Up in Ontario

Two Vintage Clothing Observations

One:

This stuff is expensive for old clothes. Some of the shirts have stains from someone I don't even know. Nothing is returnable or refundable. Somebody in the supply chain is making a killing. $20 for an old t-shirt from the Terry Fox Marathon of Hope 1982? $14 for a pair of souvenir shorts from Fiji that would have cost less new?

Two:

Things that I consider excellent choices to wear to work have become vintage. I discovered a rack of golf shirts, various colours, brands, patterns. I looked through them in sincerity, since many of them are just like the ones I like to wear, and realized that my fashion sense is so far behind that it has come back as vintage. The preppie mystique of the Lacoste alligator and Ralph Lauren Polo pony haunt me to this day.

I remember hearing that all men at some point in their lives find a style of clothing that they are comfortable in, that they see as suiting them, and they stay with that style of clothing for the rest of their life, no matter what happens in fashion. I suppose it makes sense that we each have a period in our lives when we are open to fashion and then we move past that point, in the same way that it is easier to learn a language or pick up a musical instument at certain points of your life and much harder after.

In my grandfather, I can see a man who looks stylish in a classy, 1950s, wear-a-hat-for-a-drive way. Though he has added new shirts, pants and jackets to his wardrobe they really just echo the existing styles he had made his own. In a less-flattering way, I also see a fashion freeze in the men I play hockey against, their sensibility for dressing remains in striped sweat pants, foam-front-mesh-back baseball caps, undone white runners and black silkscreened t-shirts bought at metal concerts.

So today, I think I may have found the end of my own style. I'm sure the Duck will be thrilled. No more adapting, I have arrived.