Where were we? Ah yes, appointment #1.
Saturday – the start of the weekend, the day of rest, the 24-hour mode period for incurring hangovers. When work winds down, and the rest of life wakes up. The time for reflection, for relaxation, for restful peace from which you wake up with a sense of impending dread on Sunday and an audible expletive (and broken alarm clock) on Monday.
Or, in my case, rushing through the door to make sure I don’t miss the first session with my style consultant. I think I’m made for the Queer Eye overrun-your-house-with-random-people kind of intervention since that requires so much less effort.
To be fair, I was actually perfectly scheduled for everything. Wake up at ten, meeting’s at noon, plenty of time to take a shower, have breakfast, have everything in line to go… right? Well, Murphy’s Law decided to kick that optimism back to where the sun don’t shine.
It all began with Vassilena’s first, humble request – to go and find photos of any looks or clothes that I’d found interesting, or good. After dragging myself through a few websites devoted to male style (and deciding that the fashion police have bad practical taste because who’d wear a suit with boat shoes and no socks?), I had snapped a good set of photos and thought I’d saved them to my cell phone. Well, somehow the extra memory card that I’d inserted is about as useful as Sarah Palin discussing Pyongyang and decided that nope, while it said it was saving photos, it in fact didn’t, or at least put them somewhere that I couldn’t find them on that chip.
So, scramble through a photo site again. Thirty minutes, utterly wasted. Then, since I’ve been put off-rhythm, take another twenty minutes to try and snap a photo of myself in the mirror, so that I’d have at least a few before photos to couple with the after. Following that, cue Chopin’s minute waltz with a silent movie of me running out the door to get to the Café Artigiano across from Holt Renfrew, jumping into the car and praying that I wouldn’t be too late, as I’d only left at about five minutes to twelve.
I do catch a break when Ms. Johns calls and announces she’d be late too, but in typical James-style relaxed fashion I end up leaving said camera phone in my car in the garage. So, in the end, to recap: I got there a bit late, she got there later, but I actually made us start latest in the end. I am absolutely great at this punctuality and organization thing that seemed to be one of the overarching demands in The Devil Wears Prada. Actually, thinking about it, I should be fashionable from simply having sat through that movie, but in all honesty, it was slim pickings between that and some French-language movie about a guy who runs a café that burns eggs all the time as watching material on a flight, since I’d already seen Wall-E a few times. Ah, Air Canada movie choices – what would Heritage Canada do if they couldn’t unload some of our high-class artistic productions that are as lucid as Ulysses and fascinating as Soul Mountain on at least some unwitting flying viewers wanting to make sure their Gravol does, in fact, suppress some sort of queasy feeling?
So we finally sit down and Vassilena does go on to describe what she wants to do. It includes give me a good introduction to a wardrobe (which sounds fine to me), hone in on certain style elements that I should continue to embody as they’re what I find attractive (we’re on the same page there), go through the wardrobe of mine and pick out what will end up being good (again, a good start) and also rearrange the closet.
“I like to help people with their closets,” she said, looking at me over her coffee, “give their closet a bit of organization, almost rearrange the feng shui of the closet”. Now, actually knowing what feng shui is about, I had a comic image of her going around with the orienteering octagon that geomancers use, and have her dictate that I should not put my shirts in one area because it will attract the bad spirits, as well as put a mirror in another corner. I then almost laughed out loud at the image of me, sweating per her directions, dragging rocks and setting them next to my shoe rack because, of course, there needs to be a fountain with koi – after all, what self-respecting closet doesn’t need water? But, I did get her jive and I thought it was a good idea, since a lot of people have far too much clothing and can’t figure out what they want to do with it. I, on the other hand, have some of the exact opposite problem.
Where it did get somewhat off-kilter for me was when she likened what she did to a kind of psychological reawakening of her subjects. “I think style gives people the ability to express themselves,” she stated at one point during our meeting, which was definitely a true statement, “and I think I help to bring them to best express themselves.” Hopefully she does, or I’m going to end up looking like the office version of Jesper Parnevik meets the Norwegian curling team. Giving me an earnest glance, she continued on: “In doing it, I think that I’m kind of a life coach, and that I am coaching people about their life through fashion.” Now, that is kind of a logical connection, that A leads to B and B leads to C, thus A leads to C, but life coach kind of carries an entirely different connotation to me. For some reason, at this rate, I also got the image of Dr. Phil going around hauling people by the arm to Barney’s in order to solve the problem of why their significant others call them Shamu.
Yeah, you can say I’m kind of into it, kind of not.
This led into our foray into fashion together; or rather, my baby steps amidst a fervent prayer that I would not have my ideas completely pooh-poohed, or worse yet, that she would build upon them in some way that would leave me looking like the walking posterboy for Abercrombie & Fitch. Vassilena was admirable in being direct, cutting to the chase. “So what’s your budget for your new look?” she asked, examining her nails slightly in the dim reflected sunlight through the front window of the café.
I knew said question would come up – after all, this is someone who makes a living from dictating what other people should wear. I also didn’t end up getting a style consultant on my own, so I decided on a decent number because if I didn’t, I could see the uncomfortable conversation with my ever-so-generous benefactors. Instead of angel investors, I guess I’d call them angel interveners, though they likely wouldn’t radiate the essence of the cherubim after a terse discussion involving the next four lines in some fashion, tapering off to a stalemate whilst they stare at me disapprovingly over a glass of Talisker 10 whisky:
“You mean to tell me that we had an intervention for you and you made your consultant shop with you at Walmart?”
“Yes, well, truth be known, one of my friends already scopes out the good deals at Value Village, so…”
“I see. Do you have any conception of what good clothing is?”
“Anything that doesn’t leave one’s private parts exposed beyond what they want and doesn’t have food and/or other stains on it?”
Yeah, I could see that going over real well. Though, I also wasn’t receptive to spending too much; after all, tax season was coming up and unlike my student years, I wasn’t really expecting to see a refund in the mail anytime soon. So, looking steadily at her, I responded, not exactly feeling as comfortable as I felt. Two thousand dollars, three at the most, I told her, thinking that this would be enough to get items I’d be happy with. Anything more and I might go begging my boss for a raise, and God knows he’s been more than generous while I’ve been working with him, though maybe he’d take pity on the charity case and see it as an investment. Or at least, a tax break for an investment that was almost certainly going to go off the rails.
Vassilena then looked up at me slightly from filing her nails, studying me a bit. It was almost like playing heads-up hold’em with an opponent, only while you had two cards she held enough to start a round of Uno. Finally, she nodded, her lips set in a straight line, a perfectly neutral poker face that didn’t tell me anything on her thought process, one way or another. “Yeah,” she said, voice light but that one approval carrying so much more weight than any long diatribe given in the Supreme Court (Aboriginal rights, human rights, immigration, the constitution, psht… all peanuts compared to whether or not my style consultant would disown me before we even started in earnest), “that much should get you a few essentials.”
I nodded, though I’m pretty sure I also blinked. Maybe more than once. A few essentials? I think I’ve spent less in the past year on gifts, car insurance and wine from Australia than my maximum budget for this. Heck, I’m not even sure how much time I’d need to go back before I could even tally up that kind of expense for clothing.
But then she pulled out the main focus of our consultation for that day, the one style guide by which we would start to hone our collective vision on what I liked, what I didn’t like, and what clothing liked me.
The one, the only, spring and summer collection guide from Harry Rosen, one of the leading upper-end men’s boutiques in the country. The same store that also charges $5.00 for their shopping catalogue, more than an edition of Time or even a pair of my favorite chocolates from Cocoa Nymph, the fresh mint and green tea, and brandy-caramel with a praline pecan, or even, with adequate negotiation, bus transportation between southern and northern Ghana, perhaps with a meal of fried chicken, potatoes and roasted peanuts in-between.
Yeah… my budget, merely essentials. Gotcha. Then again, I guess people bleed for lesser causes – to show their devotion to KISS, to perpetuate the old lie, dulce et decorum est, hemophilia – so it’s perhaps an illustration of noblesse? Though somehow, this doesn’t strike me as the kind of adventure that will be immortalized in the manner of La Morte D’Artur, or Shaquille O’Neal’s Kazaam. .
And so we began flipping through the photos I showed her, as well as the catalog. What strikes me is how some of the priciest clothing that is supposed to be wearing is actually terribly butt ugly. For instance, a few full-page spreads are of guys wearing white pants, white shirt, which have what’s supposed to be patterning, I think, though it just looks like Jackson Pollock decided to work on a tee instead of a canvas (though, at least it would beat a Malevich for effect). Also, for some reason, the Harry Rosen catalogue, which as far as I could tell was tailored towards middle-aged to senior men who have major cash, has an inordinate amount of men in the twenties showing clothing only to expose their tight abs in grayscale ads. Jesse Matthews – if you ever get tired of landscaping in the summer, I think I’ve found you the right job.
In going through it, a pattern quickly emerged to both her and myself. Generally, I like straight lines, maybe a bit of something unique if the piece is dressed down, and simplicity is favored over ornamentation. She called it being classic, but being fun, which sounds more sophisticated than anything I’d call it – I just want to wear items that don’t take the same amount of time to put on properly. Somehow, I picked up on colors and fabrics, for example with how texturing even the same midnight black can send a layered impression rather than a monochromatic blob, prompting Vassilena to compliment my attentiveness. Well, what can I say – if I wasn’t attentive, my chosen profession would really not be suited for me. Of course, if I was attentive, maybe I wouldn’t apparently need this kind of intervention.
[Examples of overall good formalwear – Federer has classic lines and we saw an ad with that suit and a textured silk black shirt, which helped the rest of the dark to stand out perfectly. The second, mostly is focusing on the straight lines and clean look that all the suits have without much adornment. The last is a classic kind of look though I’ll hold off of abusing people with a skateboard.]
We were on the same wavelength for a lot of things – lighter fabrics for the spring and summer, shirts and pants that were comfortable but still slimming to the eye, implying a darker color for pants and nothing overly loud. In my case, classic would involve a lot of black, white, blue, and lesser shades of grey, brown, and perhaps the other primary or secondary colors. Trying to keep it hipper, younger, always a good thing, and of course, my key concern – making sure that there’s ample ease of movement and wear in the clothes. After all, she said, half of pulling off a look is your attitude, and that only improves if you can feel good when sporting it.
[Casual – notice that it can be more relaxed, as in #1, very casual in #2, or a bit dressy in #3. Generally, the idea would be to mix and match some easy-wear items for my standard non-work use whilst having other pieces that could easily help transition my work wear to relaxing at the bar afterwards. The final look is slightly more versatile in this respect. Again, I’m not really one for overembellishment on my dress items.]
However, where there’s harmony, there’s always difference as well. This came when Vassilena turned a page on the catalogue, commenting, “James, one of the more common themes this spring, especially for men, is colored pants.”
Colored? Isn’t blue like the default denim color? Not to mention dark shades of other components to the visible spectrum? “I mean reds, and even purples, just like the photo here… what do you think of them?” Well, purple I’m not sure (though I had some images of day-glo Flinstones vitamin pantaloons in my mind), but here goes:
[same brand as the one described above, just imagine that these are a dark purple... but look! Lucky Charms! They’re magically delicious!]
Okay, cue record scratch because I was a little stunned at that suggestion. The last time I ever wore those kinds of colored pants was in elementary school, and enough classmates teased me about wearing pajamas that I went the jeans way too, even though those sweatpants were darned fluffy and comfortable (though it also didn’t help that one day those split, but that’s another embarrassing story for another day). However, even in those days, the colors were like, neon blue and yellow and green and purple – never red. I never knew why, but then when I spoke the following words, I realized that was the truth to why I never wore red pants and probably won’t.
“Uhh… red pants makes me think of Ronald McDonald.” Even though ol’ Ronnie’s wearing yellow and it’s a jumpsuit, those shoes continually stand out to me as something to not really aspire to.
Vassilena looked taken aback, like I had thought of something completely wrongly. “Oh, no, no,” she continued, valiantly trying to defend her point. “Red can come in so many shades,” she said, pointing at various items as if to gesticulate. “It can be dark, it can be russet, it can be soft… like that color,” she said, pointing at the wall of the Café. Which was an orange-red and rather bright.
Again, Ronald McDonald came up in my head and I wondered if after the fashion makeover I’d be able to recoup my costs by beating up the Hamburglar and stealing his stash – there’s no honor among thieves, after all. Though, in all seriousness, that solidified no red but the color idea hung around in my head until I started talking to other people and realizing that after this season, it’s not like I’m going to be able to pull out a pair of dark purple pants and go do something unless a blacklight is involved in some way. “Be more fashion-forward,” one of my friends told me, after overcoming the shock and the laughter, and the greater laughter after I recalled the meeting, “but not that forward.”
After we had figured out what I wanted to wear, I then asked her about another important part of my image. One part that I really had no preconceptions on and was thus quite nervous. “So,” I said, “as you can tell, I definitely can benefit with some clothes overhaul, but where I think I need the most help,” I continued, grasping one of my locks, “is my hair.” Moving from where my hair met the base of my neck to my head, I blathered on. “As you can tell, it’s not been cut since around Christmas,” which she nodded to, “and I definitely need to do something with it.”
The problem was, I never had much of an opinion on what I wanted to do with my hair. Some stylist I went to long ago said my hair parted in two different directions, which made getting a reliable cut a challenge. Also, the whole youthful image of trying to spike one’s hair up in gel never was my forte, particularly as I was continually terrible in trying to do it (much like contact lenses, which is why I probably will be a glasses guy ‘til I die, pardon the rhyme) and so I was always okay with letting people do whatever they wanted with it. And that tended to result in the rare great style I couldn’t remember (but often also required product, and I do like my hair to feel more like hair and less like Crisco), a large number of hideous side-projects where Edward Scissorhands went drunk in a salon, and a vast majority of cuts that I was, for the most part, indifferent to. So, all in all, I was up for doing anything, so long as it befitted my career and was simple, since I usually wake up, take a shower, dress, grab my breakfast, and rush off to work.
Thankfully, Ms. Johns already had that in mind. “Of course,” she said wisely, “That’s going to be part of your transformation.” She smiled, but it was in her eyes a familiar light of excitement – that same one that started me on this whole path, that same esprit du corps which should have served as the tell-tale sign to panic and run for the hills. “I already have it in mind.”
She continued on. “It’s funny, I have the perfect person in mind,” she said sophisticatedly but with a bit of girlish glee, “you are going to have an appointment with Farshad!” And, before I could say anything, she rushed forth. “Farshad is a real artist with hair – in fact, he’s done work with Armani before. For the hair, and the makeup!”
“… uh?” I said with my trademark nonchalance and wisdom. Did she just mention makeup? Is this is a subliminal hint? And no, there’s no way I’m going in for the emo guyliner treatment. I am going to leave that to that competitor on the Amazing Race who whines so much his pink-haired girlfriend should just pack him in a box and ship him to Abu Dhabi while she goes on to win the darned thing on her own.
“Yes! Farshad is amazing! He can do wonders with hair,” she said earnestly, “he can just take a look at you and figure out what kind of hair you need!”
“Oh?” I said, my brain finally catching up to me from the minor shock. So I have an appointment with an artist and a visionary? I thought to myself. Maybe she also knows of a wedding planner with that kind of skill? Someday I’d probably enjoy settling down… then again, I was enjoying the attention somewhat. It would be good to have someone who knew what to do with my hair actually do it – then hopefully I’d get something I liked, since I would be making sure to take along my camera to take photos and ensure I could do it again.
That being said, Vasselina also did try to push for me to get new glasses. “Maybe with your new look, you need new glasses?” she suggested, pulling out a card for a downtown optician. “Designer frames for a small discount,” she offered, as she had more fashionable contacts. However, no, I think I’ll take my current look, because as trendy as DKNY lenses might be, I actually like my current glasses because I can actually see more than just straight ahead with them.
And so from there we ended with scheduling. The next session was in two weeks, where I would get my hair done while Vassilena would go and do her own stuff for an hour. Then would come the first “quick power shopping session” of three, maybe four hours. From that I finally realized how unfashionable I was, since the last time I went and shopped for that long was getting university textbooks at UBC in my freshman year before realizing that one got up early for a reason on that day.
It was an odd method, where we would go shopping for clothes and then she’d go through my closet to pick items but perhaps it was a better idea that way. My spare reserves of clothing could use additions any which way, and as it was we could pick out my initial looks and then decide if I actually needed the pieces later. Though, it still did seem a little odd that we would just step into Pacific Center first without really taking stock of what I had, since while I know what I have, what she and what I see in my clothes could be two entirely different perspectives.
As it was, so ended our session. And, in typical ambivalent-me fashion, I couldn’t wait for it to begin and couldn’t wait for it to end.
And of course, in part 3, come join me as I realize that apparently my butt is so big it needs an hour to be properly measured in pants. Til then! And now I can go to sleep, I think my Canucks-winning euphoric hangover is over, though I was also cheering for Nashville. At least I'll like one of the conference finalists.
