The GGA Project -- Day #151 "Dress Up"

Ugh!  I'm so annoyed.  All that site trouble with Blogger over the past few days has left recent blogs out of order.  There aren't many things I'm uptight about when it comes to order and uniformity, but this is one of them.  I hope you're dealing with it better than I am!




Recently my friend Kenneth mentioned in passing that he "apparently shouldn't be allowed to dress himself."  He said he wouldn't mind having some help in choosing new clothes, and then the idea was borne to make a playdate out of this.  Kenneth's girlfriend Jessica definitely needed to be in on this, so tonight we decided to make it happen.

Today's New Activity: Assisted Shopping

We started at dinner, where I wanted to get an idea of what the wardrobe issues were.  Other than a horrible orange Hawaiian shirt (which Kenneth calls his "party shirt" and wears, he says, to 80% of the parties he attends), I couldn't see any glaring problems.  Jessica and I agree on the horror of the party shirt, as I'm sure a vast majority of his friends would as well.

I asked Jessica to name a single item of clothing she'd like to see Kenneth in, and she said she wanted to swing by American Apparel to pick up a pair of gold pants.  Was that it?  I think so.  I thought she was joking at first, and I asked where she wanted him to wear these.  She said to a Burning Man, and then it made more sense.  He nixed that idea anyway.  I also asked what she didn't want to see anymore, and she said she'd already taken care of the too-baggy jeans and t-shirts, so significant headway had been made.  Incidentally, I'm totally in agreement on too-baggy clothes.  I'm so glad the tides have changed in this area and that men have mostly moved away from oversized clothing...it's nice to be able to make their shapes out under the clothes, though I'm also not a huge fan of skinny jeans.  Aristotle's Golden Mean is the way to go here.

Not too much more to do than get started.  We were on a pretty tight budget, so we headed to Target.  I feel like Target is pretty hit and miss as far as clothes go.  While I think they've made great strides when it comes to styles and prints/fabrics, the fit can often be problematic.  Their stuff just isn't cut well a lot of the time.  Still, if you find something cute and which fits well, it's generally a real bargain so it's worth the hunt.  And I think it's easier for guys to find clothing at Target than women, especially the casual basics.  Here we go:

Haha, I love how it looks like Jess is already exasperated and Kenneth is trying to convince her to hang in there, though we'd just set out.  That's totally not what's going on here, but I like that it seems that way.

Here Jess is  trying to find a hat to fit Kenneth's enormous melon, to no avail.  I never realized how goshdarned big his head really is!  He fully admits it, even points it out, so I don't feel bad mentioning it here.

After choosing two hands full of shirts and a couple of pairs of shorts, it was off to the Family Dressing Room!

Wow, the three of us would certainly make an odd family :P  I sat out while Jess assisted with the try-ons, which was a good call if I'm to base it on this reaction:

Haha.  I love it!  Kenneth did show me all the choices, though.

And in the end the three of us agreed on 2 shirts, a t-shirt, a pair of shorts and some Corona swim trunks that both of them dug well and truly.  That was kind of funny to me because I was trying to figure out which will be sillier: the day Kenneth is wearing them while drinking a Corona, or the day he's wearing them while drinking any other beer.  I guess time will tell.

I was really happy K and J let me tag along for this outing.  I've always thought it would be fun to dress a guy and I've really never had the chance.  This is mostly because the men I've been close to have generally been good at dressing themselves, so there wasn't a need.  But still the idea of picking stuff to suit a man is fun, even if he's perfectly capable of it on his own.

While we were checking out the clothes I saw at least two other men there by themselves, looking around cluelessly in that way that only men can in shopping scenarios.  I was very close to approaching one of them and offering my assistance.  Then I started wondering if this is something a person could get paid to do.  Lord knows there are enough womanless nerds in this area who could probably use the assistance.  And the nerds have the money to pay for it!  I started daydreaming about how fun that job would be.  Maybe I'll do a few volunteer outings of this nature and make a little portfolio to present to prospective clients :P