I’m in a quandary and I need some advice. It seems, because of my advancing years, I am no longer allowed to wear what I like. According to some commentators, the time has come for me to conform to an age appropriate dress code which means there are some things I can’t wear.
My problem is that I have no idea if there are any ‘age appropriate’ clothes in my wardrobe because I don’t know what they look like. Since hearing about all of this, I’ve been thinking of refusing to leave the house in case people are laughing at me.
I could order my groceries online and have them delivered to my front door and leave them there until it gets dark. I could stay in my pyjamas all day, with the blinds pulled down and if anyone asks me to go anywhere, I could pretend to be sick.
I blame An Garda Siochana for my predicament because for 35 years of my working life, I wore a uniform every day. I had a large supply of blue trousers and blue shirts so picking an outfit for work was easy. My life was very straight forward up to that point but then I retired, and it all went to pot.
I was never warned about the fashion police. There should have been some pre-retirement training provided to prepare me for dressing myself in civilian life. I should have been told that there was another colour besides blue and that there are people who pounce on fashion mistakes. I have been let down and I intend writing a strongly worded letter to the Department of Justice.
Fashion has always been a complete mystery to me. I have no idea how I survived until now with zero knowledge of the rag trade or colour coordination but like I said, it hasn’t been all my fault.
I was abused one time because I wore a green shirt and a blue pants. I thought I looked fine, but it was quickly pointed out to me that blue and green should never be seen. I had committed a serious fashion faux pas. I battled hard to recover from that embarrassment and just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, another fashion guru wants to change the rules.
You probably have never heard of a lady by the name of Alexandra Shulman. I certainly hadn’t and I had no idea she even existed until recently when she grabbed the headlines after criticising what Helena Christensen wore on a night out.
Now that is someone I had heard of. She was a supermodel in her day and not that long ago either. She is fifty years old now and is still a fine-looking woman, but she upset Ms. Shulman.
Shulman is a columnist and a former editor of Vogue, the fashion magazine, so you would expect her to know a thing or two about the fashion world. She wrote a piece, suggesting the outfit Christensen wore on a night out with friends, was inappropriate for her age.
“There’s nothing wrong in wishing to be desirable,” Shulman said, “it’s just not best achieved wearing a black lace corset in public. You don’t have to condemn yourself to trench coats, navy blazers and a crisp white shirt once you hit the big Five-O. But, even so, surely you should call time on Ann Summers style.”
That’s a bit harsh as far as I’m concerned because Helena could wear my granny’s bloomers and she would still look fantastic. Why Ms. Shulman felt the need to be so pass- remarkable is beyond me.
She would have plenty to say about my wardrobe. I’m pretty sure that some of my clothes would have been considered trendy at some point in their lives, just not in the recent past. In fact, it’s possible that they might have been in and out of fashion a few times over the years but anyway, from now on, I am taking a leaf out of Helena’s book and I’ll wear what’s comfortable.
My wife has often accused me of being odd and she reckons I’m not like other people. She’s probably right but I’m taking that as a compliment, whether intended or not, because it means I don’t follow the sheep. I do my own thing and I’m not going to wait for the likes of Ms. Shulman to tell me what to wear or what is appropriate for my age.
I refuse to subject myself to the whim of some eccentric fashion designer who expects me to pay a fortune for something I wouldn’t use as a dust sheet.
Take torn jeans for instance. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that people would be prepared to spend their hard-earned cash on trousers that are deliberately ripped to allow the knees to stick out? That factories would produce perfectly good jeans only to deliberately mangle them by tearing them to pieces to expose various bit of flesh.
According to author, Liz Hodgkinson, jeans and shorts should be made illegal for men over 60. “You may find this hard to believe but even in midwinter, I see old men in shorts, even at the theatre. Surely, it’s time for all older men to smarten themselves up?”
If you do away with shorts and jeans for men over sixty, that will leave me with very few options, and I don’t fancy going naked. So, I have decided to be brave and leave the house. Now that the weather is picking up, I’m getting into my shorts and t-shirts and I’ll stay in them for as long as the weather permits. After that, it’s back to the jeans and if that bothers Liz Hodgkinson, well, that’s just too bad.