Category: On Clothing

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Sometimes the quest takes years. Other times, not so much.

I saw, a while back, a content creator I follow on social media wearing this shirt in one of her videos:

I saw that shirt and immediately thought, “I want one of those shirts!” Of course, I quickly surmised that I wouldn’t be able to get that shirt, exactly. For one thing, it’s a woman’s shirt. Is that necessarily a deal-breaker for me? You know, maybe not. I’ve always wondered why it is that women-wearing-stuff-made-for-men was a thing while the other direction is generally not. But the other problem with that isn’t so much the potential weirdness, perceived or real, about me wearing a women’s shirt; the problem is that the shirt is honestly unlikely to be cut in such a way to really work on my body. Oh well. (And for another thing? I found the shirt online and it’s $150, roughly. Yeah, nope. Not at this point in my life, anyway.)

(Oh, I’m not naming that creator because I don’t want to make things weird.)

But I still really liked the way that shirt looks! The color and pattern are terrific. Men’s shirts are, for the most part, really boring to look at. I really don’t know why this is, but to the extent that interesting patterns exist in men’s tops, you usually see them on golf shirts, which I really dislike wearing. Most men’s shirts are just boring patterns–simple stripes, if there’s any pattern at all, really–and visual flair in men’s clothes tends to come from accessories and things like ties. Since I refuse to wear ties, that’s out. When I was a kid, paisley shirts were a big thing, but I also can’t wear paisley. At least not in The Wife’s presence. A while back I saw some dude wearing a really neat paisley shirt and I pointed it out to her and her cocked eyebrow and disdainful “Really?” made me shelve that idea pretty quick. (And no, it doesn’t bother me to not wear something she hates…or let’s say I haven’t found anything to wear in which I am sufficiently invested to tempt fate in that way.) Point is, I have a ton of solid-colored shirts in my wardrobe, so a pattern here and there–something other than plaid!–would be nice to have as an option on occasion, is all I’m sayin’.

So I set up an eBay search under “Yellow Linen Shirt” (I’m also really loving linen, but we’ll discuss that another time), and checked the results every few days. Now, I have some things–specific brands or patterns of vintage overalls, mostly–that I’ve searched out for years. So it was to my high surprise and great pleasure that this turned up in my search results after just a few weeks:

Note to self: Look up how to hold up a shirt to display it.

Obviously I knew that I was unlikely to get super-close to the exact pattern of the women’s shirt modeled above, but I was hoping to get at least in the neighborhood–and this one is honestly a lot closer than I even expected to get! Into my shopping cart it went, and lo, it was mine.

After a wash and dry, it was time to wear it. I actually want to wear it with darker blue overalls, but once I had this shirt in hand it was getting quite hot in The 716, so I thus far have only paired it with a lighter pair that’s cooler to wear. I really loved the feel of the fabric (again, linen is a thing that is increasingly making me happy on a regular basis) and the worn, rumpled, and patterned look.

Yeah, I’m pretty happy with this one. Now, if we could get the temps to drop just a little, this shirt will get some serious use! We’re in a hot-and-humid stretch of the kind we haven’t had in what feels like several years, unfortunately. My relationship with heat and humidity has softened as I’ve aged, but I’m not on board with upper-80s and heat indices in the 90s, though. Even with a miracle fabric like linen!

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So much depends upon a red cableknit sweater

I don’t know
about a wheelbarrow

but

things also depend

on a red
cableknit sweater

old and worn
and soft

like the blue-and-white
striped overalls
paired with it

(Apologies to William Carlos Williams)

There used to be a store in the malls, back in the 1990s, called Britches Great Outdoors. I didn’t shop there often, which I kind of regret because the two things I own from that store, I like a great deal. One is a pair of overalls that is among my favorite pairs of overalls ever, and I periodically look on eBay to see if any are hitting the market (no dice so far, ever). The other is this red cableknit sweater.

Sweaters are always amazing and wonderful, and everyone should own a few, as far as I’m concerned. Sweaters are kind of a “workhorse” article of clothing, in that they serve multiple functions, being both warm and usually looking good. But an old cableknit sweater is a special pleasure. In truth it may not be so warm as it used to be, as the sweater ages and the knit starts to loosen ever-so-slightly, so more air gets through it than before. And maybe there are starting to be a few fraying spots, only really noticeable if you’re the one who has worn the sweater a lot and you know how it used to be. Maybe around the bottom it’s given way a bit and maybe the collar and the cuffs aren’t as tight and neat as they used to be. But that’s OK.

And maybe the sweater itself fits a little bit strangely on you now. Mine certainly does: let’s just say that I filled it out quite a bit more tightly back when I bought in the 1990s. I suppose, by definition, the sweater is “vintage”, and it feels it: there is certainly a lot more room in it, and when I wear it under a pair of overalls, it balloons out from beneath the denim more than it did years ago.

Come to think of it: there’s something to be said for your soft and aged cableknit sweater being a bit too large, too. After all, one of the under-remarked qualities of overalls is that they can give new life, through covering and restraint, to tops that might otherwise not work as well on their own anymore.

If you don’t have a slightly oversized and old cableknit sweater, get one. And if you have a cableknit sweater that you’ve been considering getting rid of because it’s not what it used to be, maybe wait out that instinct a bit. It might just age itself into a new life…especially if you’re inclined to wearing overalls.

(I wanted to take a photo for this post of me holding a poetry book open to William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”, with the sweater and the bib of my overalls showing beyond, but it turns out that I only own one poetry book with that particular poem in it, and that book splits the poem between two pages. Alas! Betrayed by kerning!)

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An Addendum to the Matter of the Poofy Shirt.

So I referenced the other day my adoption of the Poofy Shirt as part of my ongoing aesthetic. I in fact first mentioned this back in the fall, though, when I noted that I might be approaching too swiftly the look of “Jerry Seinfeld in the pirate shirt”.

Well, flash forward to one day in December while I was out shopping a bit in Waikiki. Wouldn’t you know it, but one store actually had a Funko Pop of Mr. Seinfeld in that exact outfit! Yes, of course I bought it.

 

Obviously it’s all in the attitude. Jerry didn’t wanna look like a pirate, whereas…well, I don’t necessarily wanna look like a pirate, but as a cottagecore Renfest thing? Yeah, I’m totally on board with that.

But you know, this does raise an interesting question–interesting to me, anyway. I know that fashions change, but why did the “poofy” (for lack of a better term) shirt seem to vanish so decisively from men’s fashions? When did we collectively decide that lean, “athletic” fits are the thing, body types be damned? To see men in any kind of “poofy wear”, one has to go to a Renaissance Faire or watch a movie like a pirate film or a fantasy film or a historical epic. I make no secret that one of my personal fashion models is Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves:

Now, if I want to emulate that look, I find myself turning to women for fashion inspiration (or “inspo” as the kids are calling it). Here is Tasmanian chef and cookbook author Sarah Glover, for instance:

And I never understand why more cooks don’t wear overalls! They’re perfect for cooking! Lots of pockets for stuff like thermometers or whatnot, and if you have a hammer loop you can hang a towel down there for wiping your hands!

Or these two images, from vintage clothing dealers I follow on Instagram:

I don’t really understand the way we’ve decided that entire areas of fashion and clothing are either masculine or feminine and that the twain shall not meet. And it’s not just in the arena of poofy tops with a bit of fringey-lacey stuff on them. It’s also in the colors we endorse. Everyone knows that pink is a “feminine” color…but thing is? Once upon a time, it wasn’t. But just try to find a pink cable-knit sweater for men these days. I’d have an easier time finding a pink poofy shirt….

Hey, wait a minute….

 

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