|
ARCHIVES
|
Rocking the Sweater Vest Posting Date: Apr 27 2008 11:15PM It took me thirty-eight years and a graduate degree in English literature, but I finally figured out that the only man on the planet who should wear a sweater vest is my father. I’m not completely sure why, but there’s something about the shape of my father’s shoulders, neck and head that ensures he looks fabulous in a sweater vest.
This was, for me, a mildly disappointing realization. I mean if your father is going to be the best in the world at something, as a son, you’d kind of like it to be a skill that has market value. My dad could have been the world’s best songwriter or basketball player and I would have grown up with a gold toilet and six Bentleys. Instead, he rocks a sweater vest like no one on Earth and drives a Toyota.
I console myself by thinking of all the unfortunate children like me, poor souls whose fathers have similar talents to mine. These are talents without sponsors, skills without a stage, abilities without so much a fan club or website.
Think of the poor kid whose dad actually looks good in a turtleneck. No one looks good in a turtleneck. Some people look mildly uncomfortable, others look like sausages, most look like someone squeezed their heads out of the shirt like toothpaste from a near-empty tube. But there’s one dude out there in his turtleneck looking like Cary Grant in a tuxedo, but know this, Mr. Turtleneck Stud, your son is at school right now, getting a swirly in the second-floor washroom because all the big kids don’t believe in your turtleneckability.
There’s also the unfortunate chump whose father looks smashing in a bowtie. Every time we see a bowtie that isn’t part of a tuxedo, we know it’s tied around some pencil-necked, tweedy geek who can recite all of the Plantagenet kings and the American vice-presidents of the Nineteenth Century in alphabetical order. We don’t need to look past the tie to know what we’re dealing with, so when little Jimmy’s bowtie-wearing father shows up at school to drive him home, all the other kids see the tie and little Jimmy’s life is over. The only problem is that little Jimmy’s dad is rocking his bowtie. He looks like a million freaking dollars. Sadly, it doesn’t matter, not to Jimmy.
Most men can’t pull off big glasses. If you have a penis, your glasses should be small. In fact, smaller the better (that applies to the glasses only). If you have big glasses, you better be on your way to a costume party dressed as a pimp … except for that one guy whose face has the magical ability to adapt to lenses the size of pancakes. I don’t even want to think about that guy’s poor son, what with the whole school thinking his father runs a stable of hookers.
And then, there’s the guy with the hat. I don’t mean the baseball cap, the skullie, the touque, the Tilley or the top hat. I mean the HAT. A hat from an earlier decade. A hat that goes with a suit and tie. A hat you could wear to a stadium on a nice day to watch a football match back when you took trains from town to town. That kind of hat. A fedora.
Back in the day, a man with a tidy fedora could be rock-solid cool. Now, a dude with a fedora advertises to the world that he’s a look-at-me-I’m-wearing-a-fedora jackass. A fedora is an invitation to giggle … except for that one guy who is magically blessed with the perfect fedora-shaped skull.
I wish I was that guy. I would love to rock a fedora, but only if I had the right head. I would love to style the bowtie, but only with the right neck. I would love to bust out the sweater vest, but only with the right shoulders. Of course, if I could wear those things, I’d have slopey shoulders, a thin neck and a giant head and probably tip over under my own weight, so I’ll take things the way they are. |
