Esquire

So, yeah, it should have probably been called “A Man’s Guide to (Mostly) Formal-wear”; I guess people figure that many men only care about (if that) the clothes for formal occasions—your weddings, and so on—since that is, almost, I mean, gossips can be mean to almost anyone, but weddings and such are almost the only occasion that a (‘Western’) man can get into trouble for how he looks, you know. Women invest more into clothes and fashion, although obviously a lot of that is fear (and a sort of necessity, even), guys don’t have to, usually, and we tend to either not like women, really, or not be denizens of Planet Earth, or both, so….

Anyway, to riff off that a little bit, I loved the Emerson quote—Emerson was a rebel, and he believed in being happy—but basically I just want to talk about how I am a man, and I bought a book about clothes.

Getting into clothes actually makes me feel like I understand a little about girls getting into books, at least school-y ones. Girls do read and write more books nowadays—although in the Wonderful Past it was different, and men still direct almost all of the movies—but especially with school-y books it is like a woman is outside of her own home. Even if she reads serious women’s interests books, people never tire of pointing out that the girls who write those books are a little “like men”, and obviously part of the pleasure of a guy reading Tom Clancy or military history is that girls almost never do, and have almost or basically no one, as the case might be, who is like them in that type of book.

I always tried to think of books as being universal—well, for years at least, I’ve done that—and I’ve read all six major Jane Austen books as well as other less-scintillatingly-rational romances, to kinda balance out the usually-male and basically-masculine fields like philosophy and science. But I was always a little sad that I was conscious that a girl might not think it’s enough, that it’s still “not her own ground”, those school-y books, you know….

Now that I’m getting into clothes, I kinda get it. A broad-minded woman who has like 600 books on fashion might well buy and read a men’s fashion books like this to be of assistance to her friends of a more masculine persuasion—I guess it might be a little unusual—but even if she did, and told some guy friend, I can help you buy clothes (for the wedding/for your date/for our date), a lot of guys would be like…. Clothes? But aren’t I…. a man? Do men wear clothes?

In a specific way, you know.

And there is a sort of interesting parallelism, you know. Many of the best/most cool clothing stores are exclusively for women, many of the largest are almost entirely for women, and there some stores that sell to both, but it’s like…. Still a clothing store, you know. Again, the parallelism is interesting, you know. (Military history/Shakespeare/common novels—‘Oh, sure! Romance! Men!’, you know.)

But, since I’d like to attract a girl, and make her think that I respect “her own ground”, so to speak, and maybe even talk about Regency Jane and Baroque Bill without coming off as a touch daft, you know…. (shrugs)

I think I’ll even keep it when I’m done!….

(Boy) Does ‘scintillating’ mean, ‘sparkly’?
(Girl) (makes face) I THINK so…. Why, did someone use that word, in a book you were reading?
(Boy) (considers this, then) No. No, they did not. Come, let’s go buy clothes.
(Girl) Okay.

…. Anyway.

I mean, on the positive, I think it’s good and helpful that it mentions different brands to investigate and possibly buy, mostly for looking dressier, but there is useful information.

But the ‘advice’—hand-me-down Downton Abbey crap—about what to get rid of when you’re not young anymore—I mean I’m NOT young anymore, and that IS different, but it’s so like, Never have fun again. It’s like more about adultism than actually being attractive, or having a personal style. It’s like, YES, I’m going to wear my Slytherin shirt again, I don’t care that I’m 30-something, and I’m going to get Ravenclaw, too, so I can have all four of them, and dress in any Harry Potter House I damn well want to if I want to, and YES I’m going to get the Tarot Fool shirt—no, not even the Hermit, the Fool—and I bet you I wear it, too.

AND I can remember to take my Chuck Taylors out of the box I’m carefully preserving them in—no one sees me, usually—and wear them to family Christmas instead of my usual nondescript shoes, you know.

BUT, every day is NOT a wedding, and I am Not some ghostly earl, you know.

…. “If you care about style, then dressing up for a night out is basically like Christmas, your birthday, and summer vacation all rolled into one.”

Seriously? That statements calls for some kind of mocking nickname, like maybe ‘Birthday Boy’, you know. It’s the sartorial equivalent of saying, “We read Homer in the GREEK”, you know—you find the exact center, and then you build a giant castle there and ask a goblin to hold you prisoner so that you can always be on the bridge of the starship Enterprise, where you can make a difference, you know.

…. And remember kids—keep it vegan!
“Nonsense, killing is Essential: killing and being dismissive. You’re dismissed.”

…. I mean, you can develop your own style if you want, and the way you dress has to work for you, however you do it, but it always puzzles me how straight, conventional people can actually use their dressing-up attraction-boost process as a way to conveniently underline what gender they are NOT, you know. I wouldn’t want it done to me; I wouldn’t want to do it.

…. Lots of great movie and celebrity references, though. It’s strange that something so focused on the most visual aspect of visual media, and one of the easiest skills to make fun of, should be so snobby and guarded, you know. Consider the wine snob. Even when he’s getting arrested for drunk driving, he’ll still be mocking other people for not being as cultured as he is, and in perfect form, you know. Like a sonnet writer: he could get drunk and talk about dressing down his niece, and he still wouldn’t let you forget that his sense of a rhyme scheme is better than yours, right.

…. And I seriously think his obsession with Jon Hamm isn’t healthy; he literally shows his face three times. Listen Jay, I know you still think it’s 1960…. But Jon Hamm makes fun of little girls who don’t have chemistry degrees and who should surrender and accept their lack of intrinsic worth but don’t because patriarchy is in decline, you know…. 🤪

…. Anyway: terrible writing, terrible values; worthwhile for technical points & reference purposes.

…. But yeah: if Dan Humphrey from “Gossip Girl” had read this book, without turning into a combination of Blair and a character from “Downton Abbey” or “Mad Men”—it really would have rounded-out his character. A pretty girl should be able to buy you something for Christmas that’s not a cheap used paperback book, you know—assuming she doesn’t just want to throw herself at you, lol. 😸 (Although THAT I guess would end up on the Gossip Girl site, lol. I guess you could lie, of course. “I bought him a trip….” 😹)… (mehr)

Esquire is the award-winning magazine men turn to for peerless lifestyle advice on: style, food and drink, news and culture, women and more. As the only general-interest lifestyle magazine for sophisticated men, Esquire defines, reflects and celebrates what it means to be a man in contemporary American culture. Required reading for the man who is intellectually curious and socially aware. Try it for 90 days FREE!


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NOT A REVIEW BUT, A NOTE ON PAGINATION. This book is a bit rare in it's pagination. that the front matter pages (i, ii, iii, iv) do not conclude and then the standard numbered pages begin (1, 2, 3, 4). In this book, the front matter concludes with page xii and, although the next page lacks a number of any type, the following page is #14. This formatting can create a bit of an eyebrow raise when you look at the Pagination and the Physical Summary... Especially if you turn to the back of the book and glance at the last numbered page. Experienced Library Thing members get it. Hopefully this notation will help some of the newer member decide what makes the most sense for them and all the rest who shall follow in our footsteps using the community that we have created.… (mehr)