Recently I’ve noticed that my wardrobe is homogenising, and there’s a very definite blue theme emerging. I wear a blue t-shirt almost every day, probably for a combination of the following reasons:<\/p>\n
1. I have lots of them, so there’s always a clean one in the wardrobe
\n2. It’s a safe choice – I know that blue t-shirts work on me
\n3. It’s an easy choice – I don’t have to consider aesthetics, because if I bung on a blue t-shirt, it will go with pretty much anything.<\/p>\n
It’s fine for the practicalities of day-to-day living, but due to lack of practise I seem to have lost the ability to judge whether a randomly generated outfit looks good or not – in short, I haven’t got style.<\/p>\n
It’s anecdote time. Cue wibbly lines.<\/p>\n
—-<\/p>\n
About three-and-a-half years ago, before Karen and I moved in together, there was a clothes shop in the town where I lived at the time. It was one of those places with delusions of trendiness, and everything was overpriced. My mother bought me a shirt from there, as a gift, and it was truly hideous. Of course, I pretended to like it, but she saw right through me.<\/p>\n
“Be honest, Pete. ” she said. “If you don’t like it, I won’t be offended.”<\/p>\n
“Well, seeing as you’ve clearly already figured it out, there’s no point trying to hide it from you. It’s just not the kind of thing that I’d wear.”<\/p>\n
My mother went silent. My suspicion was that she was offended.<\/p>\n
The shirt was returned to the shop, and swapped for a very nice black long-sleeved t-shirt, which was basically the only other thing in the shop for a similar price that I could see myself wearing.<\/p>\n
Every Christmas and birthday since then, my mother has bought me a pale blue t-shirt, usually from Debenhams. Sometimes short-sleeved, sometimes long-sleeved, sometimes plain, sometimes with a relatively low-key motif on them. But invariably pale blue and unthreatening. The complete opposite of the grotesque brown thing that she bought me back on that fateful day. I wonder whether this is a concerted effort on her part to drown me in pale blue t-shirts and make me rue the day that I refused her (well-intentioned, but really quite revolting) gift, or just to avoid making the same mistake in the future.<\/p>\n
I don’t buy myself clothes very often, so these mum-shirts make up a significant percentage of my t-shirt collection. When I’m getting dressed in the morning, there’s a big pile of mum-shirts staring up at me, and it’s just too easy to pick one up and put it on.<\/p>\n
Anecdote ends. You don’t get a horizontal line this time though, because that is my whim.<\/p>\n
My plan is to be more observant of what other people (specifically, men) are wearing. Look for ideas. Start taking an interest in clothing again. Try something new, and learn how to make myself look good again. Break out of my blue shirt funk.<\/p>\n
Dang, now I want to go back and rename this post to “Blue shirt funk”. But I shouldn’t, because that would be like starting a joke with the punchline, or making a trailer for a movie that shows all the best bits, causing the movie itself to be disappointing when you eventually see it. What about you, reader? If you have a weblog, do you title [vb.] your posts before or after you write the content? ((n.b. you are not allowed to write “yes” here, because that is MY JOKE))<\/p>\n
*On a completely unrelated note, a little voice in my head told me to carry a camera with me today. And what would you know, I came across a stag beetle while I was dropping Bernard off with his childminder. Awesome stag beetle picture coming up this evening.*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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