I Had a Nehru Shirt, Once

Ask anyone who’s known me for at least ten minutes, and they would tell you that I am not a fashionista. I wear black in summer, shorts in winter, and don’t organize my clothes by seasons. I never owned an iron until I got married. I’m pretty sure rayon, chiffon, chenille, taffeta, and poplin are the names of the kids my daughter plays with down at the park. And all those different cycles on the washing machine – what’s that all about? You get the picture – haute couture might as well be a foreign language to me.

I don’t know where my poor fashion sense originated. Certainly not with my mother, who is a paragon of good taste and a decorating maven. And my father was a businessman who was always appropriately dressed. Sure, I am something of an iconoclast, but that can’t be the whole story. More likely, I must have inherited a recessive style gene from a distant relative!

When I moved to Seattle for my first real job at a large aerospace company, I had no dress clothes to speak of. To outfit myself, I embarked on an expedition to – where else? – Sears, where I proudly purchased a couple of pairs of polyester pants, one chartreuse, the other baby blue. I matched those up with two western-style plaid shirts, the kind with fake pearl button-down snaps that secure the shirt and close the scalloped breast pocket flaps. I completed my sartorial wardrobe with a skinny knit tie and faux leather loafers. I figured out that by alternating the shirts with each pair of pants, I was good for six unique outfits, more than enough to get me through a work week. So what if I had to start all over again the next Monday? I was surrounded by engineers; nobody would notice. 

This repertoire got me through the first few years of work life just fine. At least I wasn’t as eccentric as Linda, our work colleague who wore the same gray pants and blue turtleneck outfit every freaking day (no one ever had the courage to get close enough to confirm whether they literally were the same clothes, or whether she just had a lot of duplicate garments). The highlight of my weeks were casual Fridays, when I wore essentially the same attire, just minus the knit ties. Luckily my dad bought me a dark suit to use for weddings, funerals, and fancy celebrations. I had all occasions covered!

Over the years I became slightly more conscious of my pedestrian dressing habits. Now, I buy my clothes from a world-renowned apparel store – Costco. You can’t beat their Kirkland jeans for $13 a pair. Sure, the baggy pant legs are reminiscent of stovepipes, but I say comfort is key! My wife says she can’t see my butt when I wear those pants. If I wanted people to see my butt, I’d walk around in a pair of chaps!

My T-Shirt collection, though, is world class! Some of my current favorites include my Dads Against Daughters Dating shirt, and my Same Shirt, Different Day tee. I’ve even got a tuxedo T-Shirt that I can wear if I want to class things up a bit. Sadly, my 1985 Montreux Jazz Festival T-Shirt has long since disintegrated, but my shirt from the 1983 Seattle-to-Portland bike ride is still in good shape.

I’ve apparently made the mistake of telling people that I was a big fan of the original Star Trek television series. Now I’ve got four T-Shirts with the Starfleet insignia emblazoned on them and adorned with silkscreened images of Captain Kirk and Mister Spock. Because these shirts just scream out “Warning: Nerd Alert!” I never leave the house wearing them. I do not boldly go where no man has gone before. There is one exception: remember the famous photo of the four Beatles crossing Abbey Road in the crosswalk? Well, I’ve got a T-Shirt showing the same crosswalk, with the four figures – Jim, Spock, Bones, and Scotty – in the same iconic pose. How cool is that?

A few years ago, coming back from a camping trip, we had some time to kill before catching the next ferry home. It was a very hot summer day, and I went in search of ice cream for my wife and kids. My wife had the same idea, and we converged back at our parked car with twice as many ice cream cones as we needed. I tried to give away the rapidly melting ice cream cones to other ferry commuters, but wearing my psychedelic yellow and purple Are You Experienced Jimi Hendrix T-Shirt, I might as well have been saying “LSD, anyone?” I actually had a couple of takers!

Funny thing is, few of these T-Shirts were purchased by myself; they were mostly gifts. It seems there is something about my personality that screams: “Get this man a T-Shirt!” The only thing I struggle with is: when do old T-Shirts officially become rags? There are different schools of thought about this. Perhaps it’s when sweat stains no longer come out in the wash, or maybe it’s when there is a quarter-sized hole in the material. Personally, I think a good rule of thumb is when you can no longer easily make out the words or images on the shirt because it’s been washed a few thousand times, toss it on the rag pile.

Despite my exemplary T-Shirt collection, my fashion sense tends to go south, so to speak, below the belt. My kids buy themselves new jeans with holes in them – lots of holes – the more the better, apparently – and that’s OK. But God forbid my jeans get a bit threadbare or develop a rip in the knee. My 17-year-old fashion consultant daughter is the gatekeeper – I must submit to an inspection before leaving the house. I am a bit henpecked. 

Also, there is no sock on the face of this Earth that can withstand the savagery of my sandpaper-like heels. I’m waiting for some company to build socks with heels reinforced with Kevlar. Yes, I’ll pay the extra cost. I actually have a gizmo that shaves off the dead skin on my feet; it kind of works like a cheese grater. I’ll stop there. And shoes…. please don’t get me started! Why do people opt to wear huge, heavy, clodhoppers that make your feet sweat? Or unstable stiletto heels that are a lawsuit waiting to happen? Have we all sacrificed our common sense at the altar of Salvatore Ferragamo? I’ll stick with my super comfy Reeboks.

Hats? They’re just goofy. I’ve got friends whom I’ve literally never seen without their baseball caps. Do they sleep with them on? Let’s face it – there are two reasons why guys wear hats: either they’re farmers, or they’re bald. Or they’re MAGA morons (I guess that’s three reasons). Fortunately, I frequent Safeway, have no shortage of hair, and am immune to MAGA nonsense.

It’s not that I am irredeemable when it comes to fashion. I do realize the power of dressing for success. In fact, I have direct knowledge and experience about how the right outfit can open doors. I had a small part in a play once, as a cop. The Director told me to go the local police station and ask to borrow a uniform. The fellow at the police station, who must have been a repressed costumer designer, decked me out in a genuine patrol shirt, clip-on black tie, leather holster, and a hat that might have been worn by the captain from Gilligan’s Island. Combined with black slacks and shoes, a fake badge, and a toy gun, I must have stoked fear in the hearts of everyone who ever changed lanes without using their blinker or didn’t fully stop at a stop sign. 

After the play I never took the outfit back (statute of limitations applies here, I hope). It sure came in handy on Halloween though, when spotting me at the back of a long line, the deferential waitress at a late-night restaurant ushered me and my buddy inside, right past the 20-odd bleary-eyed people waiting to be seated for a midnight snack! 

The only time I might have been close to the leading edge of a fashion trend was when I owned a Nehru shirt or two. I think this was back around the time the movie Gandhi came out, although that just might be a coincidence. I sort of remember thinking the shirts were cool at the time. Did you know that Nehru shirts were inspired by the clothes worn by former Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru? But like half of my sock collection, the Nehru’s have disappeared. If I find them scrunched up in the bowels of my closet, I’ll borrow an iron and try to salvage them – everything comes back around sooner or later!

© 2023 L. Wechsler. All rights reserved.

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