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The Only Good Excuse Is a Practical One

·572 words·3 mins· loading · loading · ·
Footwear Dress Codes Status Signalling
Neo W.
Author
Neo W.
Writing about things that intrigue me.
Table of Contents
Velcro shoes are fine if you have arthritis. Pyjama trousers are fine if your house is on fire. That’s the useful shape of every exception on a list like this — practical, never stylistic. Nobody ever pulled off a studded belt through sheer force of confidence.

The two ways it goes wrong
#

Almost everything worth retiring fails in one of two directions.

Gimmick. Wings, flames, studs, sequins, enormous logos. Clothing pretending to be a costume.

Fit. Baggy, or squeezed. If taking your belt off drops everything, it doesn’t fit. If your shirt catches enough wind to shove you sideways, it doesn’t fit. Skinny jeans on a man who isn’t skinny fail in exactly the opposite way, and rather more publicly.

The gimmick list
#

  • Large logos. Unless someone is paying you to advertise for them, don’t advertise for them. This goes double for logos embroidered down a trouser leg.
  • Studded anything. A defensible choice up to about age ten.
  • Sequinned or bling jeans. Sparkle around the seat migrated over from womenswear and should migrate back.
  • Shiny club shirts. These had a moment in the summer of 2001 and the moment ended.
  • Choker necklaces. Unless you’re specifically into being choked.
  • Ugg boots. Sorry to everyone, including Tom Brady.

The fit and shape list
#

  • Pointy shoes, sharpened to the point where you could conceivably injure someone with them.
  • Square-toed shoes, the opposite extreme. The acceptable middle is the chisel toe — gently curved, only slightly squared at the very end.
  • Side-cut tank tops. A shirt that fits already shows the body underneath. The deep side view adds nothing.
  • Deep V-necks down to the navel. A little collarbone is fine. This isn’t that.
  • Untucked dress shirts. A dress shirt is cut to be tucked, full stop. A casual button-down can absolutely be worn out, provided it’s hemmed properly — around two to three inches below the waist, and still covering your midsection when you raise your arms. That’s a real spec and most shirts fail it.
  • Socks with sandals. Still true. Still happening.

The one about fragrance
#

Too much of it belongs on the list and it’s worth stating the principle rather than the rule: you want to be discovered, not announced.

Start at one spray. Nobody in the lift has ever wished there were more of you.

The idea underneath
#

People decide things about you in about a second, and they do it at the petrol station and at your child’s parents’ evening, not only at the events you dressed up for.

That’s the whole argument, and it’s more useful than the list. The question before you leave isn’t am I following the rules — it’s whether you’re controlling what the clothes say, or letting them say something you didn’t choose.

Which is also why the exceptions have to be practical. A medical reason is a reason. A stylistic reason is just the thing you were going to do anyway with a justification stapled on.

Worth noting the list promises twenty and specifies nineteen, leaving the last one open on purpose. Fill it in yourself — the one you already know about and have been avoiding.

A few small things to try:

  • Take one item off the gimmick list out of your wardrobe today.
  • Check the hem on the shirts you wear untucked, arms up.
  • Cut your fragrance to one spray for a week.
  • Decide what your twentieth would be.

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