Clothes

I have a very odd relationship with clothes.

Of course, they are a necessity. The very thought of me bumbling around the locality in the buff is plainly alarming. The thought of everyone else doing so fills me with a combination of peculiar interest and utter dread.

Remember, for every Catherine Zeta-Jones, there are 20 Gillian McKeith's.

It isn't their inherent importance that baffles me, but more the importance placed upon them by some people and not wishing to make an offensive and unfounded sweeping generalisation here but...

... I think if you judge someone on how they are dressed, then you are a complete arse of the highest order.

For me, clothes are entirely functional. Fashion doesn't enter into my criteria. Now those who know me, and who are particularly cruel/astute (delete as appropriate) would no doubt venture the opinion : "Ha! But that's because you are such a wobble-monster that you can't find stuff to fit you!" And while this isn't strictly true, there are even places that cater for people grander than I, it does render a wander around the shops for a shirt of a pair of trousers somewhat redundant most of the time.

Unless of course, I want to place my last vestiges of dignity into a wooden box, bury them in a garden and enter Greenwoods and embrace the world of elasticated jeans and incontinent pants a tad earlier than necessity demands.

For me, clothes come in two kinds. Those I wear every day for work and those I don't. That's it. Oh yes, I have a suit. (Singular), I have jeans, I have trousers, shirts and ties. I even have a pair of cufflinks which, amusingly, I have needed to use on one occasion and completely forgot to bring them with me.

The clothes I wear every day I do so because they are (A) comfortable, (B) long-lasting and (C) easy to get my dinner stains out of. Fashion? Why? Who am I going to impress alone in my office?

Of course, I do punctuate the day with a trip to school twice daily. Some mothers and fathers treat this as a kind of fashion show, poncing about the playground like coiffured poodles, made up to the nines. Good for them. I'm quite happy looking like a vaguely comatose psychopath who's wardrobe was designed by a colourblind madman with a fixation for cotton.

I wouldn't mind but on many days I am one of the most conservatively dressed people there. I've seen a bewildering array of outfits on the school playground. I've seen women in pyjama's or nighties (frequently), often fully made up but without the time it seems to throw on a pair of trousers or skirt. I've seen women wearing clothes (or more accurately, falling out of them) that Ron Jeremy would deem a tad risque. On one memorable day, I do recall seeing a man turn up in sandals with white sports socks in the summer. I felt more Gianni Versace that day than I have ever done in my life.

I get baffled when we are, on the very rare occasions, required to 'dress up' to go out. For my wife, and she is exceptionally quick for a woman I must confess, this can mean an hour or so preparation. For my sister, the preparation begins three years previously. For me? I pick out two things from the wardrobe that don't constitute every day clothes, stick em on and hope they've been washed and ironed. Job done.

If it's a special occasion, I may even have a shower and shave and stick on some deodorant too. Well, you have to make an effort, don't you?

It isn't that I don't care about my appearance. I like to try and attempt to look smart. It doesn't always work though, at my nan's funeral this year I wore my suit and because I'd lost a fair bit of weight, it kind of swamped me. So did my shirt. So much so that I bumbled about the post-funereal party like a semi-moribund Harry Hill.

Would people have been offended? I think not. I also don't care. What mattered was that I was there. That's all. My Nan wouldn't have minded if I'd turned up wearing a suit of armour, taking it off to reveal a thin posing pouch with "Everton FC" written across the front of it.

Not that I'd wear something that embarassing anywhere of course. Imagine it, me in a piece of clothing with Everton on? Tsk! The shame!

I just don't understand this attitude to clothes some people have. They see an item of clothing and it becomes a "Must have!" or a "Wouldn't be seen dead in." I'd love to have a similar frame of reference for my clothing choices as I only have two reactions to clothes. "Nah" or "That's ok". There's nothing else. There is no "Well, this would go with these shoes, but not this bag and definitely I'd need new jewellery..." None of that at all. It's "Yep, that's ok, I'll have it." or "Nope, not for me" and it goes back on the rack.

I know my wife despairs of my taste at times. I remember buying her a few items of clothing many moons ago now which I have never seen since. Bless her for feigning that smile of unadultered joy and gifting me the lie "Why, that's nice!" when in actually every fibre of her being was probably screaming "WHO HAS HE BOUGHT THIS FOR? MY MOTHER? A BELUGA WHALE?"

We sometimes play a game when she looks through the Next catalogue and I will point at something I think will look nice on her. This usually results in a definitive. "No!" or a withering look that she usually reserves for a child who has just soiled themselves while trying to insert a pencil into their ear.

So I fail to understand how clothes provoke a strong reaction. I cannot say I have ever loved any piece of clothing as much as I did my Six Million Dollar Man T-Shirt I had when I was three or four. I must have had, ooh, at least 10 or 11 different items of clothes since then and none have even come close. Not even the shirt I wore when Tranmere Rovers got to Wembley.

I also fail to see how people can make such snap judgements about people based on the clothes they wear alone. Now, in the school playground we all do this to a small defree. I have no doubt when some parents see me lumbering into school in the same clothes each day (I don't have just one pair of jogging bottoms, but several the same colour and style which I interchange - but they don't know that, which is half the fun)they seem as some depressed, Johnny Vegas acolyte with no sense of self-worth. That may be true, but at least I know my clothes are clean-ish and I got out of bed that morning without needing four gallons of botox injected into my head just so I could get the kids to school.

Now, when I see what some of the parents turn up in at school, I am guilty of the same judgements too. Many mums and dads, like me, turn up in the same garb each day near enough. I think we are the silent majority. The rest, it is like a party at Elton John's house.

There's fur coats, Ug Boots, Pyjama's Nighties, hairnets, shorts in winter, one parent was in flip flops today I kid you not. There's women who have their tops fastened up so high they can barely peep out a button hole, others who have so much hanging out I often think of taking two warm spoons with me to pop them back in, should they ever have to bend over and the effect of gravity causes the inevitable to happen. There's women who are permanently made up to the nines and who must have their botox dealer and resident make-up artist on speed dial, there's others who look like they've just been introducted to the notion of a hair-brush and others for whom corrective dentistry is obviously an alien concept.

Theres ones with hats, ones without, some with caps, one, memorably, today with a beret perched jauntily atop her head in a kind of French/Twiggy pose. In her mind. Unfortunately all I could think of was "Ooh! Betty! The cat's done a whoopsy!" And it wasn't helped when I was stood by them and my daughter came out from school and I went... "Oooh! Jessica!"

You see? That's the problem. Clothes enforce judgements, not because we want to, but because we are told to. It's fed us every day in the media. This is the way to look, this is the way to be. Clothes tell us nothing about the person, only something about our innate prejudices and how vapidly shallow the fashion industry is.

So just remember that when you see that scruffy looking, strange bald bloke in his week old jogging bottoms that he must never wash.

And remember it could be worse. I could order that posing pouch.