WHEN I left you last week, I found myself in a room marked "Fashion adviser", with Kirsty and Lorraine. It was a comfortable enough room but my imagination still painted it as a cell, with these two charming ladies in reality police detectives investigating my crime. "Do you deny that your apparel, your generally depressing mien, and your big red hooter caused alarm among citizens in the St James shopping centre at approximately 10:54am on Thursday last?"
Kirsty, the press officer at John Lewis, where this fashion conspiracy was being hatched, left me in the tender hands of Lorraine, the habiliments executive. There was a changing room nearby and a rack of clothes. On this latter, my eye alighted with
immediate alarm on what looked like a flowery blouse.
I was informed that this was a man's shirt. Instantly, I started towards the exit. "It's just put in for a laugh," explained Lorraine hurriedly. "Though it's good to try different things, and you might even like it." Later, when she was out of the room, I tried it on surreptitiously and did sort of like it. But I'd only ever wear it in the garden.
Generally, I love things with flowers on and often impulse-buy them: mugs, tea towels, cushions, tins. But I draw the line at apparel. I've a grey-faced friend who wears such colourful creations on unexpected occasions, and spends the whole time scowling aggressively at anyone who might pass adverse comment. Is it really worth the hassle? No, give me muted tones. My face is freakish enough, without the duds enhancing the general circus impression.
I'd indicated a preference for blue suits, and a couple of these were laid out, along with a grey one. The first jacket pinched horribly at the shoulders and was clearly too small. I was reminded of the PG Wodehouse line: "He looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say 'when.'"
Different sizes were sent for, and it soon became evident that something was amiss. It was my shape. To be fair, I was first to suggest this, somewhat jocularly. But I didn't expect Lorraine to readily agree with me. It seemed that I stuck out where I should have stuck in and stuck in where, well, you get the picture.
Kirsty returned to see how I was getting on, and my shape – or, more accurately, misshape – was earnestly discussed. Another fashion adviser stopped by to use the telephone (for a minute, I feared she was calling the police), and then the seamstress arrived and was kind enough to say I was not to worry, because everyone is a funny shape. The four women looked on sympathetically, and I found myself shrinking inside.
On the duds front, the grey suit turned out best. "It's very slimming," said Lorraine. As if I needed such a thing! But, alas, it was already clear she knew what she was talking about, though I doubted this when she produced the shirt: it had pinky-clarety-mauvey stripes (I'm a man – I can't name non-primary colours).
Generally, I steer clear of reds, believing they enhance the scarlet hue of my coupon. My mates insist there's nowt wrong with my face. They are all liars. Only the other day, I heard a child ask her mother: "Why is that man's face all red?" Always trust a child. Once, I was stopped by a pub bouncer and told I'd had too much to drink, when I hadn't imbibed a droplet. "Then, why's your face so red?" he asked.
Despite my misgivings, the shirt appeared on my torso and lo, with the suit, it worked! The woman was a genius! Lorraine had a philosophy of jolting customers out of style-ruts of their own making. "Try different things. Don't restrict yourself to one colour," she believed. But you have to be brave or, as in my case, just wear what you're tellt. By so doing, I ended up in the grey suit and mauvey-striped shirt you see in the pic on this page.
On the way home from John Lewis, though, I was deeply troubled. I found myself looking at other folk's anatomies and thinking: "Well, I'm not as bad as that." Sometimes, in Asda or the like, you feel like the only normal-looking person in the place. But it's still me they titter at. I have nightmares about all these squat blobs in tracksuits pointing at me and laughing.
Back home, I Googled "average size" of various upper torso anatomical areas and came out Mr Absolutely Bleedin' Normal, almost to a millimetre. I could be taller. I could be stronger. But I am not a friggin' freak. Reader: "Yes, you are. The photographic evidence is just a few inches furth of these words. Nice suit, though."n Read Robert McNeil every Tuesday and Friday in The Scotsman.
WHEN I left you last week, I found myself in a room marked "Fashion adviser", with Kirsty and Lorraine. It was a comfortable enough room but my imagination still painted it as a cell, with these two charming ladies in reality police detectives investigating my crime. "Do you deny that your apparel, your generally depressing mien, and your big red hooter caused alarm among citizens in the St James shopping centre at approximately 10:54am on Thursday last?"
Kirsty, the press officer at John Lewis, where this fashion conspiracy was being hatched, left me in the tender hands of Lorraine, the habiliments executive. There was a changing room nearby and a rack of clothes. On this latter, my eye alighted with immediate alarm on what looked like a flowery blouse.
I was informed that this was a man's shirt. Instantly, I started towards the exit. "It's just put in for a laugh," explained Lorraine hurriedly. "Though it's good to try different things, and you might even like it." Later, when she was out of the room, I tried it on surreptitiously and did sort of like it. But I'd only ever wear it in the garden.
Generally, I love things with flowers on and often impulse-buy them: mugs, tea towels, cushions, tins. But I draw the line at apparel. I've a grey-faced friend who wears such colourful creations on unexpected occasions, and spends the whole time scowling aggressively at anyone who might pass adverse comment. Is it really worth the hassle? No, give me muted tones. My face is freakish enough, without the duds enhancing the general circus impression.
I'd indicated a preference for blue suits, and a couple of these were laid out, along with a grey one. The first jacket pinched horribly at the shoulders and was clearly too small. I was reminded of the PG Wodehouse line: "He looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say 'when.'"
Different sizes were sent for, and it soon became evident that something was amiss. It was my shape. To be fair, I was first to suggest this, somewhat jocularly. But I didn't expect Lorraine to readily agree with me. It seemed that I stuck out where I should have stuck in and stuck in where, well, you get the picture.
Kirsty returned to see how I was getting on, and my shape – or, more accurately, misshape – was earnestly discussed. Another fashion adviser stopped by to use the telephone (for a minute, I feared she was calling the police), and then the seamstress arrived and was kind enough to say I was not to worry, because everyone is a funny shape. The four women looked on sympathetically, and I found myself shrinking inside.
On the duds front, the grey suit turned out best. "It's very slimming," said Lorraine. As if I needed such a thing! But, alas, it was already clear she knew what she was talking about, though I doubted this when she produced the shirt: it had pinky-clarety-mauvey stripes (I'm a man – I can't name non-primary colours).
Generally, I steer clear of reds, believing they enhance the scarlet hue of my coupon. My mates insist there's nowt wrong with my face. They are all liars. Only the other day, I heard a child ask her mother: "Why is that man's face all red?" Always trust a child. Once, I was stopped by a pub bouncer and told I'd had too much to drink, when I hadn't imbibed a droplet. "Then, why's your face so red?" he asked.
Despite my misgivings, the shirt appeared on my torso and lo, with the suit, it worked! The woman was a genius! Lorraine had a philosophy of jolting customers out of style-ruts of their own making. "Try different things. Don't restrict yourself to one colour," she believed. But you have to be brave or, as in my case, just wear what you're tellt. By so doing, I ended up in the grey suit and mauvey-striped shirt you see in the pic on this page.
On the way home from John Lewis, though, I was deeply troubled. I found myself looking at other folk's anatomies and thinking: "Well, I'm not as bad as that." Sometimes, in Asda or the like, you feel like the only normal-looking person in the place. But it's still me they titter at. I have nightmares about all these squat blobs in tracksuits pointing at me and laughing.
Back home, I Googled "average size" of various upper torso anatomical areas and came out Mr Absolutely Bleedin' Normal, almost to a millimetre. I could be taller. I could be stronger. But I am not a friggin' freak. Reader: "Yes, you are. The photographic evidence is just a few inches furth of these words. Nice suit, though."
