Cussed out and cursed at by anonymous women, secretly ridiculed by female friends, spurned by female relatives, estranged from his sister, pitied
by his mother, and romantically linked to his yaya. No, this man does not have a head injury. He was not even running for public office. This man, my three female readers, is a fashion victim.
And unless you want to be kneed in the groin by women and the occasional transsexual who are offended by your poor taste in clothing, we urge you to read the second part of our series, “Fashion Forewarned: Look like an MDD (Modern Day Dandy) on the outside, but hide the DOM (Dirty Old Man) on the inside.”
Finding out if you are a male fashion victim is similar to the idea of giving yourself a prostate exam: it is something that you just don’t want to do to yourself and it is something that other people are reluctant to do to you as well. Unless you pay them to do it. Since you’ve coughed up P18 for a copy of The Philippine STAR, we plan to give you the P18 prostate exam with the help of our fashion proctologists: Karla Alindahao, formerly of Philippine Tatler; Beverly Dalton of Girlfriend magazine; Juana Manahan, formerly of Lifestyle Asia; Mela de Luna of Manual magazine; and Peewee Reyes-Isidro of Meg magazine. This Pab Payb will not only poke around your fashion prostate, but if need be, they will snip it off, pickle it and ask you to hang it outside of your home to ward off stray dogs, evil spirits and losing electoral candidates.
Dress for excess. Pinoy men are like sumo wrestlers in training when it comes to wardrobe choices: their clothes look like they are ready for biological expansion. “Wear the right size, damn it!” wailed one editor. “For some ^&**ing bizarre reason, men always, always, always buy a size or two bigger!!” she added, beginning to hyperventilate. “It’s like men treat wearing the right size as if it was some kind of disease! But wearing clothes that are two sizes bigger only makes them look like wannabe hip-hoppers! They end up looking more tatay than totoy!” Apparently, baggy clothes is one of the more underhanded tactics used by DOMs to blend in with the hip-hop crowd. And the only way you can tell the DOMs apart from the actual hip-hoppers is that when the DOMs start to rap, they sound more like Yoyoy Villame (may he rest in peace) instead of Francis Magalona.
“Pants are the worst! Guys always wear them baggy. Don’t men realize that the crotches of pants should never be loose? Do not buy pants with large crotches for the purposes of wishful thinking. It’s wrong!” the editor added while banging her fists repeatedly on the table. “It’s just so wrong! It’s sooooo..... Tito.” I am not sure which Tito of hers she was referring to, but she told me that you could find this Tito hanging around in clubs populated by ladies who are working hard to pay off their college degrees. These are the type of Titos that women want to hose down with gasoline and light up with a match when they come within five feet of the woman’s personal space.
So, my fellow Pinoy men, before we lose this editor to a brain aneurysm, remember that you are not a turtle: your body should not be able to retreat into its clothes. Buy clothes that fit you like a glove, and not clothes that can expand to accommodate your barangay. It is only permissible to wear oversized clothes if you plan to become a sumo wrestler. Or a hip-hop recording star. Or celibate for life.
Istayl mo bulok. “Looking at the latest men’s fashion magazines (particularly Manual magazine – shameless plug by RJ) or checking out men’s fashion stores can be helpful. It can give you ideas on the latest trends or looks that are out there,” chimed in another editor. “But!!” she qualified, waving an index finger in my face, “Do not over-style yourself! Wearing a fashion trend from head to toe is a major fashion no-no. There is a fine line between looking sleek and looking geek, and that is how you incorporate a trendy item into your existing wardrobe.”
“For example,” she continued while setting fire to my closet full of matching fishnet body-hugging T-shirts and crotch-hugging pants. “A military patch or camouflage print shirt works well with a nice-fitting pair of denims and sneakers. If you dress like this, you will definitely get your picture taken as a style trendsetter in fashion magazines. However, do not wear a camouflage print shirt with fatigue pants and army boots. If you dress like this, you will definitely get shipped off to fight the insurgency in the south. I will even buy your ticket.”
Another editor jumped into the discussion. “Don’t go overboard with being all trendy. Mix one trendy piece with classic details.” My inner DOM was quite confused as to what this meant. Did this mean wearing baggy hip-hop pants with a polo barong? “No, you idiot,” replied the editor to my visible thought balloon. “Let’s say you wear a gingham checkered-print polo shirt (Doesn’t that sound just so chi-chi? – RJ). What type of tie would best match with this polo? Here’s a tip: If you wear a printed polo with a solid-colored necktie, then you look classy. If you wear a printed polo with a slim solid-colored necktie, then you look trendy. If you wear a printed polo with a printed necktie, then you look like a Master Showman.”
“When you reach the age when your forehead becomes a more prominent feature of your face, then it is about time to stick to the classics,” warned one editor as she spied my scalp. Again, my inner DOM was left perplexed. Just what did she mean by “classic”? Does classic mean raiding my Dad’s closet? After all, the last time he went on a clothes-shopping spree was 30 years ago. “Why buy new clothes?” he would tell me while dressed in maroon-colored bellbottom pants and floral-print chaleco. “Fashion makes a comeback every 30 years or so. Right now, I might look like I bought my wardrobe from a garage sale. But, believe you me, I will be terribly fashionable when I turn 90!”
“RJ, take off your Dad’s maroon-colored bellbottom pants and floral-print chaleco, please. It’s making me nauseous,” the editor continued. After throwing up in the toilet, she resumed her critique. “Classic fashion doesn’t necessarily mean wearing clothes that they tortured you for in martial law. It means wearing clothes that you can pair with almost anything else.” She said this while shredding my bellbottoms. “For a shirt, you can’t go wrong with a white crisp collared shirt.” Another editor’s eyes lit up. “A button-down white shirt paired with jeans will clean up a guy no matter how Tito he looks.” Another editor added: “It will make him look good, clean, polished and disinfected.” And in some dimly-lit, smoke-infested bar populated by women who are trying to pay off their college degrees, a DOM wept for joy.
The editor continued: “For a pair of pants, nothing says classic like a pair of black pants with a flat front, slim fit and a straight-leg cut. If you want to look trendier, then you can also get the same style of pants but have it slightly tapered,” she said with a grin, imagining Piolo Pascual sliding into a pair of slim-fit black pants while giving her a come-hither look. “However!” she warned, breaking out of her reverie, “Never, ever wear pleated pants! I swear, if I ever catch another man wearing pleated pants, I will staple his genitalia to his pleats so that he never wears that abomination again!” she wailed as foam dripped from her mouth. And in that same dimly-lit bar, a DOM held on firmly to his crotch.
“On a last note,” the last editor added, “wearing color can be quite a tricky affair, so just make sure to use a minimum amount of color in your wardrobe. Remember to wear solid colors only. When in doubt about what to wear, go for a monochromatic top and bottom. If you wear more than three colors, there’s a chance you might end up looking like a fashionista. But there’s a bigger chance that you might end up looking like Rainbow Brite.”
Out of time, out of touch. “The one fashion accessory that separates the boys from the men is what is wrapped around their wrist. And no, we’re not talking about a gold bracelet,” an editor snidely remarked. “A gold bracelet is a female repellent. A gold bracelet only makes you attractive to pawnshops.
“I am talking about a good watch. A good watch has pogi points. So that means nothing covered in diamonds or fake diamonds. If there’s something worse than a DOM, it is a nouveau riche DOM. And even worse, a trying-hard DOM.” I have heard that this editor has been drinking heavily to drown the memory of her encounter with a gold bracelet-wearing Rainbow Brite DOM. “The watch doesn’t need to be expensive at all. It just needs to look mature and manly.” I was unsure about what makes a watch look manly. Maybe facial hair? But how about mature? White hair? “There are manly-looking watches that you can buy for under P10,000, like Kenneth Cole or DKNY. If you want to own a more expensive watch but can only afford it if you take on a sugar mama, you can risk buying a swanky looking watch at a tiangge. But if the girl notices that your watch says Rholex, your pogi points will drop lower than Rainbow Brite DOM levels.”
So shoe me. “Let Sperry Topsiders and Penny loafers die their natural deaths,” sighed an editor who has a fetish for high-heeled Havaianas. “I beg men to stop wearing those atrocious lolo-looking leather shoes that look like they belong to a mausoleum or those schoolboy department store leather shoes that double as salbabidas. Imagine how many animals were skinned to make those atrocities!
“Make sure those animals did not perish in vain and invest in a great pair of leather shoes,” she advised while using her Havaianas to make palo one of the DOMs wearing the schoolboy department store leather shoes. “For a dressy pair of shoes, nothing beats black leather square-toed shoes. If you want to look more contemporary, then get a dressy pair of leather shoes with rubber soles. They look sophisticated but dressed down.”
“It is all right to wear basketball sneakers or mountain-climbing boots with casual or even dressy outfits. Especially if you are an NBA player or if you plan to scale Mt. Everest.” Another editor jumped in: “But since you will probably do neither in your lifetime, I suggest that you stick to getting a pair of trendy-looking ‘lifestyle’ sneakers like Golas or Chuck Taylors.”
After the Pab Payb had reduced my wardrobe to cinders, they left with a crucial piece of fashion advice for men who do not want to be celibate for life: clean underwear is very important. But there is no need to prove it. So please do not wear revealing underwear. By revealing underwear, I mean underwear sneaking out of your pants because you tucked your shirt into your briefs. And I do not mean male thongs.
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For comments, suggestions or if you want to bring espadrilles back into fashion, please e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com.