do fine, providing one does not walk around like a colour-coded blues brother. A good rule of thumb is the more shirt-fabric the suit allows you to see, the more fabric the tie can allow you to see. Less shirt-fabric between your lapels means larger knots and wider ties.


• A striped suit and a striped tie can work remarkably well, but is very tricky. As always, if you are not exactly sure yourself it looks right, it probably does not. Smarter to go for solid coloured ties on a striped suit and allow your striped ties their time in the sun under a solid suit.


• Bow ties are associated with clowns, eccentric uncles and slightly misguided dandies. Stay away from them (ties and personages). A cravat can be very elegant, but be prepared to be seen as an antiques-dealer on the way home to his much younger boyfriend. Comical ties and novelty patterns fall into one simple category : discount fare. These can send a very clear personal message, but that message almost aways is “I have no sense of humour” or “I wear what my kids can afford to get me”


• Be careful choosing ties with shirts. Yellow tie on a blue shirt can make the yellow look green or the shirt look denim (if you are wearing a denim shirt with a tie already, please leave this blog now). It is best to stick with white or black shirts for brighter ties, as the colour will be brought out most. Striped shirts or more pastel shirts do well with muted ties.


• Patterns other than stripes should be subtle, if possible a result of the ties’ weave more than a dying process. If anything on your tie looks painted on, it might as well be a novelty tie. Another risk of applied patterns is that they can disrupt the lower edge of the knot, or start shedding where you usually would tie the knot, which is regretfully also the part most on view.

Your knot should be symmetrical, fill your collar-points and match up with the lower line of the collar. It is best to choose a tie that fills the space you need to fill, but in the interest of maintaining the customary dimple right underneath the knot it is better to tie a tighter knot in a wider tie than to fluff the knot on a thinner one. Paradoxically, it is always better to have a double knot on a thinner tie than it is to under-knot a wider one as the amount of fabric also guides the type of knot. A knot should be tight, but never strain the fabric. You are presenting yourself, not tying down an errant pony. Personally, I prefer a half-windsor, as it provides a nicely symmetrical knot and allows easy knotting with different styles and materials.

The Pocket Square will be discussed in a separate blog later this week. For now, you should have enough fun with finding some good ties.

Kevin

Style: Confidence vs confidentiality.

One could, if so inclined and willing, draw a rather direct line between personal style and a certain measure of self-confidence. After all, expressing personality to a certain extent smacks of going against the grain, of “showing off”, which is something not lightly undertaken by those lacking in self-esteem. Also, one who is uncertain their stomach should ever see the light of day is not swiftly going to bare midriff, no matter what fashion says about this.

A counterpoint to this of course are those whose stomach really should not see the light of day, and who nonetheless pour themselves into tops so tight that showing copious amounts of flesh is nigh unavoidable. The line “just because you can get into it does not mean it is your size” springs to mind once more. These people cannot be said to be lacking in self-confidence, they can even be said to be slightly over-abundant in that specific regard. Most of them can also be said to be overabundant in the regard of stomach-and-lower-back-flab, but this is an unsavoury subject, and should best not be mentioned.

Now I am in no way harping on those with a little more body to carry around than usual. I myself cart a goodly amount of extra me around right in front of what I maintain are good abs if only you could see them through the flab, and as such would not deny anybody the right to be well-insulated. In fact, I find a little curvy or a little huggable a very attractive thing in any human being, and would as such only applaud anyone who wants to show off a little bit of curve or brawn.

But there is a line between showing what you’ve got and no longer showing your belt, and somewhere on that line does looking confident turn into showing what should be hidden, confidential.
The too-tight legging, the jeans that “hug” so low you are showing thigh between underwear and actual jean, the shirt so high or so tight it leaves nothing to the imagination, including the number and placement of chest-hairs, they are all examples of saying a little too much, of showing a little more than people who you don’t really know should know.

Clothing, traditionally, remains a way of showing off, showing what you have, and as such should be used to their best and fullest. It should not be used, however, to give people an intimate glance into your body’s personal life. Clothing, more than anything, allows a wonderful option for hints, for mystery, for hiding those bits that should only be revealed when a winning personality and good humour have made sure the other party won’t run upon reveal of aforementioned bits.

Style: Prestige, predilection, provenance.

Apocryphal history has a Japanese connoisseur of kimono commenting on the fact that no more than 50 years ago, one could show him a picture of a woman in kimono, standing in a hotel lobby with her face away from the camera, and he would be able to estimate to an astounding degree her age, social status, family heritage, her husbands profession and the season and time of day the picture was taken. This is a far cry from the European fashionist(a) that can from a picture of a women roughly ascribe her to a certain decade (That’s eighties) but then again, there are experts that can attribute sartorial appropriations to incredibly specific measurements in time (that is so 5 minutes ago). But that said, apart from the intricately elegant closed system of Japanese culture, very few systems of fashion or style can base snobbism on the complexity of their rules.

Once upon a time, in a town far away, a cotton manufacturer stumbled on the fact that when cotton is bathed in a bath of caustic soda, and then bathed again in acid, it becomes long, lustrous and a lot more durable. The birth of mercerized cotton might not interest a great amount of people in our current hustle-and-bustle “I-don’t-care-what-it-is-as-long-as-it’s-stylish” world, but widely available cotton certainly has improved over the years. And not only cotton, materials, patterns and logistical solutions have evolved in quality and availability to an extent that there is no longer anything like different markets in clothing, and everything is, in theory, available anywhere.

Not even very long ago, and certainly for Europeans not very far away, what you wore and how it was worn was for a great deal based on two very simple variables of the human condition: Where are you from, and how much do you make when you are there?
Certain local patterns in weaving, embroidery, fabrics and colour were not copied, or very faintly copied, at any great distance from the town of their origin, and as a result, the standard man or woman in the street could be absolutely identified as being on the right street simply by the cut, colour and quality (I so craved a third “c”, but condition just doesn’t cut it, compunctiously) of their clothes. Only the rich or traveled wore materials or styles markedly different from their local counterparts to an identifiable extent.

A stylish lady in the 1800’s might deck herself out in Antwerp Lace or adopt a penchant for a particular style of bohemian embroidery, but these style-choices would seem crude compared to today’s possibilities of refinement. That said, today’s choices would seems indefinable to her, and to an extent too fiddly for absolute comprehension. And again, the possibility of refinement on offer today does in no way mean that people are more refined, and (regretfully) it certainly doesn’t mean people put more care and attention into their apparel as our ante-generational-friend.

Examples of this one still finds, if so interested, in the names and descriptions of clothing and material. Egyptian cotton, Irish Linen and Belgian lace or French embroidery might no longer hold as much captivating information as they did in days of yore, and certainly not as much information nowadays as Dior, Zegna or Chloe, but they certainly tell us a lot about their origins and ambitions.

Fashion-, or better yet style-, wise, the world has not gotten any bigger than it was in days past. In fact, it has gotten a lot smaller, and a whole lot easier to travel around. International trade agreements on fabrics, the world-wide availability of information and the multi-national identity of designers and stores ensure together that the cotton t-shirt I buy in my local store differs in no material way from the t-shirt my American pals buy in their local emporium, which in itself does not differ immensely from the one bought by my moscowegian counterpart in Russia.
A shame? Yes, in some cases. I certainly lament the fact it is nigh useless to travel to London for the fashion because the fashion in London is the same as it is here in Amsterdam (except for the Thomas Pink stores, off course, which are still a good reason to get on a plane), but at the same time the availability of many styles and materials makes it possible for me to look my best in whatever situation (or markedly less “my best” but I can’t blame the clothes for that).

But when it comes to status, clothing has lost a good deal of it’s impact in the apparent eye of the beholder, and only those detail- and label-minded among us will see on first glance what status and/or position your clothing is supposed to project. Where clothing used to make the man all in its own right, nowadays the perception of clothing by others goes a lot farther in determining the make of a man.

Where in days past a different style or material would set you apart as wealthy, or a fashionist(a), today anybody with enough determination to save up for it can deck him- or herself out in Vuitton-styled atrocities, or Chanel based bad choices, and if one is lacking this determination or funding, one can buy generic look-a-likes in the closest low street store. To a certain extent this is a logical by-product of the circle of faddish live (which really does move us all) where high end avant-garde designs are turned into prêt-a-porter concepts and then through generic easiness into bargain basement grabability. Anything that is worn enough will be watered down and copied, and so on ad infinitum. And ad nauseam, in some cases, off course.

So what is one to do if one wants to set oneself apart from the general population, but without the option of taking a train to Berlin for their spring ideas or sending your tailor to Florence for their needlework? Well, those options are off course still open, only much less useful nowadays. Vintage-clothing is always an option, but then again, it can all of a sudden become tres hip, and then where are you?

That said, it is only bad to be avant-garde if it turns out there is no garde, so a little bit of dare and originality is absolutely not frowned upon by the writer of this little piece. And if the followers never appear, simply discard and try again. Nobody achieved elegance and refinement first of without stumbling headlong in the wall of faux pas at their first tries.

Grtz,
Kevin

Style: Hats

Aah yes, the hat. The ever present symbol of the extremes of society. Class, elegance, hoodlums, they all have their hatty counterparts, and they all rely heavily on certain assumptions when it comes to head coverage.

Now, being sadly left over when the hat-abilities were handed out, I’ve never become a complete master of the hat. I do not have a good hat-face, and as such don’t wear them. The only thing ever looked remotely ok on my was a very, very bright blue Wallace & Grommet baseball cap, and as I am fast moving away from 25 years of age, this is not the decision I should be sticking with.

I can say this about hats, though, and I need to give Boyfriend his due for inspiring part of the upcoming rant-ette.

Why, in name of all that is good and beautiful in the world, why, when so much can be said and alluded, so much beauty and sophistication can be hinted at with a hat, do some people insist on choosing a hat so badly fitted that it looks at best like a bucket on a pumpkin?

Not a day goes by but that I have to be faced with somebody in a too small baseball cap, fully laced up in the back if possible as well, balanced in such a way that the bill protrudes scant millimeters past their forehead with the bulk and bubble of the cap sticking several inches out from the top of their head. And every time it is all I can do to stop myself from removing said hat, enlarging the head-space several hundred yards, and plonking it back so that it actually touches skin on more than the lower brim of the piece.
If that would fail, maybe to remove some of the skull of the wearer, as they are not quite making good use of it as it is anyways.

Seriously people, do we have no mirrors, or do we just refuse to self-reflect?

A pillbox hat on a woman can look instantly stylish, a wide brim harks of society, and a veil has mystery and distance. Men can go for the classic fedora, or a panama for that swanky feel of colonial times, and both sexes can easily go for the fun sportyness of a baseball cap. Hell, even beanies have their skater-charm.

As said, I can’t quite go on and on about hats, don’t know much about hatstory, but as with all clothing, size matters, and choosing the wrong one will rarely make you look smooth and well put together. It will make you look like a dork.

Style: Gender Inequality

When looking around oneself in any given high-street or shopping arcade, or even online, in magazines and on the ever-present billboards, one can’t escape noticing that men are getting rather a raw-deal, fashion wise. And we do, actually. Where women have a wide array of clothes to choose from when it comes to style, feel and intent, men can basically opt for about three or four choices, and that’s it. This has not always been the case, of course, men used to be as ranging in their attire as women, but, having been dubbed in some interminable past as the more robust and steadfast of the sexes, we have now been corralled in a very narrow realm of acceptability.
A swift comparison:

Women -Men
The little black dress -Suit (Black)
A little red dress -Suit (Black or Charcoal)
“his” shirt and jeans -Your own shirt and jeans
This wonderful silk blouse with
a simply DIVINE pencil skirt and my
new dark leather boots -Your own (nice) shirt and jeans
Efficient pant-suit in charcoal -Suit (Black or Navy)
Skirt and jacket -Suit (Black)
Cocktail-dress -Suit
Evening-gown -Suit (Maybe tails)
Wedding dress -Suit (Maybe tails or morning)
Granny pants -Boxer or brief
Thong -Boxer or brief
Baby doll -Boxer or brief
Garter belt, stockings, bodice -Boxer or brief (but nice ones)

See a pattern developing here? As a rule, women can walk into a shop and basically buy the same outfit umpteen times in slightly different colors and materials and have a number of different outfits for any mood or occasion, where men walk into a store, buy basically one outfit, and thus have one outfit. But he’ll have five copies of that one outfit.

I believe that this is the reason why men and women cannot shop together. Quite simply it is amazing for any man bred in the last half of this century to see why it is so difficult to pick the “right” items of clothing, mostly because whenever he went shopping there were only a few basic things to choose from. So he gets impatient, she gets annoyed, and it’ll be a cold night in bed tonight...
Two things need to be mentioned here;
1) New appreciation of men’s fashion and grooming has made sure that the availability of different items for the well dressed man (or the badly dressed one, as the case may be) has gone up quite a bit. Thus, the classical bored-with-shopping man will gradually die out a little, and is to an extent a stereotype that many modern men will not identify with at all.
2) Even though the above is an exaggeration it is not a terribly big one, men do have less choice and options as far as clothing is concerned as women. To a certain extent, the difference is academic, as there is still far more than enough to choose from for us, off course, but just less than there is for them. Also, categorizing for men is a dangerous thing to draw conclusions from, as one suit is not another and different cuts and materials have wildly different effects. That said, the same applies for women’s clothing, and the difference remains.

Obviously, the shape of the human body has shifted a little in the last 10000 years or so, but unless one subscribes too literally to Plato, the general number of appendages and suchlike hasn’t changed in any but the more unfortunate cases. Thus, women having the choice of pants and skirts, and men only having pants, limiting our respective options by about half.

Is this mean? No, not really. Is it by times unfair? Yes, absolutely. Is it avoidable? No, not unless the man-skirt gains a little more acceptance, and apart from certain subcultures I am not really seeing that happen anytime soon.

But men do have their options.
I prefer to think of clothing as a sort of blank canvas. Everybody wears clothing and everybody dos it differently, and an individual choice of material, style and color can make a lot form a very basic set. One can think of clothing as a uniform with the option to customize, and nothing shows off individualities as well as a uniform.
There is a tendency among writers to tackle “classic” subjects. The Ghost story, the Vampire story, the Romantic Comedy. Because these are almost archetypical styles, and roughly follow a set of rules and lines within the story, it is a very familiar place to be for the reader. But writers use these typical subjects to show of their own styles and turns, and the devil as well as the divine is really in the details here. And so could, and should, clothing be used.

Boyfriend, lovely man as he is, has a certain personal style in his clothing. He likes cufflinks over buttons, prefers a well cut suit over a flashy one, and has an apparent lifelong desire to own a few well tailored bankers’ shirts. The one with the colored body but white collars and cuffs. A commendable desire, I say, not only because I think he looks good in a suit, but also because a well-cut, classical suit with a well chosen shirt really is a point where it is almost impossible to go wrong.
That said, I do think he is a little too conservative in his attire, and most of our shopping expeditions can be scripted as a good half hour of me badgering him to get out of the mold a little bit, until he gets angry, and we get something about 10% away from his initial idea and onto my preferred result. As a rule, a pleasant exercise in clashing taste with an almost 100% success rate in general goodlookingness of Boyfriend.
As can be seen from the above, I have a completely different idea about formal wear, and have a tendency to be a little less traditional. I go for the bolder ties, contrasting colors and patterns, and have a tendency to be a little more ostentatiously dressed. I think it looks good, and I have been told thus enough times to have a confirmed opinion here.

What I am trying to say here is that we are both wearing a suit, might even both be wearing a suit of the same cut and color, but the way it’s been worn, and what it’s been worn with, can differ dramatically. A bright shirt or tie is a marked difference from a demure one, and different shoes or belts can do a lot as well.
Providing one remains reasonable, but with a personal flourish, it is very easy to adapt the uniform of a suit to an expression of individuality.

But it is, regretfully, easy to go wrong here as well. As a rule, patterns should either match all over, or clash all over. So a striped suit with a striped shirt and a striped tie is ok, if a little staid, but a striped-striped-dotted look will make you look like the tie you wanted to wear was eaten by the dog. Then again, striped-dotted-tartan is a choice, and with the right colors can look very well put together.

Style: Happenings, too much or not enough

Another slightly more general message from the more stylistically inclined parts of my personality, this time of an oft made mistake in dressing and adorning ones’ self: stuff.
Yes, stuff, that’s the technical term for all the things that are happening on or in your outfit. Accessories, colors, prints, they all add up to a busy or sedate look, depending on choices. They also add up to a look that suits you to a tee, or a look that you should not consider even if you know everybody around you is or will shortly be blind.

So how does one explain succinctly when or how something in or on an outfit is something that “happens” instead of just a part of the base outfit? Good question, and not easy to answer. Well, actually, it is. Anything that is NOT the base color or cut of your outfit, hair or skin is “something happening”. Yes, skin and hair as well, no outfit is an outfit without someone in it, and just because it works on someone else does not mean it works on you, so you should always consider what you look like yourself before considering what you look like in a particular piece or set of clothes.
But as far as happenings go, consider this to include, but not exclusively mean, earrings, prints, tassels, streaks, belts, shoes, socks, bracelets, necklaces, glitter, feathers and so on ad infinitum.

As a swift illustration, a few outfits, one with almost nothing happening, one with a lot happening: In these two outfits it is easy to see which of the two has more happening to it than the other. The first outfit has simple lines, few decorations, and few distractions from the base of the outfit. I counted on first sight the three points highlighted, the sleeves, the beadwork on the bodice, and the beads and feathers on the train.
The second outfit immediately strikes as a lot busier, and not for nothing either, six items of distraction noted on the first look, to wit: the grey blazer to offset the black and green, the bow on that blazer, the long stole, the green shirt, the bag, and the pattern on the skirt in contrasting colors.
Which is better? Neither, depending on what you want to achieve. More stylish? Again, neither. There is no hard and fast rule what to wear where, after all. These two outfits are both very stylish, if in completely different ways.

Now for somewhat of a test. Two more pictures:
Which of these two has more happening?

Neither? Roughly correct. Both have a number of details and points that distract from the general outfit. The red outfit has the cap, the collar, the gloves, the wide cut of the pants, the epaulettes, the make up and the sown in crease of the lapel, where the colorful flapper has her shoes, her make-up, the hair, the fur, the coat-pattern, the hair-decoration and the large patterning on the dress to accentuate what she is wearing.

But how to decide when you have too much happening to an outfit? Well, a reasonable rule of thumb would appear gestaltlike from the above two pictures. To my mind, the red outfit has exactly the right amount of things done to the basic cut of her outfit, although she could stand to lose the hat, whereas the flapper has a riot of distractions, and it takes a good measure of woman to not be lost between all the contrasts and attention grabbers. Thus, it would almost be safe to say that contrast is the key here. If we look at the above two pictures again, and rate the distractions, according to contrast, then the red outfit suddenly has no distractions, as none contrast with the outfit itself, whereas the flapper has almost no distractions that don’t contrast at all.

One or two things that offset an outfit, like a belt or a pocket handkerchief, can look very stylish, but if it becomes impossible to see what the outfit was all about in the first place, style is often thrown right out the window. It has been said that one should create an outfit, stand in front of a mirror and remove the first thing that catches ones eye, and this is a good rule to live by, as it would nine times out of ten be the thing that contrasts most sharply with the rest of the outfit. Adding an extra piece so you have something to safely remove would be considered cheating, by the way, and cheating is rarely a recipe for style. No one really likes looking like they have just thrown something together in the morning, and nobody really has to.

Alternatively, if you stand in front of your mirror and notice that nothing catches your eye, you might be in danger of looking dull. And there is no style in dullness either. But then one has to find items that work well with an already chosen outfit, and that isn’t easy. Men, we have the positive side that almost all jewelry marketed for us will look good on most outfits; simple bracelets or necklaces will easily get you from Jeans-and-t-shirt to metrosexual. Women have it a little less easy, and are tempted to go overboard where men remain too bland.
A simple cut, easy line with little in the way of distraction can be helped by a brooch or a reasonably sparkly necklace, or even by putting a little extra time in hair and make-up, using your outfit merely as a frame for a pretty face.

To end this thing, men, everything above applies to us as well as to the women, just because examples in female fashion are easier to give does not mean we get a fee ride here. To illustrate, I am leaving you with two pictures of current men’s fashion, both with roughly the same amount of happenings, but not quite with the same effect.

Style: General Comments

Because any reasonable Style section in any reasonable magazine is going to repeat itself over and over again anyways like a hamster reading out the brand of his spinnywheelthing, mine should not be a real exception to that rule. However, to make my own life and yours as a reader a little bit more interesting and in the long run rewarding, I am going to pre-empt the whole repetition thing by going into some base values of what style is and should be, so I can just allude to the main points later on and safely assume everybody will know what I am talking about. Or wrongly assume everybody knows what I am talking about. Same difference.

Style vs. Fashion

Style is not the same as fashion, although sometimes they do overlap quite a bit. It is entirely possible to be imminently stylish but not at all fashionable, and vice versa. The first, however, is far more likely. It has been said (by me, often) that style is what stays after fashion goes away, and up to a certain level, this is true, providing one takes a very long view of fashion, say a good 1000 years or so. As a rule, style is intricately personal, and uses what is available, where fashion is group-based, and creates availability.

Common sense

Common sense is one of the mayor points in both creating and having (a) style, and both are almost impossible to achieve without it. Obviously, those completely devoid of common sense but still striving for style can hire a stylist, but that would be a sensible thing to do, thus negating the lack of common sense again.
Applying common sense to appearance and wardrobe is actually surprisingly easy to advice, but very hard to do, judging from the amount of utter crap that still lingers despondently unworn on several of the shelves in my own wardrobe.
I will not give a hard and fast line on this topic, as I hope to brush against it often in these bits and most of this column will be heavily based on what I deem common sense anyway.

Size, or “the fact that it fits you does not mean it’s your size”

This particular subject is going to get its own blog, obviously, but bears saying something now. There really is very little more detrimental to looking good than picking a wrong size for your body. This goes both ways; as dressing in things that are too small can be as detracting from your looks as dressing in too over-sized a fabrication. Depressingly enough, a great deal of people have no idea what size they should be wearing, and thus wear things they really should not even have looked at in the first place. As a hint, anything that pushes your body into a shape it does not usually have is probably too small for you, and anything that does not show the shape your body usually has stands a good change of being too big. Neither is flattering in theory, and most certainly neither is stylish. One is almost always best of with things that skim one’s contours but leave some room to move comfortably.

Comfort

As style is dependent not only on you and your body, but also on your environment and personal situation, giving advice concerning comfort is difficult. Slack pants and a big t-shirt certainly are comfortable, but not in a large social gathering, and they certainly won’t make you feel more comfortable in the wrong company. That said; well-cut boot-cuts, good shoes and a fitted shirt can be less easy to move around in, but make you feel a lot more on top of the situation mostly.
All things being equal, however, you will look good in what feels good, and what feels good will show itself when you think for a little bit about the situations you are likely to encounter.

Vibe

A conversation with Boyfriend a little while ago about the way people dress actually prompted this series of solipsistic extravaganza, and most importantly, the fact that a lot of people miss the plank completely when it concerns what they want to show with the way they dress and what it actually shows.
A good example here is the classic comb-over, which generations of men think as shown a full head of hear where it more correctly points out the fact that there actually is no full head of hair. A woman dressing a little too brightly and too small thinking it shows she has a youthful outlook on life stands a better chance of showing not just her real age but going several years over when viewed from outside her own head.
To a certain extent, it is unavoidable that even the most careful planning and attention to detail might sometimes miss its objective, but the likelihood of this situation decreases massively when one puts some effort into staying within the lines of ones ability.


All in all, I have started this Style-section of my blog to put into words my own thoughts on the subject, but also because I have been asked in the past to get some ideas on paper about this. It is in no way meant as a style guide or some such, although I personally think it could become one over time. For now, it is just a showcase for me of mistakes I have seen made and can illustrate, and the wonderful things one sees and can share. And it is all about sharing, off course.

Fashion!

Well… fashion… fashion… style, maybe. And even if that, MY ideas of style, which might not always match with other’s ideas of same. Having had some small schooling in the field of fashion, and a long abiding interest in the field of style, and having made my own good measure of momentous fuck-ups, I believe I have acquired at my young age a good eye for “what looks good” and what doesn’t, and a reasonable ability to match things from that first category to the people around me and myself.

I think my greatest fabfashionmoment was when M, a friend who shall remain an initial for this scriptorial, asked me to join her on a shopping trip, for shits and giggles. We arrived at a large clothing store where we swiftly dived into the stacks, pulling out a lot of things we thought looked ok, among which a pair of dusty green linen pants and a brightly printed purple top. Well, I thought it looked nice, she didn’t. Didn’t, until she came out of the changing rooms (some pressure was applied) and completely loved the outfit. She was actually commented upon it several times, and called me very excitedly when she saw a tv-presenter dressed in exactly the same outfit. I was very happy then, and am so still.

So I think I have a reasonable eye for the gross lines of style, and as such am going to create a number of blogs on that and directly related topics, starting of with the one directly after this one, which should be published later today. As a title and category for these, I will try to create an easy to reach label. Most likely: Style:[topic]

Feedback will be, as always, greatly appreciated.

Fashion, sneakers, shopping.

I have allowed myself to be swayed by the demands of fashion and trend, and have made a purchase this weekend that is quite unlike me in more ways than one.

This weekend the boyfriend and I have made a shopping expedition into the city, mainly to get some inspiration for decorating his hovel-ish abode. The fact that we went in on a Saturday, a day everybody knows is designed to test the patience of every window shopper ever while simultaneously providing every windowshopper ever with the chance to dally in front of storefronts, thereby testing the patience of all OTHER windowshoppers should make it hardly surprising that the amount of inspiration gathered was at best minuscule, and at worst to be described with the idea “But what exactly is WRONG with decorating the small wall with the entrails of the short and annoying woman right in front of me?”

To keep either one of us from disembowelling fellow shoppers with the sharper bones of other fellow shoppers, we decided to take a venture into a calmer part of town, and pay a visit to Boyfriend’s Dog. Dog, name of George, seemed to enjoy this small bit of attention very much, and I have decided to forgive him the usual doggy tendency to be highest up by using my head as a step and/or resting place for the sheer enthusiasm he put to light for trying to eat my hand.
After having taken the dog for a walk and spending some time doing relaxation exercises to steel ourselves for the onslaught of annoyance we were bound to encounter on the walk back to the bus, I suddenly remembered that the reason for me to go into town in the first place was to get new shoes. Shoes, the one item of clothing I truly despise shopping for.

Now I usually wear basic black, basic model shoes without much frillyness, and I maintain to others that this is for simple style reasons. This is a blatant lie.
I wear them because there is no gender ambiguity.
Shoe-stores confuse me, especially modern shoe-stores. All those same basic model white sneakerthingies and people milling about between them… I am never sure whether I am on the right side of the store or not. I like old-fashioned shoe-stores where the areas were clearly indicated, and the chance of being wrong was further negated by the fact that I, as a man, had no business in the part of the store with all the glitter and heals.
The fact that I am now a confirmed genderfucker makes this in no way easier, as I hate doing that by mistake as much as I like doing it on purpose.

So I have steered clear of sneakers in the past, until this Saturday. Armed and bolstered by Boyfriend, who is a sneaker-wearing person, I decided to brave the confusion and find some shoes. And I did. Yay!
I am now the proud owner of a pair of white K-Swiss sneakers, with dark red detailing, and a dark red/light red stripe shifter system.
And I love them. As usual, I have purchased an item of clothing I really like, and I can’t stop talking about them.
I never really liked sneakers, they make the foot a good deal flatter, and on people with large feet, the idea of a walking “L” is hard to escape.
But I love my new white sneakers.

But now a new problem arises. The Stripe Shifter system is designed to enable one to use their shoes as a medium for communication. The idea is that the stripes on the side of the sneakers can be “opened” or “closed” with slides on the stripes, making them either dark red or light red, or other colours as the case might be. And different combinations would carry a specific message. This can be quite elaborate, actually, as both shoes have two sides, with five slides each, who can all independent of the rest can be recognizably at open, closed, or half-way. This means that there are 20 slots with three options, totalling a 3 to the 20th amount of options, which accoridng to my calculator means 3.486.784.401 options.
I am not taking the option that the stripes can be worn at quarters or thirds as well, the options would grow higher, but the indication is hard to differentiate between.
Best is it, obviously, to maintain the same config on all sets of 5, giving a mere 243 different combinations.

This is all nice and well, providing people would get their freaking head round what a certain combination would actually MEAN.
So far I have been able to find out that all open means “gay”, which would be fine but is unlikely, as all stripes open negates the idea of the shifter, and it seems a tremendously non-straight idea. And all slides at half mast is “respect” which is fine by me as it is the config I find most visually pleasing.

But what if I decide to alternate? Is 2nd and 4th of the 5 stripes open a good thing, a bad thing? What if I am signalling my allegiance to CDA? What if I by wearing my shoes thusly protest for the treatment of Dutch Elm Disease by burning puppies (Hush Puppies, most like, considering competition wars and all that)?
Looking through Google results hardly helps, the manufacturers site gives no useful information, and nobody I know wears the things…
Can anybody help me out here?

I have pondered the idea of putting my age in, as 10011 should be 25, and open-closed-closed-open-open is an acceptable configuration, but then, who understands binary except for true geeks, and they hardly ever look at people’s shoes. It would be a good way to find the few fashion conscious geeks, but then I am already training Boyfriend to be one of those, and really, with me being one as well, I am already pushing critical mass… Indicating an age will become problematic in 7 years when I get above 32 years old, but that is a problem I will tackle then.

Until then, all stripes at half open,

Kevin.