The Rules

I usually like to follow rules, but I broke one today. I'll get into that in a moment, but first some background:

I am a self-confessed "fashion idiot." I know almost nothing about fashion. In fact, my wife has threatened to submit my name to "What Not to Wear." Seriously...

A friend of mine recently did a blog post about fashion. Reading the post re-

confirmed to me how little I actually know about the topic. For example, I hope

I'm not the only one who had no idea what a "pencil skirt" was, but I probably am.

And yes, I actually did look it up.

Even though I know very little about fashion, I feel like I can appreciate good fashion. I just don't know what makes it good or why. But like Justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it."

That's still not much help if I need to figure out what to wear (i.e. to church, work,

or in a social setting). Once I got married, I assumed that I could delegate

wardrobe selection duties to my wife. I also assumed that if she gave me a piece of

clothing to wear, I was golden (even if I didn't actually get around to wearing it for a while—like a year or two). I was wrong.

Apparently fashionable styles come and go. (who knew???) But for someone like me who doesn't understand the whims or vagaries of the fashion world, it can be bewildering...

Fortunately, my profession depends on rules. I understand them and, more

importantly, I am trained to memorize them and make them work for me. I know

that fashion has its own rules and I’ve managed to memorize some of the more important ones that would apply to me.

(That doesn’t mean I know all the rules. For example, I know that you are not supposed to wear white after Memorial Day (or something like that), but I think

that applies only to women. Hence no need for me to waste any of my time memorizing that one…)

Here are some of the fashion rules that I have tried to commit to memory:

#1 - Always wear a belt (unless wearing suspenders).

#2 - The color of your belt should match the color of your shoes.

#3 - Wrinkly dress shirts look terrible. Save yourself lots of time and headache by just buying a good quality non-iron dress shirt.

#4 - In casual or social situations, it’s generally not a good idea to tuck in your shirt..

#5 - Pants should not look like this (yes, I know these are women, but that still doesn’t make it look any better. Trust me, it looks worse on a man):

#6 - Wear socks or sandals—not both.
#7 - The color of your socks should match the color of your pants.

And that brings me back to my confession:

I admit it, I broke Rule #7 today. Yes, it’s true. I wore black socks with tan pants. I can’t remember whether I just forgot about Rule #7 temporarily or if I was too lazy to root around a bit deeper in my sock drawer for the right color socks to match my pants. But I’m guilty.

But here’s my question, is it really that bad? I feel like breaking Rule #7 is forgivable if the color the socks at least matches the color of the shoes. What do you think? Does anyone out there think that any of these rules need to be updated?

Let's hope so, I don't know if I'd be able to get over the embarrassment of being ambushed someday by Stacy London and Clinton Kelly!