WE WILL GET FOOLED AGAIN
As I was walking across campus today, I saw this yucky kid approaching. His hair was matted and greasy and all different lengths. His clothes looked filthy and were too loose in some places and too tight in others.
His T-shirt looked like it was straight out of the 70s and four sizes too small. His jeans were filthy, unevenly faded and full of holes; the hems were tattered and ripped. I don't remember the shoes. My eyes were just getting there, as he passed within a foot of me, when something hit me: He smelled great.
And not just regular great, but really great.
Like he had been soaking in a warm bath of savon de Provence, then had splashed himself with some delicate, rare fragrance.
His scent lingered after him, hanging in the warm air. I wanted to walk circles inside it.
I actually turned around, took a second whiff and watched his yucky person walk away. That's when I saw that he had no shoes. And that's when the shock really hit me.
The shock, of course, was the combination of the look and the scent. He looked like he should have six days worth of B.O. and three kinds of VD, but he smelled like a pampered Parisian socialite.
Then I realized: Oh yes, that's the look. I know that's the look. And yet every time I see a particularly pronounced form of the look I forget that it's the look. I get tricked into thinking it's genuine neglect rather than studied neglect. I almost feel sorry for the little urchins before me, but then I register that their filthy, skimpy T-shirts probably cost twice as much as all the clothes on my back. Or more.
I am always getting tricked by the look, just like I always get tricked by Christian radio. Some song will be playing that I think is kind of catchy and smart, not knowing what station I'm on, and then will come a lyric about God's judgment or saving yourself for Jesus. Damn it! Tricked again!
I don't get it. I don't get the dissonance between the look and the reality. Is the dissonance part of the appeal? Are you supposed to see the look at face value or are you supposed to deconstruct it?
Some of those things — parts of the look — have a democratizing effect. I sort of like how you have to look at someone twice to tell what they're about. Is this a homeless person coming at me or an upscale college student? Like you do a doubletake and you realize that those thick, black-framed glasses — the epitome of ugly 20 years ago — are hiding a set of beautiful brown eyes. This person could wear contacts and show off their eyes but they opt instead for the clunky, plastic goggles. Or those dirty hip huggers that are making an ass look big and out-of-whack are actually clinging to a well-proportioned hind-end. And despite their appearance, they're not really dirty; they're Downy fresh. I like when beauty is not obvious, when it's played down, not up. But there's a fine line between not obvious and pretentious.
I admit I have no fashion sense. I start liking things years after they have become stylish. Usually they're things I hate, that I rant against, and then by the time they're no longer in fashion they have grown on me. Like flip-flops and bell bottoms and messy haircuts. I berated all those things as stupid and pretentious and unoriginal and unattractive. But now I sort of like them. I am always understanding things belatedly: fashions, jokes, movies, relationships. I get used to what they're about. But the aesthetic of the look still eludes me. And tricks me on a regular basis.
posted by kc @ 1:55 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Why don't guys wear cologne any more? I wish they did.
Oh, me too! The right cologne is the ultimate romancer. I remember as a kid when my dad would prepare for a night on the town. I always sat in the steamy bathroom and talked to him while he got ready. He had this elaborate ritual of shaving with this really scary looking old-school razor. Then he would slap aftershave on his face — actually SLAP it on. Then he would douse himself with one of the many colognes my stepmom bought for him. I remember one was Karl Lagerfeld's Sandalwood and another was Grey Flannel. And he would usually pick me up and carry me around, and when he left I would smell like him. And the scent made it easy for me to pretend that I wasn't sitting at home watching TV but was out doing something glamorous with him (which, I learned later, would have been something like drinking all night at a seedy strip club).
But, yes, cologne is good.
I don't know when, I don't know how, but for some reason it's no longer the thing to do for a straight man to wear cologne.
In high school I always wore Polo, very popular back then, and maybe as recently as six years ago it was Calvin Klein's Obsession. In a pinch I'd rub the sample page in a MAXIM on my neck.
But I stopped wearing the stuff because it was too expensive and I didn't wear it that often because my weekends were all screwed up, and since I woke up too late in the day to worry about that stuff. I didn't even know I was following a trend.
My friend Steve wore cologne in high school. (Yes, THAT Steve, the one from my diary.) He also ALWAYS had gum in his mouth. So he always smelled like a mix of cologne and mint. It was so him. It's been years since I last saw him, but every once in a while I'll pass some guy in a store wearing cologne and chewing gum, and I'm transported.
Well, George, I think you're right about the hetero-paranoia. But how come some male vanities, like wearing cologne or having a mustache, have been identified as gay-looking, and other ones, like using a lot of "product" in your hair or wearing tight shirts, have not been?
Also, G, I remember that before you caught on that the dress code was not taken seriously you often came to work in neatly pressed clothes and smelling pretty sweet!
I'm not implying anything. I'm just saying.
My favorite George hygiene moment was when you came to work with that OU hat on and wouldn't take it off because you were having a bad hair day because you hadn't showered. After some coaxing, you took it off, and your wild hair — released from its confines — sprang up toward the ceiling in this huge black, unbelievable mass. That ruled!
Yeah, now I have to go to the restroom and douse my hair with water and dry it with paper towels. Baseball caps aren't allowed to be worn in the newsroom at the Tulsa World.
And I'm definitely looking forward to when I'll be wearing scrubs on the job.
It'll be like going to work in my pajamas.
Just for fun, you should wear veterinary scrubs. I'm sure the human patients (if not the doctors) would get a kick out of the little doggies and kitties on them.
This isn’t the first time that the torn-up and worn-out look has been popular fashion. But maybe this is the first time that it was introduced by the fashion industry instead of merely commercialized once it was already around. I don’t know since I’m a little rusty on my fashion history.
When I wanted to get something for my cousin’s 8th grade daughter’s birthday, my cousin sent me to American Eagle Outfitters which I guess is a very popular store for that age group. When I walked in, my first reaction was how silly! But as I looked through the stuff, I realized that there is a very carefully studied and highly crafted style to all the wares. The kids who are into this could probably spot the difference between real (as in old and hard used) trash jeans and American Eagle trash jeans at ten paces. The American Eagle ones are much to be preferred. Even I liked them better than, say, the pair I wear if I’m going to change the oil on my truck. But instead of buying anything there, I went to a bead store and bought her beads so that she could make a necklace in a style like I had seen in the store. She is an arts and crafts kind of kid, so I think she will like making something better.
KC, considering this and your last post, I think a difference between us is that my first reaction is almost habitually skepticism and yours is not. I see the same fruit in the stores and I think oh, that will probably be a disappointment (particularly if it looks pretty). I figure that what people wear is either calculated for effect (if they are reflective) or is the result of kowtowing to demographic expectations created by marketers (if they are not). Likewise, I expect pop culture to just be a throwaway product tailored to bland taste so I ignore it. Whereas you might have ranted against something before eventually liking it, I’ll actually “discover” it long after everybody else has moved on. Probably, there is a laziness to this approach. The world is a noisy place. It’s easy to let time be a filter to separate the worthy bits from the bulk that is best ignored.
So will the next trend be the reverse dissonance: people dressing sharp and smelling bad? I didn’t think so either.
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