Fashion has always intrigued me in the same way an alien is indubitably intrigued by the Canadians' strange way of adding 'ay' to every word, even to words like 'Friday(ay),' 'mayday(ay)' and 'whoops-I-just-fell-off-a-cliff(ay).' This ends up sounding fairly ridiculous, especially to the aliens, who, in general, think our language sounds like one long burp. Yet I digress. This isn't a column about Canadians. If you're interested in my take on the country, though, I highly recommend my 2004 book: "The Five People You Meet In Heaven, But, Thankfully, None Of Them Are Canadian."
So back to fashion. I look at fashion in the same way a bird-watcher looks at his birds: with a deep attraction toward the sight, with an understanding that I am of a different species and with that tacky khaki cargo vest on, a piece of clothing even my unfashionable Grandpa says I look like a girly haberdasher wearing. And this is coming from the same man wjjhjhho, because of the potential for war flashbacks, doesn't shower or wear underwear. I'm not even sure what a girly haberdasher is, but when you're talking with a smelly man who is prone to jumping up and screaming "Fire them cannons, maties!", you don't really stick around to ask questions. In fact, the Shuptrine family motto has always been, "Run first, allow yourself to get sucked into boring war stories by Gramps later."
Whether I look like a haberdasher or not, though, I admit I am not a fashionable person. Now don't get me wrong. I don't wake up in the morning and carelessly throw on some awful assortment of plaid pants, a solid gold button-down shirt and a pink and brown corsage. No, my mismatched clothing is never careless, and I wake up extra early to find that perfect outfit. I wish I could say I was colorblind (if only for the tax exemption), but I can't. I blame my gender, for every time a girl tries to ascertain why I have combined a nice yellow Polo shirt with a wetsuit, she ends up saying, "You're such a guy." It seems that sometime during puberty, girls reach a stage where almost overnight they instinctually know whether a particular pajama material did or did not go with a particular pajama color. Pubescent boys never made it to this stage, however, probably because they were too busy deciding whether their new armpit hair did or did not light on fire. (Hint: It does. And quickly.)
Yet some people thrive on fashion to the point where they will burn new clothing if it's suddenly no longer cool or hip or rad. This is compared to me, who will throw away pants only if they've been covered in radioactive waste for the second time. What amuses me is how the words to describe these trends also change with the styles, and what may be 'hip' one month will later become 'shoulderbone' after somebody from Hollywood uses the word, as in the phrase, "Dude, I like that dress, it's shoulderboning."
Maybe it's this constant fluctuating of fads that confuses me most about fashion. I am not someone who buys an item impulsively, so by the time I have decided the chewing gum is worth the 35 cents, it will by then no longer be cool. For instance, there was that short period in my life when I chewed Bazooka gum all the time and was mocked because everyone else was out partying. Actually, I guess that's less about fashion as the fact that my only friend for many years was Bazooka Joe. Nonetheless, this quick change in fashion put too much pressure on me to figure out what is in and what is out, and I've become apathetic about the whole process. Nowadays I don't care at all about walking into a party and getting stared at because I'm not wearing the 'cool' clothes. If anybody tries to taunt me, I always respond in the same way.
Taunter: Hey, Chris, why are you wearing a wet suit?
Me: Because I'm not a spineless conformist.
Taunter: But this is my wedding. I explicitly asked you to look nice.
Me: Man, you're so not shoulderbone.
I admire people who have jobs in fashion, though. I admit it's a hard living, and I am impressed by clothing designers, who have somehow managed not to stage an all-out war against whimsical, American teens. I say this because if my editor approached me and said, "Chris, the public doesn't want humor columns anymore. Could you replace our toilet cakes instead?", I would probably challenge her to a pistol duel. This is assuming, of course, that she isn't Canadian. If she were, I would forgo the pistol challenge and move straight to declaring war on her country. I've been meaning to do that for years anyway.
Chris' column runs weekly Mondays. He can be reached at shuptrine@cavalierdaily.com.
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