I remember when I was seven years old,
there was nothing in the world then that I wanted more than glasses
and braces. Did I need them? Not in the slightest. At the time my
teeth were straight and inexplicably healthy, my eyesight was a
gentlemanly 20-20 with perfect clock-reading abilities and no need
for large-text books nor engorged buttons on my telephone (not that I
had a telephone, children with mobiles wasn't a thing).
No, I thought they looked cool. In
what was perhaps the start of a long line of questionable fashion
role models, people with braces or glasses (especially those
captain-of-the-football team level awesome folks with both), struck
me as pretty badass. Of course the canon of popular culture and
common opinion has proven that it was the opposite of cool or badass.
Still, it is interesting to me that
this was my first inclination of what was cool and, even then, it had
nothing to do with what everyone else felt was fashionable. Now we
have widespread hipster culture where glasses provide an image that
harks back to Ginsberg or John Lennon, but then hipsters weren't a
thing either.
Thinking back, I think I thought that
brain-power was real-power. In my earliest years people who seemed
smart seemed tough or ahead of the curb. A high intelligence seemed
the thing to envy rather than a high level of muscle tone or athletic
prowess (something admittedly I now envy).
Though not all of my fashion
aspirations were so noble or impressively moral. The valleys were as
great and numerous as the peaks. For example, for at least an entire
year I wished my name was Jason. I have no explanation for it, except
that it sounded cool. Much cooler than 'Tom'. Jason's seemed to be
winners, the same way smart guys with glasses and braces did. Team
Jason seemed to be the only team worth being on and for a good while
I was pissed off at my mother for damning my life by not putting me
on that team.
A year or two later I spent 18 months
fully exploring my 'bright-orange camouflage fishing vest' phase, a
phase that didn't end (or even go) well, except that it did end.
Then I spent a good few years delving
into insanely loose, silver jeans and nothing else. It seemed the
height of pride and prowess and though people told me different in no
uncertain terms, it was one of those unfortunate experiences that you
can't understand until you organically grow out of it.
Fashion is a funny thing and my
history with it will never be held up as exemplary of high-taste or
medium-taste or even taste. I was bold (stupid) and regret all of it.
I don't know that my choices are much better now, but I am going for
as timeless a look as I can muster without being even near the crest
of that ever-breaking style wave.
NP.
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