My father the Fashionista, and the Suits

by Adam Jeffries Schwartz

When I graduated from University my father gave me a dozen Armani suits. This--I know--sounds like a good Dad thing.

Let me explain.

The suits came in ice cream colors: blueberry, lemon, and mango. Wholly inappropriate for--well, anyone--besides a fashion designer like dear old dad. (Don't tell him I called him old--he'd bust his stitches--literally--bust them.)

And they were too expensive. When I wore them for stupid entry-level jobs the poor interviewer spent the whole demoralizing fifteen minutes calculating: how many months he'd have to work, just how spoiled I must be, just how his life had gone so very, very wrong.

I couldn't even afford to dry clean them.

And--at size 40--they were too small. Dad said, Go on a diet, and keep the suits. But this is how I got the suits in the first place. This is the cycle: dad lost weight, bought suits, gained weight back and gave the expensive, useless things to me.

I went to the gym instead and quickly became: a 42, a 44, a 46, and for a brief and shining moment a 48-inch chest.

I had two looks back them (still do, actually). The first, Marlon Brando: Levis, white t-shirt, black boots. The other look is East German Army grunt, which is pretty much the same except in green. I did not wear these things specifically to irritate my father, but I was not displeased with that reaction.

Finally my step-father, a garmento from way back, gave me a clothes horse, which made it easier to transport these suits when I got evicted from smaller and darker apartments.

What, you ask, is the difference between a garmento and a fashionista? Excellent question.

My father is a fashionista, a fashionista works in the fashion industry, but this--alone--would make someone a garmento and not all garmentos are fashionistas, no.

Fashionistas are a breed apart. They care about clothes, to the exclusion of all things besides accessories. They care about clothes more than food (naturally, body mass ruins the line), more than their children (ditto), more than their grandmother (unless she comes with vintage Chanel, and is generous.)

Finally, there was nothing to do but leave. After New York every place seemed affordable--so I started travelling--in search of my true self and affordable housing.

(I gave the suits to my brother, I hate him.)

The Author

Adam Jeffries Schwartz has a column, "Observations, After" on Sorrowland Press.