Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

fashion

Crushing On: Fashion Scarves

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In Urban Outfitters this fall with Sarah Cooley I had the urge to buy scarves.

I have to be careful not to cross over from "fashionable" to "douchebag" with my scarf-wearing, as I am not handsome enough to pull off douchebag. Touché, Mr. Pitt.

I don’t know what came over me. I own plenty of scarves. At least six. And these scarves were light – hardly appropriate for winter outdoor travels.

Nonetheless, I bought two and began alternating them every few days at work. We’re on the casual side of business, so have forsaken ties – but, my neck can feel a little nude with just an open collar.Since my scarves were light-weight and contained pleasing colors, I’d leave them on when I hung up my jacket to ward off the chill of our conference room.

Given my penchant for Kenneth Cole accessories I would have been remiss not to buy at least one scarf there.

Then the compliments began amassing, and I knew I had struck personal fashion gold.

As a kid I hated scarves, but I think that’s because no one taught me a good way to tie them that would keep my neck warm.

Could this be the spring look of my fashion-forward future?

Now I know a few knots, and they’re a practical addition to my wardrobe rather than a useless tie that costs about the same. They help to offset all of the solid colors I wear, and also make me less self-conscious about doing weird things with my neck.

I am now actively aquiring additional scarves to round out my repertoire. I may even stage an exploratory mission to the land of ascots.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do once the weather warms up.

Hitching: Groom Team Style, pt. 1

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Not only do I have to finish telling the story of how Elise and I got engaged last year, but aside from mentioning our invites a few weeks ago I haven’t really spoken at all about our planning process.

A unique element of our wedding that I’ve previously touched upon is the composition of our parties – my side consists of three women and two men, and Elise’s is four women and her brother.

The mixed-gender makeup has style implications for both sides, since early-on we decided my women would not wear tuxes. That meant twice the bridesmaid dress shopping of a normal wedding, with the added challenge of making sure my ladies looked distinctly groomsly in comparison to Elise’s maids.

This morning Gina and I headed out for the final leg of our wardrobe journey – a trip to look at tuxedos for me. It has taken us many months to get to this point. Our first wardrobe excursion was in January on the morning after our engagement party, which meant we were all a touch hung over.

Hangover or no, I don’t think there was any way I could have been adequately prepared to enter into the mouth of hell that is David’s Bridal.

(For the record, this is not a story about me looking down on people who buy dresses at David’s. It’s about my vast incredulousness at the entire wedding industry and the attitudes that come with it, which – if I keep writing these recaps – you will see play out repeatedly. But, I digress.)

We entered David’s as a quintet – Elise, her sister, and Amanda, and Lindsay and I. Elise’s trio was checked in and sent to romp in the many rows of chiffon and taffeta while Lindsay and I negotiated with the gatekeeper. It went something like this:

LindsayGK: Oh, are you in this wedding as well?

Lindsay: Yes, this is the groom, and I’m in his party.

Gatekeeper: So, you’re a friend of his that’s in the bridal party?

L: No.

GK: Ahh, you’re a friend of the bride’s that she placed in the groom’s party?

LW: No.

(Between the hangover and the dumbfoundedness, here Lindsay was starting to look unpredictably dangerous, like a captured squirrel. I decided to intervene.)

Me: Actually, she’s my co-best-lady.

GK: I see. (Clearly not seeing at all). Well, we’ll just put her under Elise.

The gatekeeper took Lindsay’s name so that her romping could begin, and I moved to follow her into the racks.

GK: Uh, you can wait at the chairs here.

PM: Hmm?

GK: We have chairs. For grooms. You don’t have to go in there.

This was very early in the wedding process, and I did not yet understand the reverse groom-discrimination phenomenon. No wedding-associated vendor is prepared to speak to a groom. All of their forms have the bride listed first. They always want contact information from the bride.

They definitely do not expect the groom to show up to poke around and ask questions, and they certainly don’t expect him to care about dress-shopping.

Having made it past the gatekeeper, Lindsay and I joined the other ladies in searching through rows upon rows of dresses. To me most of them looked more like 90s prom dresses than modern wedding gear. Lindsay and Amanda, both wedding veterans, undertook an education campaign to get me quickly up to speed on fabrics, cuts, and styles.

Laden down with silken loads, the three of us advanced on the dressing area … only to encounter a second gatekeeper.This one looked like a troll doll, and was dressed smartly in a neutral-colored sack that served to minimize her lumpiness. She was exactly the opposite of the sort of style maven you’d want to purchase a wedding dress from.

The trollish woman waited for all of the women to pass and then physically obstructed my path.

Wedding Troll: What are you doing? You can’t come back here.

Me: (Innocently) Hmm?

WT: (Sassily) What are you, a friend?

Me: I’m the groom.

WT: We have some chairs out in front…

Me: (A little testy) I have heard about the chairs. I am not sitting in the chairs. I need to pick out a dress for the women in my party. I am your customer.

(She did not seem convinced, so I embellished, slightly.)

Me: I am paying for all of the dresses

WT: Ahh, well… (clearly waging an internal battle between wanting to get rid of me and wanting to sell stuff) …you see, I can’t let you come any further. It’s, err, it’s not really up to me, you see. Some of the other women, they might be… they might… well, you know, they could be uncomfortable.

Me: How so?

WT: You know. Women. Dressing rooms.

Me: But, I can’t see into the dressing rooms from here.

WT: Coming out of the dressing rooms. They, ahh, won’t want you looking. At them. When they come out of the dressing rooms.

Me: In their dresses?

WT: Yes, exactly.

Me: I see. And, I’m too close?

WT: Mmm hmm.

Me: (Taking two steps back) What about now?

WT: Uhh, well, you can still see them, and…

Me: (Slowly walking backwards and increasing in volume). Now? Now? What about NOW? AM I FAR ENOUGH AWAY NOW?

At this point Elise had noticed my confrontation and fixed me with a pained look, to the effect of Please do not get us kicked out of the first wedding store I’ve brought you to.

The BlueI stood on the very spot where Elise interrupted my escalating confrontation, and did not move from it. As our party members came out in a variety of dresses I made a great show of leaning over from my spot for a closer look, careful not to step closer to the dressing rooms.

This went on for a while, until finally someone came out in a dress that caught our attention. We flagged down the trollish woman and handed her the dress. Did she have it in blue? Elise’s women would be wearing blue.

She disappeared with the dress for a while as our fashion show continued, and after several minutes came huffing up to Elise and I with the dress clutched in one hand.

Elise, in the Elusive StyleWedding Troll: Discontinued.

Elise: Hmm?

WT: This dress is discontinued. We don’t carry it.

Me: Actually, you’re carrying it right now. In your cloven hoo… um, in your hand.

WT: Just this one. That’s the only one we carry.

Elise: What do you mean, exactly?

WT: I can’t order this in your color. You’d just have to find another David’s that has them in the right colors and sizes for your party.

Me: (Muttering) Oh, because that’s probable.

Elise: So, why was it on the rack?

WT: (Puzzled) So people can try it on.

Elise: But, you just have the one bridesmaid dress.

WT: Yes.

Elise: And you can’t get any more.

WT: Exactly.

Elise: …

Peter: Goddamnit. YOU FIND ONE NICE THING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WALMART…

At this point Elise was snapping her head back and forth looking for swat teams that would emerge to tranquilize me, and I got the message to quickly wrap it up with the wedding troll before I was forcibly ejected from the store.

And that was the end of my association with David’s Bridal.

A Casual Occupation

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Our VP of HR, who I think is the spitting image of Wonder Woman, informed the entire building that we would be business casual for the entirety of August so we can stay comfortable in the heat of our commutes.

That’s the longest streak of jeans-wearing we’ve ever had!

Elise scoffed when I shared this news with her, as her company allows year-round casual dress, where casual includes ripped jeans, board shorts, band t-shirts, and flip-flops. I remember the first time I visited there for a meeting I showed up in a suit and was greeted by a creative director in jeans and a black t-shirt.

Every so often I’m tempted to be jealous of their leniency of dress, but my specific blend of overachiever and fashionista would make it impossible to enjoy.

As it is I felt the need to purchase an entirely new casual dress wardrobe for August (from the newly revitalized Express for Men – oh, how I’ve missed your tiny sizes!). What can I say – I feel obligated to look sharper than everyone else in my building (except for, of course, the designers, who outstyle me every day of the week without even trying).

For the safety and sanity of everyone I don’t like to get into too much more detail about my workplace, but if you’ve every wondered what I do this video describes it pretty succinctly (and, furthermore, was forwarded to me by our own management, if that says anything).


http://view.break.com/542649 – Watch more free videos

(alternate link)

Of Undergarments

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For a significant portion of my adult-shoe-sized life I consented to own only a single sort of sock. Gray Hanes socks.

My time, I reasoned at the tender age of fifteen, was too precious to be spent sorting and matching socks.

(Of course, at the time my mother was sorting and washing socks; I only did laundry when I wanted to work out something on guitar without anyone being able to hear me.)

And, socks were a utilitarian piece of clothing – their selection hardly factored into my fashion sense. Between boot legged jeans and tight vinyl pants no one would ever know or care what color socks I wore

(Around the same time I had deemed that all of my underwear be black, which seems contrary to the whole “utilitarian piece of clothing” argument. Except, nothing spoiled a good semi-goth outfit than a tiny peek of the angelic elastic of a pair of tighty-whities. Trust me.)

My single-sock philosophy developed a chink at Drexel, where our job-interview coaches put our impending job interviews in a plain and dire light: if your interviewer caught you wearing gym socks under your dress pants they would turn you out on your ear, having already seen for themselves your greatest on-the-job weakness and deemed you unworthy. And, if Drexel caught wind of it you could be expelled.

Or something like that.

I carefully shopped around for a black sock I could stick with, eventually settling on Dockers. Generic, easily bought in packs of three or nine. The perfect complement to the gray Hanes. With only two colors, sorting was still not an issue, which I appreciated much more now that doing my laundry involved sitting in molded plastic chairs and sorting on card tables.

I’ll spare you a sock-tinged journey through the remainder of my collegiate and professional career and just cut to the chase.

Friday morning I spent ten minutes rustling through my laundry basket seeking black socks. In the literal sense my quest was fulfilled – I came away from my hunt with eight socks. Yet, practically it was unfulfilled – none of them matched. I have designer black socks, gold-toed black socks, black socks with subtle patterns, and two subtly-different sorts of black Dockers socks.

What’s the moral of this tale? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps that all of those fussy teenaged whims usually have some sort of obstinately sound reasoning behind them, and if you don’t wind up as an entirely different person as an adult you might find yourself wishing you had never let down your guard.

Although, for the record, I still do not own any white underwear.

Acts of Terrorism Against My Fashion Regime

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Like most tragedies in life, today’s caught me completely unaware and unprepared.

For many years I have eschewed a heavy winter coat in favor of a layered winter ensemble consisting of perhaps a suit jacket, then a light warm-up jacket, then my trusty mod-squad brown leather jacket, topped with a scarf. It’s enough layers to keep me feeling insulated without the claustrophobic implications of a dowdy jacket.

This morning was cold enough to warrant the full layered ensemble, which I carefully arranged even as the clock crept towards making me late for work. The layers kept me from overheating as I nearly jogged from my house to the Orange Line, haplessly flinginging myself onto the second car as my lateness extended from seconds to minutes.

Fast forward past my triumphant entry to work sans five inches of curly hair and a highly efficient morning meeting. I sit down at my desk with a sigh and notice a smear of something on my right pant leg.

How in the world did I get this reddish paste – it looked like orange marmalade – on my dress pants? I carefully sloughed it away with a napkin, using a damp edge to pick up the remaining crumbs.

Must’ve bumped into someone’s bagel on the elevator, I thought.

I continued thinking that until I noticed more of the strange orange substance on the tail of my suit jacket, and all over the seat of my pants, and also strewn across the lower back panel of my treasured mod-squad jacket.

I wasn’t so worried about the jacket, which has suffered many indignities over the years, so much as I was concerned about the suit – my favorite one. Luckily, I had another suit waiting for me at the cleaners. I could walk to the cleaners, turn over my suit and leather jacket for cleaning, and come back wearing a clean suit.

Down the elevator I went, and across the street to the cleaners. When I arrived I helplessly flung my leather jacket onto the counter and breathlessly explained the problem.

“… and I know this jacket is a little beat up, but it’s my favorite, and I just want you to get this stuff off without it leaving a stain, and the same for my suit.”

The man behind the counter tilted his head and spoke to me in a slow, patronizing tone.

“Sir, I really can’t do anything for the coat now that you’ve let it wear through to the lining.”

Now, many of you have seen me digitally or physically wearing the mod-squad jacket, and though I might have let bits of it get slightly tatty, I’ve never literally worn it through. So, imagine my surprise when I looked down past his patronizing gesturing hand to discover that the strange orange marmalade was now encrusted around a quarter-sized hole in my jacket that – yes – showed through to the lining.

After a moment of consideration I decided that said hole definitely was not present when I examined my jacket in the office. The orange marmalade had eaten through my jacket.

How had my life gone from a typically busy morning of corporate communications to some oddball Jack Bauer subplot? What could I have possibly rubbed up against between my front door and my desk that would eat a hole through otherwise impervious 30-year-old leather?

Why was I still wearing a suit covered in the stuff?

I swiftly stripped down behind the cleaner’s changing curtain as they retrieved my on-hold suit, passing it into the booth in exchange for my soiled clothes. I came out of the store sans-coat, clutching my suit jacket closed with one arm and holding my mod-squad jacket (rejected by the cleaners) far away from my body with the other.

And that was all before lunch.

To the best that anyone has conjectured, at some point I leaned against some element of Septa that had recently been liberated-from or treated-for rust, and the mixture of the solvent involved and the leftover grit wound up pasted across my backside. Curiously, it didn’t seem to be harming my suit (nor my briefcase, which I noticed was slathered in the stuff hours later).

The upshot is that my beloved mod-squad jacket is now wrapped in airtight dry-cleaner’s plastic, probably on the way to an ignoble end in an industrial strength trash bag, and my best-fitting suit is at the cleaners being de-marmaladed (if such a thing is even possible) and I won’t know the outcome until the morning.

Frazzled, distraught, and facing a walk home in the cold without a jacket, at 5pm I decided that I could not let Septa’s passive act of terrorism against my fashionable layering cow me into inaction and dowdiness. I would fight back the only way I know how – with an ample credit limit and a trip to Kenneth Cole.

Now, if only I could figure out a way for this story to end with Septa picking up my K.C. credit card bill I could say I lived happily ever after with my new perfectly-fitted not-too-warm winter jacket (and accompanying splurge-shoes).