Maybe it’s an age thing. I’m 34 now which means that I am officially in the realm of no longer being young. In previous generations you stopped being properly young when you were 27. Before that it might have been 24 or 21 and so on. But the point is I ain’t a kid no more and I ain’t getting any younger.
In spite of the efforts society goes to in seemingly attempting to prolong adolescence indefinitely, at some point you realise that you have to leave Neverland and all of those Lost Boys behind.
And it shouldn’t even be an effort really. It should be a felt instinct at some point, a drive, a new developmental stage that you drift into.
‘When I was a child,’ Paul tells us, ‘I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’
But the causality seems to now run the other way in this world of ours. You have to put away the childish things before you can become an adult. Otherwise you can stay spiritually stuck in moping teenhood forever.
And some of the most ‘childish things’ I see today are the clothes that many grown men wear. Men with mortgages and paunches and even grey whiskers in their beards dressed like kids. It’s a sad sight once your eye starts to tune in to it.
So seeing as it’s Sunday, the day that was once commemorated by putting on your Sunday Best, let’s talk a little bit about clothes and appearances.
The Athleisure Society
At the pinnacle of my degenerate fight gambling phase, I used to watch a lot of UFC related content. This was during the initial ascent of The Notorious Conor McGregor (chose you nicknames carefully for they have a way of becoming your fate).
I remember vividly during one segment of the Ultimate Fighter Reality show season where our man from Crumlin featured as one of the coaches. I remember he was talking a little bit of trash to fellow coach/rival/foil Uriah Faber.
McGregor in his blazer and pocket square and exotic skinned loafer looked at the flip flop and board shorted California Kid Faber and noted that back home you became successful so that you could wear nice suits, whereas in America you became successful so that you didn’t have to wear a suit. An interesting little cultural difference.
It stuck in my mind.
See, it seems that the Fabers of the world have won out, successful or otherwise.
(And as a side note, Faber was a good fighter and a very canny and astute businessman. I’m loathe to recommend any self-improvement books out of general principle but you could do far, far worse than reading Fabers autobiography-cum-business book The Laws Of The Ring. In a world where everything seemingly business and ‘hustle’ related is praised to the skies and hyped to death this book is surprisingly slept on.)
And it’s a shame. Now you might say who cares? As long as you are comfortable and are at least basically clean and hygienic who really cares what you look like?
Now this seems like a tolerant, inclusive, basically nice position to take, but in truth I think it’s a bit of a trap as well as a misunderstanding of what clothes are for and what clothes can do.
Mere comfort without consideration of style or form or aesthetics is a trap and a siren song. As this past year has taught us, if you just sling on some athleisure wear (loathsome, loathsome word- all portmanteaus are of the devil. Ask Brangelina) you will soon find yourself becoming lazy, apathetic, bored, vaguely sad.
Of course world events play a big, big part of that at the moment but the outfit, I would say, becomes the final poisoned cherry on this particular shitcake. Because a tracksuit is a signal to both yourself and the world around you that you have stopped caring. That you have begun to stop looking after yourself and treating yourself like someone you actually like.
The way you do anything is the way you do everything, as an ex a Royal Marine former colleague of mine would remind me when I made a half-arsed perfunctory effort with mopping the floors or cleaning the toilets.
Every action you perform is a signal and an implicit statement of intent. This is what mindfulness is all about. This is what mindset is all about. And the clothes on your back are a prime example of this mechanism.
The Italians understand this. And we can learn a lot from them about the subtle power of clothing.
Proper Decorum
The Italians call it ‘La Bella Figura’, and you can translate that different ways. Literally it means ‘The Beautiful Figure’, which is evocative and fairly graspable all by itself. But it can be further seen as ‘Bella’ meaning something like ‘Proper’ and ‘Figura’ meaning something like ‘Decorum’.
As well as it being a case of creating a certain aesthetic impression and cutting a certain swathe as a simple end in itself, both definitions of La Bella Figura have implied within them an idea of a socially beneficial function. You dress well for others as much as for yourself. It’s a form of politeness, a little gesture of civility so that your fellow citizens are not forced to endure the sight of you in garish, ill-fitting and unflattering garb.
It’s about human dignity, if not human flourishing, that same ethos that clearly runs through all of the art and architecture and sculpture and town-planning that makes Italy such an inspiring and soul-stirring place.
The Eternal City is founded on eternal principles.
The seemingly selfish and vain act of preening and caring about your clothes is actually other-centred and considerate, whereas the seemingly enlightened and non-narcissistic act of dressing based purely on comfort is in fact egotistical and rooted in self-obsession. This point is lost on most people.
Think of it this way. Say like my now non-young self, or like the dapper Italian gentleman and the chic Italian lady of the popular imagination you start to take this stuff a bit more seriously. What do you do?
You wake up in the morning and you get yourself clean and you go to your wardrobe. You consider colours and textures, you maybe lay a few things out on the bed. It becomes a little ritual, a little quiet and mindful act, and God knows we need more of those in a world of busyness and screens and hurry and worry.
You put the clothes on, you sort your hair. What you see in the mirror does not fill you with a quiet self-loathing. You might find yourself without conscious effort standing a little taller, a little more upright.
You go out into the world. You find yourself holding people’s eye contact a little more, smiling a little more, nodding a little more. You feel a little better still. You see someone else- rare as it may be- who is of a similar mind to you regarding all of this stuff and you exchange the glance of someone who is on the same wavelength. Game recognise game, as the rappers tell us.
You know that you are putting your best foot forward. You’re making the best of what you have.
Now this isn’t a money thing, this isn’t a flash thing, none of this has to cost you any more than your standard clothes expenditure. This is a self-respect thing. And self-respect is other-respect.
Treating myself like someone I actually care about and am fond of radiates outwards. This beginning with the self before the world, this getting your own house in order first is at the heart of the self-improvement injunctions that ask you to first make your bed and clean your room.
These are all simple, controllable, manageable things that do have a way of elevating your mood and this providing a little boost of energy with which to create and live and be with a bit more purpose and impetuous and intention.
I’m not saying a hastily thrown together outfit begets a hastily thrown together life. But I’m not notsaying that either.
And I’m also- as I do on the other occasions when I find myself dishing out something that is approaching life advice- saying what have you got to lose? Dressing elegantly is all upside and no downside. This used to be commonly understood, and not just in Italy either.
So seeing as it’s Sunday, not only the day of rest but also the day of ritual and reflection and rejuvenation, why not put on something sensational and go out for a walk in the world that is waiting.
Until next time,
Live Well
Tom.
"Good grooming never goes out of style." I recall reading that poster while sitting in the barber's chair during my nearly three decades in the US Navy. Always show up to work inspection-ready was my motto, because if you looked slovenly in uniform, then any work you produced would be immediately & equally suspect. Spring forward a few years & I've made the transition from Navy blue to corporate gray, & that motto stays with me, although I no longer wear khaki on a daily basis. But what is a suit if not just another uniform? The image you present to the world says much about you & what you bring to the fight, & contributes to other's opinion about you. For me, I was never in a hurry to slip into something more comfortable after work. I loved being in a suit, even if I was just walking the dog around Old Town Alexandria, VA. A trip to the Whole Foods around the corner was in suit & tie (or if I felt wild, I'd take off my tie). My wife thought it was hilarious that I'd immediately lay out tomorrow's suit just as I got home, but for me that act provided me a sense of purpose & control. Now in retired life I still love to slip into a collared shirt, cotton chinos, and Bass Weejuns when I'm going about town because, why not? Good grooming, indeed, never goes out of style.
Hey Thomas, is everything alright? Did they suspend your TWTR account?