A White Gentleman or Bespoke Bozo the Clown
I have long been a devotee of men’s dressing, specifically the art of dressing like a white gentleman. Some men - transmen among them - focus on their perceived lack of penis size as a way to measure their masculinity. I, however, have obsessed long hours about french cuffs versus barrel cuffs, single versus three-button jackets, and how to match contrasting colors. For the $100,000 it would cost me for a new penis, I can buy ten bespoke suits, two dozen shirts, a dozen ties and several pairs of handmade shoes. Call me wacky, but I’d go for the suits every time. Truly I am a man in grey flannel suit. Maybe not in the slavish devotion to a mind-numbing job but, to the suit itself, yes, I am slavish. Absolutely.
Intermixed with learning how to dress like a white gentleman I have come to find small and not-so-small attitudes about women that, while uttered under the guise of tact, really parse out to sexism. There is a belief that a white gentleman should dress in such a way as to appear natural (and we know what a fallacy that is, right?), in an effort to highlight the so-called gentler sex’s artifice . This artifice manifests itself through a whirling spree of dress changes to match seasonal fashions.
In this rubric of dressing like a white gentleman, women do not - indeed cannot - buy classic clothing items. Why? Well, you know, because they are women - insert here a contrived convivial wink wink nod nod born out of not really understanding women, because, well, you know, they menstrooyate. This desired goal of dressing in such a way as to highlight both a woman’s artifice and a man’s naturalness falls short in my book for several reasons.
- Women often dress only for themselves.
- Women - the smart ones, anyway - also shop for timeless classics. No nobs these ladies. They know a pencil skirt will last them for thirty years (assuming a willing collaboration on the part of waist and thighs) whereas DK’s latest won’t last five minutes in the parking lot.
- Lastly, being a white gentleman must exist alone and can’t, for me, be about some adolescent notion that girls are icky and silly and frivolous. Mostly because none of those things are true about all women. Just as it isn’t true that men are natural, easy, or uncomplicated.
Clothing can be revelatory and political. I say if a white guy wants to dress in a funky manner, he is a white gentleman as long as he acts with dignity, respect, and kindness born of a belief that we are all animated by the One Breath. But when dressing supports antiquated notions such as women are frivolous, then all a man will be in the end is a bespoke Bozo the clown.
