Dress and clothing

Ghandi had more dress sense than a tongueless wonder. Dress is simply a way of avoiding exposure – either to the public moral code, the heat or the cold. And the objective of keeping warm seems especially apt today since, when I woke up, Madrid was covered in a mantle of snow and my roof-garden was a brilliant white, filling my flat with a strange and eerie brightness in lieu of the dawn. Dress is above all about being comfortable.

None of my clothes fit me properly. I lost two sizes, though I have almost recovered one. Nevertheless, everything I put on seems like a premature hand-down. My shirts, when buttoned up to the neck, look like v-neck jumpers. My trousers, once tight round my waist, now hug my ankles if not secured. I have to use suspenders to keep them up (something I had never, or rarely, done before) since a belt merely serves to crinkle the waistband. My handkerchiefs are the only item of clothing that fits. Everything is lose – and that is not comfortable.

It makes to sense to acquire a whole new wardrobe – the post-op collection – since, somewhere out there, lies the hope of a substantial recovery and, with it, a return to pre-op dimensions. But for the sake of meantime-comfort I acquired some trousers with an elastic waist that can be adjusted to various sizes. They are more in the line of work clothes but I am not a ‘dedicated follower of fashion’, to distort a line from a song by The Kinks (from 1966, would you believe). So long as they are comfortable.

Suits pose a real problem, especially if you need to wear a suit for professional purposes. Occasionally, however, a suit is indicated for all tongueless wonders – a reception, or a book presentation (though I assisted at such an event and got away with work trousers and a lose-fitting jacket). And then  it is a community-wide problem. The solution may lie in borrowing a suit from a skinny neighbour with an equally disastrous concept of elegance. Or hiring a suit – whatever fits you best and the occasion demands. Or, do not assist at the event. This latter will obviously avoid any annoying interest in your disability, and the public exposure of your Neanderthal-like speech ability. But if you are up to it, and you can find the right trappings, maybe you owe to yourself to be there. You are not going to shy away from a few pairs of impertinent eyes, are you?

Maybe to comment dress, to write an entry on clothes, begets the lie. Am I so indifferent to what I wear? Yes, I think I am, but at the same time I want to pass unnoticed. I should be equally put out if my ill-fitting clothes called attention in the same way as the elegance of others. So my slovenliness should be contained within certain studied limits – comfortable slovenliness, you might call it. My concern is to avoid attention, not to attract it – and the latter is what style and fashion are all about, even at the expense of comfort.