Stephen Metcalfe

Our is a casual age though it’s impossible to take casually.  Sportswear has happened.    It’s beyond the ruins. 

I am, if you don’t know, paraphrasing the English writer, D.H. Lawrence, author of Lady Chatterley’s lover, who I doubt ever went out in anything but a coat and tie.  He might these days.  Casual has become the standard uniform of America.   Jeans, shorts, T-shirts, sweatshirts, sneakers; they’re everywhere you look.  It’s like a nondescript uniform; everyone dressing the same. 

(I’m talking about men, of course.  I wouldn’t be so bold or foolish as to talk about what women wear these days–though if I was forced to come up with a single word it might be “tight”.  Is everyone on their way to yoga class?  But back to the boys.)

It wasn’t always like this.  Coming of age in the sixties and seventies, I remember the sudden popularity of bellbottom jeans, and loose-fitting tops.  I also remember the “preppy” look – creased, cuffed slacks, collared shirts, and sports jackets that suggested you as being “somewhat” educated and hopefully on your way to some kind of professional success.  I remember I enjoyed combining the two, jeans, collared shirt, and jacket of some kind.  In my New York City days I supplemented this with, of all things, a pair of suede cowboy boots.  Why, I’ll never know.  Whatever the reason, it was like walking the cement sidewalks in ski boots.  In New York, I also remember during the winter sporting a full length, herring bone, wool coat. Today it probably would be a polyester ski jacket.

Both boots and woolen coat, plus a lot of other things, hit the back of the closet when I moved west.  I was a writer in the entertainment industry.  Lawyers and agents and producers and accountants wore suits and ties, and quote-unquote talent wore pretty much whatever the hell they wanted.  In fact, the more successful you were, the sloppier you were.  My uniform for most of those years was still a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt – what my sweet daughter referred to as a “handsome shirt” – and a throw it over your shoulder sports jacket.  As for shoes, I think most of them time I wore a pair of leather bucks.  From what I see now, I’d be considered decidedly overdressed.  I sense even the lawyers, CEOs and agents wear T-shirts to the office – that is, if they’re not working from home.  I’m not sure when it all changed but it has.  And it’s not just clothes.

They say clean shaven faces in America coincided with the introduction of the disposable safety razor in the early 1900’s.   After that anyone with a beard was too lazy to shave or too poor to buy a razor.  That changed in the sixties.  Beards and moustaches became rock and roll cool again.  As someone with a heavy beard, I had all sorts of facial hair at various times throughout my twenties and thirties.  Never thought twice about it.  But I never had anything that cascaded down my chest all the way to my sternum which is what I often see when I look around now.  Who are these guys pretending to be?  Henry the VIII?  Leonardo Di Vinci?  Grizzly Adams?  I don’t feel as if I see faces anymore.

Why don’t we couple beards today with modern haircuts.  I’ve had long hair.  I’ve also had crew cuts on occasion.  But I never buzzed the sides and back of my head and then pulled what was on top into a rooster comb.  I mean, does anyone really need ten pounds of hair on top of their heads?  Apparently a lot of guys do.  I see it cascading, seemingly uncombed and unwashed, down around their shoulders.   I see a lot of shaved skulls out there as well.   This, of course, is why so many men today wear – the crown of casual – baseball caps!

Baseballs hats were designed in the early 1900’s, not for style, but rather to keep the sun out of a ball players’ eyes.  It is now an accessory that is more common than underwear.  Here in sunny, coastal So-Cal, baseball caps are as rampant as sardine roe on both men and woman alike.   I don’t think they are ever taken off.  They’re worn indoors and outdoors, into restaurants, to the john and probably to bed at night.  Unlike underwear, they often convey a message above the brim.  Does that guy on the street corner like assault rifles or tennis rackets?  Read the hat – does it say Wilson or NRA? – it’ll tell you.  And if he has it on backwards, which means he’s using the cap to keep his neck from getting red (no pun intended), read that casual monogramed T-shirt he’s wearing.  That will tell you even more.

There was a time, when men wore plain, white T-shirts under shirts with collars and buttons, shirts that you tucked in.  Today, T-shirts are the real shirts.  And add words and letters, and you now have “a canvas that associates you with a specific movement or tribe.”  T-shirts now tell other people what team you root for, where you’re from, what bar you go to and what beer you drink, what school (if any) you went to, what political party you vote for, what places you’ve visited and what stores you shop in.

But here’s the thing.  At the end of the day, who really cares.  Are you comfortable?  Are you warm enough?  Are you even thinking about what you wear?  No, why waste the time.  And there are still the “occasions”.  My daughter recently got married.   I pulled a 25-year-old black suit out of the closet.  It was out of style, double breasted, pleated but it still had a sense of elegance and – surprise! – it still fit.   Collared, white shirt, tie, black oxfords – things I hadn’t so much at looked at in years. Add a shave and a haircut and I was ready to go.  

The entire event was incredible.  The ceremony, the vows, the celebration that followed.  Friends and family in attendance.  They’d obviously gone to the back of their closets as well.  There were suits, ties, jackets, dresses, heels.  But we could have all been in shorts and T-shirts, wearing baseball caps, and the love would still have been in the air.

It ain’t about the wrapping paper, is it.  It’s about what’s in the heart. 

1974