Vanity Bespoke

Writing about vanity may be its ironic apex but writing about one’s own could be its truest ambition.

For many years I have kept a private diary of interests in things handmade, which includes the usual suspects for an older white American male boomer of far less than unlimited means.  I’ve been into clothes as long as I can remember: my father dressed smart even when he was dirt poor.  I have loved wool and watches, bicycles, denim, and boots, leather of all kinds for as long as I can remember.  

 

My first sartorial bequest were my father’s well-worn but still un-frayed Oxford cloth button downs purchased from Brooks in the early ‘60s.  These were somehow still going strong when purloined from his dresser in the middle 1970s.  I wore them through college until they literally fell apart.

 

My father never stepped out of the house without a proper hat and would not be caught dead in unkempt shoes.  I can confirm he wasn’t.  I saw to it.  He trimmed his moustache like David Niven and combed his thinning hair until his last.  I have a photo of pops circa 1930 wearing a three piece, his pocket watch, which is now mine, and finishing off the look with spats over black dress shoes.

 

Was he a dandy?  A coxcomb?  A fob?  What do we call such a man today?  It’s too easy to stand out in a world that asks you why you are dressed up when you happen to pull on an old tweed blazer or wear a pair of good boots.  Do people comment on your style?  Do you think they notice?  How do you feel about that?  

I’m betwixt and between.  Undecided as to the attention I may garner, I am cocksure that I do this for myself because I have an inner need.  If you aren’t working out your stuff you’re likely ignoring it.  Better to fail trying than to deny the inner enigmas.  For my part it’s about making some personal point of order, placing an imprint on the day and for remembrance of things past; I dress because it reminds me to aim for a shard of dignity in this often ill-mannered and uncivil world.  I behave better because I should be as good as my boots.

 

Who wears a suit today but politicians and a few professionals?  Who even wears a tie?  Even to a wedding?  What the hell happened to style?  We are free to be ourselves (a good thing) but apparently (almost) anything goes.  I am unambivalent that I find the latter disappointing (more truthfully deeply disenchanting) even if such feeling warrants no further comment.   Let people be.  I only wish they chose to have more freak flags of their own flying.  After all, it’s just clothes, right?  What makes the man, after all?

I feel like I’ve emerged from the bottom of an abandoned cold storage unit suffering from a bad case of sartorial freezer burn.  I want to believe I am not just some old dissembling gascon exhibitionist pretending he’s still got the juice.  I mean to go out in style because why else bother getting out of bed?  “I’m no hero, that’s understood.  All the redemption I can offer is beneath this dirty hood…”

 

A few years back I outed my writings about clothes and boots and jackets and even joined a few public communities where guys, mostly half my age, share a “hobby.”  Is dressing a “hobby”?

The Amekaji styles that include the whole swath of disparate interests from Ivy to denim and PNW-esque footwear bring attention to the fact that whatever you enjoy is nowadays sanctioned by some or another social media community.  I confess I really do enjoy the company of these fine fellows (mostly fellows) and that some have become good pals, actual friends because we like certain stuff.  We can rally around boots and jeans and if the fit on that leather jacket works.  Leather jackets are the hardest to get right.  You can wear bad fitting shoes and still look good.

 

I still find it hard to “share” aloud about these things despite that others now make their living talking about style.  Wherein lies this need for personal decriminalization over something that doesn’t much matter?   I may be less qualified than these style professionals and influencers but that’s because I got no skin in this game but to suit myself, literally.  I’m not out to advocate, codify, criticize, or regulate.  I am interested in how to launder a shirt and my ideas about what makes a good one.

 

Showing yourself in public seems a lot like writing about yourself.  This is something I have had to do professionally.  Being who I am personally has an impact on what I can legitimately claim to know professionally.  But otherwise why would anyone care?  Everyone needs a story but that rarely warrants a public interest in personal style.  And anyways, the whole thing seems, well, vain.

 

In 1776, David Hume, nearing his own end but already something of a literary colossus, published an autobiographical page entitled My Own Life.

 

Hume begins by reminding us what is at stake, “It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity; therefore, I shall be short.”  At this time in his life Hume was already withholding his some of his most candid thoughts about religion and particularly his views regarding the very non-existence of the Almighty.  He had rightly surmised that making his ideas public could ruin his social life and cultural standing.  Not showing his cards too soon was neither vain nor imprudent.  

Darwin too had a similar dilemma.  He withheld the theory of natural selection because he well-understood how unveiling the truth would not only be disputed by Church authorities but bring unwanted real life consequences.  Vanity gets a bad rap but sometimes caring enough about yourself can spare you a world of hurt.  

 

In the case of Hume and Darwin there was also the time-worn matter of fame and fortune.  As the Greeks put it kelos and teemay: to have one’s name sung after death constitutes the true immortality.  Bogart, Brando and Newman all accomplished far more than style icon status but it’s not unfair to suggest there is much to that as well.  There are worse things than to be ‘that guy dressed well.’

 

When we look for vanity’s synonyms little commends it to virtue or its merits.  To be vain can mean smug and pretentious, affected, ostentatious, and egotistical.  We live in an age of such vainglorious media that few displays of dash or bravura penetrate, nearly all are met more with a yawn.  Perhaps that too is a good thing unless you’re seeking, as Sarpedon and Glaucus suggest, “the fat cuts of lamb” for having withstood the battles fought for a grateful public.  I have no such aspirations.

I mean, with style these days you can be yourself, put yourself out there, and for the most part be guaranteed that few will notice or care.  You can find your few, enjoy the conversation, get some likes and the occasional comment, no harm, no foul. When we selfie it’s not only normal, it’s routine, nearly requisite.  There’s never been a better time in which the license to vanity has been mere convention or more egalitarian, even commonplace.  

 

How do we know when we are borderline narcissists or just out to have some fun?  There’s a song about that, as I recall.  Is it only a well-meaning attention to life, a bit of attitude, diversion, and regalement?   Let’s go a step further.

 

Could it be that paying some attention to personal finery is also an individual expression of pointless, happily meaningless Pyrrhic battle engaged as an alternative to the negligent, oblivious, lethargic unconcern that men, particularly American men, assign themselves in order to assert their masculinity? Somehow making even the smallest effort is for some guys paying too much attention.

But for me, my freak flag flies.  Better to raise your standard than wither with mediocrity.  Maybe that’s enough.