Fashion Week has come and gone in New York and, as usual, it didn’t help me figure out what to wear to the office.
A few years ago, an advertising industry consultant said, “Ad people should always dress for a funeral. Clients don’t wonder if we’re creative; they wonder whether we are on drugs. So dress very conservatively.” I asked whether a bow tie is conservative enough. “No,” he said.
Still, I’m wearing the bow tie. So, I guess I’m dressing for a funeral. But it’s Mickey Mouse’s funeral.
Another fellow, a creative guy, once told me to dress very creatively. He told me this when he was wearing a rubber jacket. A rubber jacket! (We weren’t undersea.)
Both of those pieces of advice came in the 1990s. Since 2000, it seems, there’s no way to dress creatively. With everyone wearing absolutely everything, with eyeglasses becoming smaller than the eyeballs they magnify, with Thom Browne’s fashions for Fashion Week (the attached photos), I don’t know whether to wear the pantaloons with the plastic flowers or the suit with the codpiece.
I think I’ll stay with the bow tie. Someday, I’ll be back in fashion. Or not.
