Looking Good vs. "Looking Good"
We’re addicted to maintaining the perception of our identity.
Every move is filtered through: “How is this going to make me look?”
We want people to know how good, attractive, generous, compassionate, virtuous, funny, wild and clever we are. Or unique, or dominant, or right, or part of the team. Whatever combination of attributes you prefer to been seen as possessing.
You could say our culture is about “looking good,” in the sense of “coming off well.”
This is not a critique, but a neutral observation.
So given our preoccupation with how we’re perceived, it’s ironic, at least on the surface, that so many men, particularly those over forty, appear to aggressively not care about actually looking good in the aesthetic sense.
Specifically, I mean looking good in their clothes, a lever completely within every man’s personal control.
What’s going on here?
We want to come off well, yet we are content to dress generically.
Generically? I mean without masculine assertiveness. Without flair, without verve, without sharpness, without character, without without a position, without a point of view, without a sense of command, without élan, without attractiveness, without sex appeal.
Without power.
More than anything, today we’re dressing in a safe way. Neutral and inoffensive ad absurdism. And dressing increasingly, in the same way. Everyone’s wearing a variation on the same bland outfit.
Let’s dig deeper.
Because we are willingly leaving a hell of a lot of aura on the table, and there must be a reason for it.
Clothing represents our vibration to the world. Personal style holds incredible potential power as an expression of self-sovereignty and self-ownership.
Yet, for the most part, we’re passing on this potential. We’re opting out. Monoculture, Dadcore, Finance Bro. We’re taking the path of least resistance.
Why?
My hunch is that the reason is fear.
We’re highly social beings, risk averse to ostracism. The fear of being seen as different from the tribe outweighs the potential upside of dressing as ourselves and truly inhabiting one’s own style.
We prefer to dress “safe” than attempt to dress well.
So, I don’t think the matter is men not caring how they dress. I think they do care, but going with low-effort business casual allows a man to signal belonging to the office warrior class while maintaining the pretence that he doesn’t care.
A double-win for drifting in timidity.
But the real payoff of going-along-to-get-along — the real, deeply hidden payoff that we would never admit — is we get to avoid being dominated: by the constant flux of the fashion/ garment industry; by having to live up to history, by trends, by the vulnerability of exposing your real taste to critique.
Without the convenient dodge that the corporate bro uniform provides, what would we be stuck with?
Well, it’d look a lot like a ton of work: a massive investment of time and effort in research, learning the semiotics of clothing, staying on top of what’s happening in the market, trial and error in fitting rooms, buying, alterations; learning the ins and outs of tailored clothing, a world of its own; and figuring out how to map meaning, qualities and dimensions of clothing onto ourselves in a way that aligns with who we are and who we want to project. On top of this, you’d have to carry the risk of getting it wrong; or being seen as “try-hard” or needing attention, or carrying an air of superiority. You’d also have go through a clumsy awkward phase before you find your groove, usually involving overcompensating, gimmicks and affectations.
We know that fashion is an un-winnable game. So we’d have to play your own game. Invent our own rules. We’d have to operate with and assert our own taste. But what guidance do we have? Who can we trust? What voices do we listen to? Who’s on our side?
Complex.
There’s no way of getting around it: developing, evolving and inhabiting one’s own aesthetic in attire is an immense undertaking requiring commitment and responsibility.
It’s also deeply and truly satisfying.
Because expression is a part of aliveness. Putting yourself out there. Interacting in the world as the man you are. Not hiding as the generic anybody.
Image: Marathon Man, 1976. Roy Scheider at Palais Garnier