Why your clothes don’t fit
ONE of the awful if informative things about being a journalist is that you occasionally appear on video. On one of these occasions recently I discovered, to my horror, that my favourite jacket doesn’t fit at all. It’s a beautiful brown glen check with a little thread of purple running through it. I bought it on sale, bringing the price down from unreasonable to merely high. Trying it on, I was pleased; perhaps a little snug?
However, seeing myself walk around in it, I realise that when it’s buttoned, the lapels strain and the cloth bunches up. The shirt shows below the buttoning point. It’s at least an inch too short. It makes me look like a juvenile or a chimpanzee. Or possibly a juvenile chimpanzee. There are lessons here. The main one is we all work hard, self-protectively, at not seeing ourselves. Often, we look at ourselves in a photo and think, wow, that is unflattering. Bad news: there is no such thing as an unflattering photo. That’s what you look like; the reason the picture makes you look like your dad is that you look like your dad. How often have you looked at a picture of someone else and said: that really doesn’t look like them? Never, roughly. Seeing yourself on video — a series of a zillion pictures, essentially — forces things. They can’t all be unflattering.
In the changing room of your favourite shop, looking at yourself in the mirror, you will — subconsciously — create a flattering image of yourself. Sucking in your gut, straightening your shoulders, whatever. I’m not suggesting you take a video of yourself instead, but having an objective third party around doesn’t hurt.
Once upon a time, a proper salesperson might have played that role. As far I can tell, though, proper salespeople no longer exist. At this point, asking a salesperson at a high-end store if something fits is, to borrow Warren Buffett’s phrase, like asking your barber if you need a haircut. They will say what they need to say to close the sale. If it’s a tailored garment, the tailor is a better bet: the first thing a good one will tell you is to relax your shoulders and let out your stomach before he takes measurements.
Two things increase the probability that you will return from a shop with something that doesn’t fit: that it was on sale, and that you love it. The first issue is less insidious than the second. Obviously, there are no good deals on something that doesn’t fit. Just allow your vanity to prevail over your inner cheapskate. But falling in love with something on the rack can blind you in front of the mirror. To update the old phrase: there’s many a slip ‘twixt the shelf and the hip.
Once love has struck, it is hard to remember the most important rule of all, that the fit is more important than the garment. The nicest pair of shoes I own are half a size too large because they didn’t have the 11.5’s and I couldn’t leave those beauties in the store. Idiotic. What can one do?
Yes, there are basic rules (baggy clothes never look as good as they feel, and tight ones never look as good as you think they do; when trying on trousers, set them on your natural waist, not the hip bones; if the jacket collar rises when you move your arms, something is wrong, and so on). Realistically, however, the only thing to do is cultivate ruthlessness. People who dress really well are hard-hearted empiricists. When they find something that works well, they figure out why, and they buy more things like it. When something doesn’t work, the lesson is noted and the offending item is out of the door. They spend a lot of time looking at things and not buying them. They take note of what other people are wearing and try to learn from it. Like fit people or good chess players, they work at it.
There are, of course, those rich people who travel in the airy realms of the personal stylist, but I’m not convinced this works. And that is the allure of truly stylish people: they have done something hard that no one else could have done for them. It’s not just about money and, surprisingly, not just about taste. Discipline and focus have their part to play, too.