In Pursuit of a Better (Dressed) Me

Or, Style is a Form of Costuming and Self-Hypnosis, and I Need a Hit

I cut my hair a couple o’ weeks ago -- had it cut, rather -- and started watching a couple of style-gurus on YouTube.

It was time. 

I let the hair grow after Trump got elected, my attempt at matching the outside of my head to the inside. It got pretty long and then, ya know, pandemic.

Long hair, didn’t care. All gone, like my lawn.

I grew up in rural Maine, USA in the 1970s and ‘80s, and my personal style trended toward jeans, T-shirts, flannel shirts, and sneakers/hiking boots. The only deviations were my mother’s attempts to put me in a nice pair of corduroys, and those ended once I started buying my own clothes in late junior high. I had longish hair and, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, sported a mullet. I borrowed shoes from my chorus teacher’s husband for my senior solo performance. A year later I had one ‘fancy’ outfit I bought from Chess King to take a lady to her Senior Semi-Formal.

Not my shoes

Pretty fly for a bench.

The look followed me to college, and while many of my schoolmates swanned around in J. Crew, I stuck to the battered Levis, worn-thin Ts, and much-washed flannels. I had an occasional awareness that I looked less-than professional, not even appropriate for some of my extra-curricular activities, but I hadn’t caught on that clothing is as much costuming as covering. 

I ran Student Government Senate meetings like this, as the SGA vice president, which is maybe why I lost when I ran for president!

I worked in a warehouse for nearly a year after college, which didn’t require a change in my style paradigm. It wasn’t until I got my first journalism job that the jeans lost their holes and patches, and the sketchy Ts became collared shirts and sweaters. I bought some neckties from a lawn sale the guys living below me were throwing to pave the way for their relocation to Key West.

I didn’t know I was supposed to match my leathers (shoes, belt, watch strap) until the first incarnation of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came out in 2003, and I can trace the beginnings of my first “dress-better” era to that moment. I discovered Banana Republic and The Gap. I swapped out my backpack for a messenger bag because an article in GQ suggested that only children used backpacks, and I bought decent shoes in both brown and black. 

At the track, pretending to make a bet.

Job led to job, and I continued to “try”. Nothing too expensive, but I did have a black suit and several ties, a pale-blue Oxford shirt, and a Timex watch with a reversible band.

In the early Aughts I switched professions and adopted what I called my “teaching costume”: necktie, button down, Carhart work pants, black or brown Doc Martens and belts to match. This stuff lasted for years, and I only bought new when I needed to replace something. I went to the same person every seven weeks for a haircut.

Sometimes, Teacher Rob even wore a sweater vest.

As my teaching career began to wrap up a decade later, I decided I was going to start wearing kilts. I had some idea about provoking conversations about gender, and anyway Lazarus Long said kilts were a great way to hide weapons. I bought four and cycled them into my wardrobe. Eventually, my kilt ensembles were the most formal things I owned.

So formal, they let me marry them. But not in a throuple, way.

Then Trump got elected, and COVID hit. Aside from the kilts, my wardrobe was barely worthy of a writer who seldom left home. My driver’s license and passport both suggest “long-haired hermit” and in the self-portrait I took on my 51st birthday last October, I’m wearing my old high-school/college uniform: jeans, a t-shirt, boots, and flannel (although my belt does match my boots). I still teach, college now, but even for a ‘cool prof,’ my costume is lacking.

It’s in the syllabus.

I don’t believe that clothes make the “man,” but I do believe there’s power in the costume/uniform. Batman can only Batman when he’s wearing the cowl. I felt professional in my teacher togs, even on days I was not at 100 percent. It was my crutch. My forward face.

My current style offers no support. When I face forward in it, I feel small … both invisible and terribly exposed. I’m still that moody kid from Maine, which is both a good thing, and something I need to conceal (even from myself) at times. I need a Professional Writer Costume, if only to fool myself on the days I’m not feeling it.

So, I got a haircut and resolved to pay better attention to how I present myself to myself. I’m doing this for me, but the rest of the world can buy into it if it wants.

Note: The style gurus I’m watching the most are Harry Has (mostly because I like the way he says ‘outfit’) and Ashley Weston. Soon, I, too, shall be pretty.

NEWS: Pre-orders for Earth Retrograde — the sequel to last year’s Mercury Rising — are available where ever you buy books. C’mon. All the cool kids are doing it.