Tall Drink of Nerd: Fashion Impossible

I understand why men hate shopping for clothes.  It’s a pain in the rear cushion to find a combination of anything stylish and affordable.  This is one of those times when I am super happy to be a woman, except when shopping for a clothing gift for my husband, then I just wish he would like a pretty necklace or scarf.

Ladies, we are so lucky to have fashion options out the wahzoo.  Finicky men, like my husband Seen, are basically screwed. We went shopping for him today, to buy button up shirts that he could wear when meeting clients. We live a few blocks from a major outdoor walking mall and a newly opened high-end mall.  Finding some clothes for the guy shouldn’t be too tough.  He knows what he wants; button up, collared dress shirts that he can wear to client meetings with a bit of style to them.  Oh and we can’t afford to spend $200 for one shirt.  This proved to be a difficult search.  I’ve started referring to Seen’s wardrobe as the Snipe.  To replenish it we must catch the ever-illusive Snipe.

image courtesy of Alphabet Arm

Over the last two years, most men’s dress shirts, aside from the basic oxfords, have had little “V”’s sewn onto the shoulders and pearlized buttons.  They effectively look like cowboy shirts.  I think that bit of fashion whimsy came from hipster bands buying old cowboy type shirts at the Goodwill and wearing them on tour.  This season, every stinking dress shirt has epaulets.  OK, maybe not every one, but like 95% of them had epaulets.  So Seen would either look like a cowboy or a soldier.  He is not a fan of epaulets.

Maybe you like cowboy shirts or soldier shirts, but they are both a tad casual for what he’s trying to convey in client meetings.  Plaid is also big this year, sometimes going crazy and mixing with cowboy shoulders or epaulets.  But that, again, is a little too casual.  The only other choice is plain John shirts.  We shopped at Mango, H&M, Limited, Express, Nordstrom’s and Bloomingdales, just to mention a handful.  At some point, my head got all explode-y and frustrated about lack of choices, in this day of massive consumerism.

I can walk through this mall and head into about 10 different national chain stores that will outfit me in fun, fresh and flirty girlie styles.  Or I can get work clothes, jackets and slacks without too much thought or effort.  We chycks have a plethora of choices, many within my budget range, so we can dress in our own style of choice.  Men get about 4 style lives they can choose from.  Poor men!  (And poor me at birthdays and Christmas)

There is a new option that I just discovered, one that my niece turned me on to.  She had shirts custom made for her boyfriend for Christmas at Rocky’s Custom Clothes.  For a reasonable price, which I can’t reveal here because it was his present and he may read this (Hi Brittain!) he can choose the fabric, the cut and have the shirt tailored precisely to him.  It costs less than a shirt at Limited, and it’s made for you!  It takes more time than running out to the mall, but at least we can choose to leave the epaulets and the pearl buttons off.

featured image credit: shaun wong