“Fashion Backward” by Nevin Martell, page 2

        We stopped at one of the small villages along the crude dirt road that winds around the island to try some of the local cuisine. I still remember the donuts we ate with our inquisitive hosts while crouched around a fire. These South Pacific pastries were misshapen and not particularly sweet, but my sister and I thought they were the greatest epicurean delight since we discovered Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on our first Halloween. My father loved this scene of cross-cultural bonding through snacking, so he ran through nearly three rolls of film before we even got to the land diving site. There are numerous shots of me, wolfing down donuts as I crouched on the ground, my fanny pack dangling down like an extra Smurf-like appendage. It’s the kind of picture only a father could love.
        Reliving such wince-worthy evidence of bad fashion choices, I’m still not sure how I became such an exuberant defiler of common sense dressing. I know now that I loved to wear clothing and accessories that never should have been worn, much less worn together. Tweed jacket, a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker cap and Dockers? Yeah, I rocked it. Black jeans with spiked silver studs paired with a Guns ‘n’ Roses Appetite for Destruction t-shirt and white Reeboks? I wore that, too. Genuine leather lederhosen from Germany with slate gray socks pulled up to my kneecaps in the middle of summer? Um, yep. Mandarin orange Ocean Pacific shorts, a Batman shirt and a blue baseball cap with yellow lightning bolts? Guilty as charged.
        One thing can be said for all those outfits though: I always stood out. In fact, my mother bought me the Mercury-inspired lightning bolt hat so she could easily find me in airports when we were traveling. My sister had her own hat with little silver wings on it, but she always managed to look cute while wearing it, unlike yours truly. It’s a testament to my mother’s thoughtful protectiveness that I never once got lost. I also blame her for the fact that strangers in exotic ports of call often wanted to take pictures with me. (I now know that they weren’t mistaking me for a child star, which is what my mother told me at the time).
        I was still head-to-toe fashion-averse when I got to high school. In 9th grade I insisted on writing on my favorite pair of khaki Bugle Boys pants with a special pen that created 3D marks. Not only was my puffy penmanship ugly, I didn’t have a unified theme. “Ozzy” was scrawled next to a peace sign, while “Poison” found itself sharing a back pocket with a yellow smiley face. I guess I was a conflicted kid: I wanted to rebel and get along with everyone. And that’s how you come to have a 14-year-old boy sporting a Bob Marley t-shirt while listening to Metallica’s Ride the Lightening on his Walkman and obediently taking out the trash every Tuesday night.
        What is interesting about these fashion faux pas is that most of my family are snappy dressers. My sister always stayed en vogue with ease, as did my mother (though for years she wore nothing but purple). However, there is my father to consider, since he had an inverse relationship with his fashion sense as he grew older. When we traveled when I was younger, I can remember him wearing loose fitting Guatemalan shirts with an open neckline and linen slacks. I thought that look was pretty cool; I still do. But as he got closer to retirement, he abandoned this tack and decided to embark on what I’ll lovingly call his “flamboyant adventurer” look.
-----
Page 1 2 3