“Gifts”
I grew up thinking that being interested in fashion was sort of shallow. My parents limited the number of mirrors in my house, wary of raising “vain” children, and we bought clothes infrequently at Kohl’s and more frequently at garage sales. We cared about more “important” things. I bragged about how little I went to Somerset Mall, the popular hangout spot among teenagers in the Detroit suburbs where I grew up. When friends did manage to string me along for a trip, I grouched about how debased I felt by the empty, EMPTY materialism. Valid critiques of consumer culture aside, we can all probably agree that this was a truly insufferable disposition to have about a single squad trip to the mall.
And while it wouldn’t be fair to put this entirely on my family, I’m sure that my aversion to fashion was rooted in the way I was raised. It was a family value, a tenet of our culture; it was probably rooted in unexamined misogyny; it definitely saved us some money; and yes, it stunted my fashion game in a way that is looking increasingly permanent.
One unforeseen result of the actively anti-fashion thinking I grew up on is that I dress like someone who got lost somewhere on the path from a high school athlete outfitted in team gear to a vaguely hip college student who listens to Animal Collective but also isn’t trying too hard. But here I am, somewhere in the middle, with a Michigan State University Basketball Camp t-shirt and slightly-too-tight black jeans. Sometimes I walk down the street with a feeling that my clothes are failing. But please don’t pity my insecurity — I’ve had literally every opportunity to act on this. Family values are a powerful thing, and I still haven’t done shit about it.
But plot twist — my girlfriend has.
When she — a trendy Londoner — came to visit me while I was studying abroad in Paris, she brought an extra suitcase full of “gifts”, clothes she had innocently bought for me. And while a small part of me thought “Wow, I feel like a small child being dressed by his mother in Oshkosh overalls,” a larger part of me was like, “These are the first cool clothes I’ve ever owned — sick!”. Her cosmopolitan upbringing, her love of Sex in the City, and the app Depop have afforded her an acute sense of style that I could only hope would come my way by osmosis. But for the moment, her gift would have to suffice.
When I wore the blue corduroy jacket I got that night in Paris back on campus, a friend said I looked like “eighties Berlin.” I had made it. But only two to three days a week, which is about how many days the clothing items my girlfriend has bought me cover.
