Tag Fashion

Undressed for Success

Michael Leave a comment
Over the last few days I’ve been scrolling through various social media platforms because, well, because I’ve always had that kind of time, and I’m picking up on a disconcerting trend. Clothing options are getting scary.
 
I know you’ve seen the posts, “Its 9am. Time to change from my night PJs to my day PJs!” or similar and probably from people who used to be the closest things to fashions plates outside of Project Runway. Now they’re all giving new meaning to “not being a slave to fashion” and in serious jeopardy of being busted by the fashion police. 
 
Work fashions have always been a little out of the average dresser’s realm of understanding. How dressy is dressy? How casual is casual? What can and can’t I get away with? are more likely the questions rather than, oh let’s say, Are my seams straight?   
 
I’ve always worked in health care, almost always in some healthcare facility – hospital, rehab center, nursing home. Over forty years I’ve seen it all. When I started, nurses still wore whites. Not white. Whites. Some even with caps. All with their pins. Scrubs were worn in the OR and never over outside those automatic doors without an accompanying white coat. Down in the pharmacy where I was the uniform of the day for males was shirt and tie, the ladies had blouses and skirts or slacks with short white consultation jackets for staff pharmacists and long white lab coats for supervisors and department heads. Except for those working the IV rooms. There it was either lab coats over scrubs or gowns over street clothes. There was similar garb in the other ancillary departments, x-ray, respiratory, and the various therapies. Non-clinicians like admissions and administration wore suits. Period.
 
That was the routine six days a week. Friday was different. Ah, you are thinking, Casual Friday. Nope. Not then. Work was no place to be casual. Fridays were dress up days. Everybody came in if not dressed to the nines, to the 7-1/2s at least. As soon as the figurative whistle blew, administration, staff, and support proceeded en masse to the nearest adult watering hole. 
 
Somewhere along the way Dressup Friday yielded to Casual Friday but Saturday through Thursday work fashion remained as it was. I’m not sure when that happened. I don’t recall being part of the movement so I think it must have shifted during my years in the service when the army rather than the calendar dictated our dress. But I don’t think it was very much before I returned to civilian life and its itinerant dress because people were not yet debating how casual casual could get. At the time khaki pretty much defined casual. Men shed their ties and may have just opened a collar or taken an extra step to a structured “sport shirt.” Women adopted khaki lower halves either as skirts or slacks and typically pulled a sweater over an open blouse and called that casual. It would be years before anybody even considered denim acceptable and then it was only black, never blue. 
 
Somehow from that we made it to daytime versus night pajamas. Considering in today’s hospital world everybody including the guy patrolling the parking garage is in scrubs and scrubs are just a hop, skip, and tied waistband from pajamas, it was only a matter of time until people started showing up at work looking like Captain Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. Only now the screen in front of the helmsman and navigator displays not a possible incursion of the Neutral Zone but instead the morning Zoom meeting.
 
Live long and prosper! Casually.
 
FashionPolice 
 
 
 

No Business Like Shoe Business

Michael 2 Comments

Have you ever had a day when to want to say something but are sure it will unwarrantedly ruffle someone’s feathers? You don’t mean to. You really just have a thought you want to express but, particularly in the now when every thought, let alone action, regardless of intent is either forgiven or vilified depending on the political affiliation (real or perceived) of the thinker and/or actor, you hesitate. So I’ve been very concerned about bringing this up but I just can’t hold it back any longer. Where the hell are all the brown shoelaces?

I don’t need new shoelaces right now but there is a pair (are a pair?) (no, is a pair) fraying and will surely and shortly break. I’d like to be proactive and have the replacement on hand if not actually on shoe before that happens but I can’t find laces for brown dress shoes. White for athletic shows yes. Hundreds of any length and thickness imaginable. Thick black laces in lengths clearly for boots most probably fitted with steel toes are everywhere. Those rawhide looking things for hiking shoes hang on racks by the score of scores. Some places seem to begrudgingly devote a hook, maybe two, to black laces appropriate for dress shoes, but brown…um, nope. Not out there.

I think it started with Casual Friday. I never understood that. Why should somebody making an appointment with a banker, broker, car dealer, or human resource manager on the last day of the week be made to feel like the appointment maker has already started on his or her weekend? Why do Tuesday appointments get treated more formally than those who scheduled on Friday? I guess others felt the same way because it seems there is no more Casual Friday. It is now Casual Week. (I think I also once mentioned an off shoot of this. That is, why everybody who has anything remotely to do with medicine now feels the need to wear scrubs. If I hit the next billion dollar Power Ball jackpot and feel the urge to endow a hospital nephrology department, I do not want to meet with an administrator in a Looney Tunes scrub top to discuss my multimillion dollar gift. Just putting that out there.) Anyway, that’s how it all started – when men shed their suits and ties.

Women can be just as casual but a woman knows there are times when “dress” means more than the garment. And still have them in their closets. The garments that is. (That are?) I am certain if women’s dress shoes required laces there would be sufficient stock from which to choose.

BrownShoesI guess we men just lost our will to dress up. And stores responded. The Men’s Department yielded space to The Active Male, Sports and Leisure, and You’re Only as Young as You Feel departments. And the space they gave up used to be occupied by shoelaces for dress shoes. Even brown. Well I want it back! I want that space that used to hold tie bars and pocket squares. I want a belt that isn’t reversible. I want shoes that need polishing. And I want brown shoelaces!

I sincerely apologize for feathers that have been ruffled and trust this won’t result in some social media frenzy. But one last thing … if you should happen to have knowledge of brown shoelaces appropriate for a men’s dress shoe with 4 eyelets please email me their location. I will not share your information.

Thank you

 

Suiting Up

Michael Leave a comment

Twelve is a very important number. There are twelve months in a year, 12 animals represented in the lunar calendar, and twelve gods resided on Olympus. An American jury has 12 members; a Canadian football team has 12 players. There have been twelve men who walked on the moon. The Bible speaks of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the Twelve Apostles. Beowulf has 12 followers, Thorin has 12 dwarfs, and there are 12 generals in Paradise Lost.

And in twelve weeks it will be Memorial Day.

What? Memorial Day? Yep. In 12 weeks America celebrates Memorial Day, another holiday no American gets to celebrate with a day off except for government employees but, and this is important, a day all Americans not lucky enough to live in Florida, Arizona, or Southern California get to celebrate with pool openings!

I thought this year I should celebrate Pool Opening Day with a new pair of trunks. Somewhere along the way, men have gotten the short end when it comes to swimwear. It may run from the classic Speedo and all that threatens to blind you when you think of most men in a Speedo to the classless board shorts and all that threatens to blind when you know those things are going to fall off at any moment. But between those extremes are the basic trunks in dark solid colors or inoffensive prints. Take reasonable care of them and they will last 40 or 50 years. And stay stylish throughout that time.

But only a short trip through the Internet’s e-mall and I saw that boy, was I wrong.

I knew I wanted something more distinctive than basic blue swim shorts and in an uncharacteristic fit of silliness (as opposed to a fit of uncharacteristic silliness) I typed “funky trunks” into the search bar. I didn’t know there is an actual company called “Funky Trunks” specializing in funky trunks. I guess technically Funky Trunks is a trademark of the Way Funky Company of Melbourne, Australia from where they supply funkily styled trunks to swimmingly adventurous men in Australia, Canada, throughout the UK, and in the USA, and maybe in a few other countries too. I stopped looking when I saw how much they cost for how little material they use!

NotMe

Not me in not my new suit

I won’t pick on just the branded funky suits and their high prices. All men’s swimsuits have gotten more expensive than the last time I went recreational clothing shopping.  To me, $60 (US) seems like a lot for something to wear to the pool. But I hadn’t bought any for a while and then it was probably at a store with “mart” in the name on an end of season clearance rack so what do I know.

So then I thought the couple pair I have will have to do until sometime this fall when the end of season racks are filled with funky style trunks. Or maybe basic blue.

 

I Got Nothing

Michael 7 Comments

When I sat down to write this post I realized that I really didn’t have an idea for this post. Not that I had one and forgot which I’ve done and have written about. Not that I had a bad idea for a post which I’ve probably had more times than not but wrote about anyway. Not that I had an idea but had written about several times already and even I knew that one more time wasn’t going to be a good idea. No, when I say I really didn’t have an idea, I really didn’t have an idea.

It’s been a decent enough week. I’ve felt well so I used some of that energy and did some shopping. Most of the time a good shopping trip will end up with fodder for a good blog post and sometimes just the act of shopping ends up blogworthy (which I’ve also already written about fairly recently). This week’s shopping was pretty much that. I went shopping. Bought a couple of shirts, some kitchen stuff, a canister of that newfangled spray on sun-screen. But it was all fairly normal. No weird sales signs, no clueless sales clerks, no inappropriately dressed fellow customers. Well, there was that one lady in the bathing suit with a cover-up masquerading as clothes. How could I tell there was a bathing suit under what outwardly appeared to be a cover-up? Maybe the dripping water that trailed her like an ill-trained puppy. But since I’ve done more than a couple of posts on fashion rules for the real world I couldn’t see putting yet another together at the expense of the nonfashionista and her screaming need for attention.

Since the last post I’ve spent a lot of time at the pool. I’ve switched from morning walk to morning swim at least on non-dialysis days for my exercise. In fact, it’s worked out quite well for me. Last summer, actually last summer, last fall, last spring, the summer before last, and so on and so one and etc. I’ve spent most of my exercise energy on walking. Also covered in several posts. But since I’ve started on dialysis I’ve been slacking on the sidewalk shuffle. If you’ve never had dialysis I’ll add in my prayers tonight that you never have to have dialysis for one of the things they don’t tell you when they stress that you’ll only spend 7% of your week on the machine is that you spend about 40% of your week recovering from that time. Walking just a mile or two the morning after dialysis isn’t just out of the question, it’s not even a question. Period. But swimming seems to be a different animal. I’ll swim a lap or two then climb out of the pool and rest in a comfy lounge chair under the morning sun. After a few minutes rest (ok, after about 20 minutes rest), it’s back in for some water calisthenics. More rest, more laps. More rest, some wading. I get exercise and a killer tan without having to stop for a rest when I’m a quarter mile from the nearest park bench. But hardly blogworthy.

And we’ve had Father’s Day. It’s the rare holiday that goes by without a mention of it by me. I’ve even invented my own holidays just to get a post idea. Maybe not invented but certainly given more weight to National Name Tag Day than even its proponents did. But everybody knows about Father’s Day. Not much I could add to it. I could talk about my gifts but they wouldn’t hold your interest as much as mine. I could talk about dinner and the fabulous glaze we came up with for the grilled salmon but then when the cook book comes would you still buy it? Or I could talk about how we narrowly escaped the severe weather than muscled its way into the festivities just as the grill was cooling. But how many weather posts can one blog present?

No, I just have to own up to up. I got nothing. So if you were expecting to find something here to pique your interest, go to the search page and plug in your desired topic. Chances are you’ll get something back. Till then, I’ll try to work on something more substantial for Thursday.

Have a great week!

 

Shopped Till I Dropped

Michael Leave a comment

I did something different last week. I went shopping. Not the shopping you do at a supermarket regardless of how super your market is. Real shopping that involved considering style and fashion, color and fabric, and trying stuff on. Oh that might not be very different for you but I assure you, it is indeed different, almost exciting, for me. Over the last 3 years I’ve managed to lose 110 pounds. I may have mentioned that about 20 of them were desired and even intentional. The other 90 or so came off as pieces of me came out during and after various hospital stays and recovery periods.

During that time I made due with piecemeal attire supplementation and the occasional reintroduction of an item that was spared a trip to the donation bin during the years when I was busy gaining some 110 pounds. But I finally had to recognize that I could no longer go out in public – even a public as limited as companion patients in doctors’ waiting rooms, dialysis clinic nursing staff, once a week grocery co-shoppers, and fellow churchgoers – with the ragtag rags that my togs were quickly becoming. Thus, a shopping spree.

And let me tell you something that probably every mother of a teenage boy already knows. If you are male and are not an adolescent male whose fashion sense is dictated primarily by the local college or professional football teams’ uniforms (regardless of the chronologic age of said adolescent male), there’s not much one can call smart for men out there. Oh I found plenty of shirts, slacks, and jackets in formal, informal, and in between styles but those styles were quite the same as the styles of those few previously mentioned articles that had stayed with me since the last time I weighed this little. And that was around 30 years ago.

Not to be deterred I soldiered on and did grave damage to my credit limit, restructuring my wardrobe to one that does not elicit questions like “have you been sick?” by any passerby who subscribes to the Hi Guy Principle. To be honest, when I started the day I thought I’d be exhausted and want to quit before it got on to time for a mid-morning snack. And to continue to be honest, I was getting tired. But tired and somewhat exhilarated at the same time. It had been so long since I had been shopping, even though most of what I was buying was basically the same stuff I had bought so long since, that I was actually enjoying myself.

There’s nothing like spending a day, and lots of money, shopping in a store where your selections aren’t plopped into a plastic cart with wheels you push to the check-out line at the front of the building.

I’ll have to try to do it again sometime in the next 30 years.

 

There’s No Business Like Shoe Business

Michael Leave a comment

I was looking for shoes last week. I don’t really need them, I have more shoes than I really need but since I was shopping anyway, why not? I found out why not.

I was at the local mall with the basic department stores, a shoe “warehouse,” and some discount department stores (you know, the ones that end in “Mart”).  No real shoe stores. For them you have to go into town, to a high end shopping area, or to an outlet mall. And that’s the shame of it. You see, for a man, unless you want athletic shoes or work boots, the only places to buy shoes are the real shoe stores.

I haven’t figured it out. These same modestly priced shoe stores and departments have plenty of women’s shoes in various styles – casual shoes, sports shoes, dressy shoes, sandals, boots, clogs, mules, pumps, flats, and yes, even athletic and work shoes. Women can buy shoes to work in, play in, go gardening ,shopping or boating, can go to the beach or to the mountains, go riding motorcycles, bicycles or horses, go to church, go to a marathon as either spectator or runner, or even go shopping. Men can buy shoes to play hoops or go to the worksite. Actually, men can buy athletic shoes with steel toes so he can go the work and stop off at the basketball court after without even having to change shoes. How convenient.

Anything more than that, anything like a Scotch grain loafer, a natty cap toe, a conservative wingtip, a plain toe slip on, a basic oxford, or a canvas moccasin aren’t going to be easy to find. For them you have to clear a day, plan a trip, pack your lunch, and check your bank balance.

And you look at us and wonder, often out loud, “are you really going to wear those shoes to church?”

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Have I Got a Deal for You

Michael 1 Comment

Last weekend my daughter was lamenting the fact that the stores were starting to advertise fall fashions. Fortunately, she reported, they were also beginning summer clearances so it wasn’t all that terrible that the season was being rushed along a bit.

It’s always been that way. Valentine specials show up right after New Year’s; Easter Sales go on sale in February; Memorial Day Specials pop up in early April; Fourth of July Sales are here and gone by Flag Day; Labor Day Back to School Sales get started at the end of July; Halloween candy is displayed around the start of the school year; Black Friday opens around Halloween; Christmas Sales deck the shelves on Columbus Day; and the End of the Year Clearance flyers hit the mailboxes a week before Thanksgiving.  Next year will probably start a week earlier.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It really does become a plus when you can buy this season’s fashions at bargain basement prices while still in the season. But then does that mean the demise of bargain basements?

I suppose that bargain basements are already dead. And that’s a shame. They used to be THE place to shop for the folks who couldn’t afford Saks, Lord and Taylor, or Tiffany. And back a generation or two that was almost everybody. The bargain basements were where back to school meant it didn’t have to be hand-me-downs, where grills and patio furniture and outdoor life came to life for middle class America, where Christmas got to overflow from each child’s stocking.  They might have all been the previous year’s fashion but who cared. Jeans were jeans, chairs were chairs, and toys were toys. And all of them hidden away in the department stores’ lowest levels. Even when the big retailers moved to the suburban shopping centers there still was a certain square footage devoted to the bargain basement.

Now the bargains are relegated to a few clearance racks pushed to the back of a department, behind next season’s meticulous displays. They are a few handfuls of what didn’t sell, the few pieces management is willing to part with this season rather than storing in back rooms to be brought out next year or auctioned off to remainder stores.

Those days of the bargain basements were the days when real savings were passed to the public. Today if you want a real savings you have to know where your closest time machine dealer is. Of course, if he’s not running any good specials when you get there, ask for a test drive and go back one holiday. You’ll find your deal there. Or is that then?

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

T(-Shirt) is for Thinking

Michael 2 Comments

I’m all for self-expression. I’ve expressed my approval of it already in several posts. Over the years we’ve written about expressing one-self in signs on our the walls (Walls O’ Wisdom, March 19, 2012) on license plates (UNDTSAY, April 2, 2012) and even on license plate frames (Mobile Philosophy, June 30, 2014). But the “selfest” of self-expression has to be the T-shirt. And by goodness there are some expressive ones out there!

I started wondering about this a couple of weeks ago. I was at the supermarket and was reminded of how nobody wears a plain collared shirt any more. Everything has something on it. Around here, the sports-minded person rarely goes out in public without declaring his or her devotion to some team or another. (See ‘Tis the Season – Summer 2014 Edition, July 28, 2014.) Coming on strong, though, are the shirts that spout his or her thoughts beyond championship seasons.

It always seems to be around the meat counter that I am struck by people’s clothing. This time it was a guy wearing a T-shirt that read “Lie Like You Mean It.” I found myself wondering if his wife gave it to him for his birthday. Two aisles over, another fellow sported “Drive It Like You Stole It.” Two shirts, two commandments. We were on a roll!

It wasn’t just the men – or maybe boys. A woman got me noticing her T-Shirt inscribed with the self-assured (self-)expression “I’m A Keeper.” Another had a more practical opinion to share. Her shirt read “If I Had Ruby Slippers I Wouldn’t Pick Kansas.” And my favorite was a lady mature enough to be in her retirement years seen at the deli counter, “Out To Lunch – Permanently!”

My walls are filled with boards and posters of seemingly clever sayings (Behind every great man is an enormous amount of caffeine); I actually have a custom license plate frame appropriate to an old geezer that I someday want to grow up to be (Aged to Perfection). I don’t have a vanity plate on the car but I have thought of it. But I can honestly say I’ve a veritable dearth of philosophical clothing.  The closest I come to is an old T-shirt proclaiming “I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won.” Actually, if you ever saw my lawn you’d realize that isn’t philosophical.  That’s the honest to gosh truth!

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Winter Rules

Michael 2 Comments

Golf may have the most famous set of winter rules of any year round sport.  Not many people understand them but when one hears “Winter Rules” one almost always thinks of golf.  However, when we think of winter rules we think of our set of rules – fashion rules.

We’ve done fashion rules before.  (See The Real Reality Summer Wardrobe Rules for Real People (July 30, 2012), Dressed for Success (Oct. 11, 2012), Summer Fashion, Summer Rules (June 27, 2013) or type “rules” into the search bar.)  We’ve never delved into winter fashion rules.  It’s because it gets so cold around here we’re just happy to get from Point A to Point B with little concern of how others are dressed to make the trip.  Until this year.

This year has been one of the coldest and one of the snowiest winters we’ve seen.  Yet somehow people have managed to crush the fashion rules barrier like never before.  We’ve threatened to have cards printed that say “Leggings are not substitutes for pants” to pass out to the most egregious violators.   But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.  (Pardon the seasonal pun.)

There is a good place to start.  Let’s poll the ladies who are reading this.  Fast forward six weeks.  Would you wear nothing but a blouse and pantyhose to work?  That isn’t too far off the mark when a woman yanks on her stretchy leggings (black, brown, white, or (shudder) patterned) and then tops it off with a top that falls just about at her waist.  She’ll pull on a pair of furry boots, drop a rhinestone pendant hanging to about her navel and calls it office appropriate for below freezing temperature weather.

There is a subset of the female winter rules violator who concentrates on footwear.  For cold, snowy days we’re fine with boots.  We’re fine with leather shoes.  We’re fine with athletic footwear that will keep one’s feet dry and warm.  We’re not fine with ballet flats, open toes shoes, backless shoes, or clogs with holes all over them particularly when whomever is wearing such poor choices has the nerve to complain that somebody should do something about all the snow and slush in the parking lot because now her feet are cold and wet.  Somebody had the chance to do something.  The shoe selection committee!

Men aren’t getting off easy here either.  For some reason, men seem to think that single digit air temperature means it’s finally cold enough to wear that windbreaker that they bought last spring unsure of actually when windbreaker weather is.  This is not the same man who wears his ever present hoodie everywhere – inside, outside, at the desk, to meetings, to lunch with clients, and at the dinner table at home.  Usually he has to always wear his hoodie because it takes his concentration away from his legs being so cold because he is wearing shorts.   Inside, outside, at the desk, to meetings, to lunch with clients, and at the dinner table at home.  And most probably running shoes without socks.  You can tell they are running shoes because he is always running from a car to a building.

So now that we’ve exposed the violators – well they’ve exposed themselves – what are the rules to go with these violations.  Rule #1 – don’t do that.  Rule #2 – don’t do that tomorrow either.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Summer Fashions, Summer Rules

Michael 1 Comment

The first day of summer is just a few days gone and it’s time to revisit our summer fashion rules.

For Women:

Most men won’t admit it.  Most other women won’t say it.  the bottom line is we don’t want to see you half naked in public.  Check your hems, watch your buttons.  Unintentional flashes of skin is sexy.   Intentional undressing is slutty.

Swimsuits are for swimming, or for backyard tanning.  Nobody would go to a production of the local symphony wearing a tankini?  Just because a quart of milk is the entire shoppingn list, it isn’t a reason not to get dressed before heading off for the store.  A cover up over a swimsuit works for being at or going to the pool but not in the actual acts of swimming or tanning..  Grow up, wear clothes. 

High heels and short shorts don’t go together.  Period.  Not even if one works with a brass pole nearby.  A business suit and flip flops don’t go together.  Period.  Not even if one works at the beach.  Keep styles stylish.

We know that women don’t want to be encumbered by big bags or totes exept maybe at the pool.  But don’t succomb to the urge to snug your cell phone under a bra strap.  There, we said it.

For Men:

Sleeves are mandatory.  Not areas formerly occupied by sleeves, the entire sleeve.  They are the cross pieces that put the T in T-Shirt.  They are needed.  They are required.  As are the shirts they accompany.  Come on men, the shirtless look hasn’t worked since the opening scenes of Bay Watch flickered across television screens.  Then it wasn’t the best of look even for those on the screen.  It is the worst of looks for those who are in the process of upgrading the six pack they really never had for the quarter keg they have every weekend.

Hair long enough to be in a ponytail on a male only looks good on a male pony.  This seems to be more an old man issue.  The young ones have discovered the ease that comes from buzzing hair down to a bit less than a quarter of an inch.  For the others, you’re old, you’re gray, and you’re balding.  No, you’re bald.  Don’t add to the insanity by having hair halfway down your back and certainly not in braids!  Shave it off, put on your shirt, and move along. 

Flip flops are not shoes.  Leave them at the pool, with your shirt.  Mandals are fine, but like the rest of you, grooming is essential.  Just because your feet are the farthest away from your brain, don’t be brainless about your feet.  Well groomed, trimmed, washed, and buffed feet are also healthy feet.

It’s hot out there.  You can be too.  Pay a little attention to the person in the mirror and watch how many pay attention to you on the outside.       

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?