Blog #25 | I Hate Bowties

I hope Holly wasn’t joking when she posted on Facebook that “our Treasurer needs his own fashion blog,” because I’m writing another one. I had a good time on the first one, and I got some good reactions from people. Just in case it wasn’t clear before, the links are important; you should click them. Anyway, I want to elaborate on_­­ one of the points I made last time. Specifically the ‘dress for the occasion’ point. I don’t want anyone to be up in arms over me telling you ‘not to dress nicely.’ I do want to prevent future misunderstandings. Dressing up is not dressing well. In most cases, dressing up is dressing worse. Most people (especially students) don’t dress up much, so their dressier clothes tend to be older and thus not fit as well as ‘regular’ clothes (probable exception: Sauder). So you should just wear your casual clothes, when doing casual things. They should fit. Fun anecdote: a couple years ago Dance Club was invited to teach at the CSSA ball, so I whipped out my suit from graduation (i.e. my only suit), which I hadn’t thought about, let alone worn in more than a year. I didn’t try the suit on beforehand. This was a mistake. I had lost about thirty pounds since I got the suit. The day of, in the Dance Club office, I changed into my suit. I was distressed to discover that the pants literally were too large to be effective pants, even with my belt. Thankfully then-president Ed, leant me his belt and I spent the evening in a suit that fit like a garbage bag (using the urinal was a serious challenge). Pro Tip: try on your dress clothes if you haven’t worn them in a while. As much as I don’t want to say that I hate bow ties, I hate bow ties*. They’re like the epitome of dressing up in an attempt to dress well. They’re just always out of place*. They can be okay, it just doesn’t happen*. When I see someone wearing a bowtie, I feel a little sorry for them. You should wear one with a tuxedo though. *95% of the time. The other they can be pretty rad Now, it may seem like I’m hating on a lot of stuff (I am), but I want to make something clear. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I don’t think you should ever wear it. If you ask me for advice, I’ll tell you not to wear them, but outside of that you can do what you want, and that’s what I want you to do. The way you dress is part of how you present yourself to the world; it is an expression of self. If you have nothing nice to say and weren’t invited to say non-nice things, find something else to occupy yourself. There’s no right way and no wrong way to be, but I know that a lot of people don’t really think much about dressing themselves. I’m happy to suggest that maybe there’s something more to it. Hell, you need to put clothes on every morning, so you might as well do it well. tl;dr putting on a fedora and tie makes you classy. Not. Gord –        Treasurer