fashion secrets
No knows this about me: that there was a time when I followed fashion. I looked seriously at what other men were wearing and I looked at women too.
I developed theories: that fashion moved faster than art or rock & roll: that the colors, fabrics and vibrancy of culture would make Mexico City the "new Paris": that clothes should 'feel good' on you first & foremost, no matter how good they looked on you; that if a shirt of pair of pants etc. felt good you should buy it immediately: that if you didn't buy what felt good on you, there was no second chance, you couldn't go back & buy it the next day because it wouldn't be there, someone else had come along, felt good in it and bought it--that particular piece of clothing would never exist again.
I subscribed to WWD and international VOGUE. I liked the fashion ads, they were so simple: picture of a beautiful person in clothes with a headline. The headline was usually the name of the line, as in Prada or Jill Sander.
When I had money, I'd shop at Barney's in NYC or Wilkes Bashford in SF. For awhile, everyone was buying at Nordstrom--and I did a little bit--but the place always smelled like a department store to me and I could hear the whine of high-priced security cameras above the cocktail music the piano player was making on the main floor. It's true though that Nordstrom will take back anything you buy, and several of the models in photo shoots I conducted were clothed by that store.
When I found something I liked--a Boss jacket in dark blue, almost a linen, some Polo pants at an outlet store near San Luis Obispo, two Haupt shirts from Germany that I bought from a small men's store on Union St.--I'd wear them alot, but not so much that I'd wear them out. I learned the principles of rotating clothes, and would buy enough to have a sensible mix that would get me through my busy professional life. If I had a style, I would call it electic but appropriate, befitting a businessman poet who owned a great collection of ties but really didn't like wearing them.
(A poem from that era was comprised of two lines: Men in ties/have short lives.)
One of my fashion theory's survive: that clothes should feel good on you. J. Crew pocket t-shirts in a variety of colors, Levis in blue, brown and black, Brooks Brothers v-neck sweaters of Merino wool are what I now wear, buying them on sale once every two years. Last year I found a nice black sportcoat at a consignment store on Sacramento that I wear when I have to dress-up. 