Suit Yourself
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday July 4, 2015

Most of us are occasionally troubled by the prospect of looking passé. Except my husband. Not quite fifty, his latest fashion fancy is dressing like a squire en route to a clay pigeon shoot.

Last week he sauntered in the door after work, tummy first, proudly sporting a new woollen puffer vest.

From the high ground beside my kitchen bench, I watched him bimble down the hallway, shuffling through the day’s mail. His puffer vest was constructed from some variety of battledress serge, gunmetal grey, with the delicate weave of an army blanket. A 360-degree matrix of padded panels hugged his torso like a mattress. He wore his new vest zipped to his throat, emphasising a dewlap of chin. Here, I thought, is a man who likes to be protected from the elements while still remaining camouflaged in the field.

“Cold outside?” I smirked.

He leaned in to kiss me hello but didn’t take the bait.

Up close, I saw his new vest had a reinforced shoulder patch, presumably to absorb gun recoil. And superfluous pockets for spent cartridges.

“Been shooting grouse, darling?”

He ignored me and settled himself on a stool, noisily spreading his newspaper on the bench. I couldn’t help myself. I took a step towards him and gave him a hug, then fondled the nap of his new vest. I hooked one thumb inside the armhole and made a pretence of checking the density of the padding, kneading the wadding between my fingertips like a Savile Row sempstress.

“Goose filling?” I enquired.

He looked up and addressed me with an expression of wearisome disdain.

“Only one goose here,” he deadpanned, and went back to his paper.

Out-foxed, I resolved to reclaim the crown of marital oneupmanship.

“Honey,” I said sweetly, reaching for his shoulders to gently rotate him towards me. “What I’m about to say is an observation, not a criticism. But a middle-aged man affectionately described as ‘portly,’ should probably steer clear of any item of clothing referred to as ‘puffer.’”

He shrugged: “Like I give a toss.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of our conversation. I was lost for the last word. I decided to leave the low-end of men’s fashion well alone and resumed skinning potatoes for a shepherd’s pie. Contemplating my peelings, however, I wondered if my husband had lost interest in his appearance.

In recent months, I’ve noticed his laissez-faire attitude towards costume. Last weekend, he returned, grinning, from a shopping expedition. With a flourish, he pulled from a Best ‘n Less bag, a black t-shirt shouting in white capitals: “IF YOU NEED ANYTHING FROM ME, RECONSIDER.”

I’ve never understood the point of talking t-shirts. Wearing a joke on your chest is like telling the same gag over and over until people recoil at the sight of you.

What’s more, there comes a time in a man’s life when his t-shirts no longer fit as they should. They glide over the shoulders nicely enough, but then cling to a pair of chest hillocks and a mound of midriff. ‘Thickening’ is the polite term, but I like to refer to it as ‘tittiness.’ I’d like more vanity from my husband, not less.

But what confounds me most is the enjoyment he derives from other peoples’ reactions to his lurid ensembles. This is a man who has never been afraid of colour. For a friend’s birthday lunch at a swish winery, he partnered his favourite neon-green polo shirt, (a small rip under the arm; fraying at the collar) with a pair of navy chinos, a black – possibly bulletproof – neoprene vest and his new fawn desert boots.

“Well howdy Walker, Texas Ranger!” I drawled as he emerged from the bathroom in a waft of Rexona. He rolled his eyes and pointed to his suede boots: “Soft as a slipper, light as a feather, tough as the desert,” he intoned, gathering his wallet and keys.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for self-expression. I can enjoy the irony of a nearly 48-year-old man wearing an 88-year-old man’s cardigan. I can tolerate a lilac polo shirt, brown corduroys and orange sneakers. I’m even amused when they’re worn concurrently. But I draw the line at a gaping armhole and a shirt missing twenty-percent of its collar.

We pulled into the winery car park. As I followed my middle-aged fashion plate into the restaurant, I thought I saw several heads swivel. An elderly woman tracked him as he passed, then whispered to her husband. A man seated to my left let out a soft sarcastic whinny.

And suddenly, I felt defensive of my Lone Wolf McQuade. He of the beige desert boot, the XL puffer vest, the electrified lime polo.

Vanity’s a nuisance. The conceited are by turns annoying or absurd. How refreshing to find a man devoid of narcissism. And bulletproof to boot.