I just want to buy a coat
I understand that I might be tricky to shop for. In fact, I spend more time shopping for myself at Christmas than anyone else. My wife and my mom want “ideas” of things I would like. I don’t like most things. In fact, I am at least as good at not liking things as anyone else. It’s kind of a gift. Still, I know my mom wants to get me something that I’ll like and use but this year I was stumped.
This year, I needed a new coat. Who says 50-year-olds don’t grow out of their clothes? I felt pretty confident in the pick until my mother asked me what kind of coat, and could I send her some ideas. While it’s true that my mother hasn’t bought a coat for me in the last 30 years or more, it never occurred to me that she would want my opinion.
For the first 20 years she not only decided on my coat, but also my size. In the last three decades I’ve taken to getting my coats at Goodwill (I get most of my clothes there). My criteria maily has been, “Does it fit?” and “Is it stained?”
Patience is the key when you’re shopping Goodwill, and for a very long time, ways my wife and I would kill the occasional idle Saturday poking around there. It’s kind of like a clothes lottery: Will you find what you need when you need it?
Shopping online for clothes is a completely different experience and one I still can’t really get my head around. Or maybe I have my head too much around it. Since beginning my search I’ve become obsessed with the coat models. If I don’t like the guy’s face, I can’t buy (or ask my mom to buy) the coat.
It’s hard to get at, but the closest I’ve come is imagining that I was wearing the coat and the model (who was improbably at the same place) came up to me to point out that we were wearing the same coat. It’s uncomfortable when someone you don’t like complements your taste.
It sounds phobic, but I don’t want to risk having to make small talk with a guy I don’t like because we’re wearing the same coat.
Put a little less psychotically: If that’s the kind of guy who wears this kind of coat, I don’t want it.
At first, I was looking for a topcoat, but most of the guys were just too smack-able. There’s a German word I love, “Backpfeifengesicht: A face that needs a slap.”
Top coats and trench coats were all modeled by Backpfeifengesicht guys. Dusters, on the other hand, were modeled by armed, second-tier country singers. The idea that a person would buy a jacket because it would look cool with his sidearm nauseates me. Part of it is anti-gun culture but the other part is it seems so juvenile. To be clear: I don’t think it’s particularly juvenile to have a gun or wear a duster, but the ad seems to target a juvenile urge.
I’ve written before about how personally I take advertising. After decades of hearing that ads were “aspirational,” that companies want you to see yourself using their products, I’ve become paralyzed by their judgment.
I always want to say, “Is this really what you think of me?” Like, do you think because I might like to wear a duster I also think I’m some sort of half-assed cowboy? If you want to accentuate your Backpfeifengesicht, buy a top coat. If you want to accent your repressed toxic masculinity, buy a duster.
Increasingly it’s difficult to separate making a purchase from joining a club. It’s probably why I like shopping at Goodwill. All that says about me is that I have to wear clothes and don’t mind if they’re used.
Eventually, I found a number of headlessly-modeled coats. I flatter myself that they’re marketed to people to don’t need to “see” themselves in a certain way to make a purchase. Put negatively, they’re for people with no idea how they want to look.
Keep the Faith,
Tony