QKNY
This morning as I tucked my neatly pressed dress shirt into my business-casual khakis and geled and combed my hair in front of the mirror (just some old-fashioned "stylin and profilin"), I couldn't help but marvel at how much I have changed since high school. At that time I wasn't nearly as concerned with girls and relationships, and as a result didn't care much for my own appearances at all. Every morning I would crawl out of bed and put on the clothes that Mom had picked out for me the night before. I probably cared more about what I was eating for breakfast than what I should have been wearing. I wore these huge, old-man glasses with thick lenses that almost covered half of my face. Some days, my hair looked like a bird nest that had just weathered a hurricane. On such occasions, I usually spent at most 30 seconds to try to make it look reasonable before giving up. The worst fashion faux pas has to be the endless array of white pants that I wore to class throughout high school. I don't even know how and where Mom was able to amass this massive collection of white pants, but at the time I didn't really care. I guess part of the reason I was so unconcerned about it all was that Mom was actually able to put together some rather preppy-looking ensembles for me. I think I looked pretty mature and professional in my old high school pictures, definitely much more so than in pictures taken during the first half of college.
All of this leads me to one conclusion: Despite the fact that Mom is the most ruthless fashion critic I have ever known, the Godmother of Style, the Vogue Despot, a Mrs. Blackwell, if you will, I don't think I trust anyone else's judgment more than hers. In fact, I have never ever disliked any piece of clothing she has ever bought for me, save for all those white pants which I only loathe because they did attract some unwarranted ridicule. Whatever shirt she picks out for me always looks great on me. In another parallel universe where she actually has artistic skills, she would be a fashion designer. She could launch her own brand: Qin Ken New York.
Of course, being a Chinese mom, she has some requisite quirks: sometimes she buys stuff for me that are the wrong size, like that time she sent me 2 or 3 dress shirts that were WAY too big. I had to give one of those shirts to my friend Justin, who looked quite fashionable wearing it even though he's almost a foot taller than me. The bastard. Another thing she does that drives me bonkers is that if she finds a shirt that she really likes, she HAS to buy that shirt and another shirt that is either identical or has the same style but only differs in color, which explains why my dad, brother-in-law and I have more than a few pieces of clothing that are identical. I'm just glad that I almost always like what she buys for me.
This morning as I tucked my neatly pressed dress shirt into my business-casual khakis and geled and combed my hair in front of the mirror (just some old-fashioned "stylin and profilin"), I couldn't help but marvel at how much I have changed since high school. At that time I wasn't nearly as concerned with girls and relationships, and as a result didn't care much for my own appearances at all. Every morning I would crawl out of bed and put on the clothes that Mom had picked out for me the night before. I probably cared more about what I was eating for breakfast than what I should have been wearing. I wore these huge, old-man glasses with thick lenses that almost covered half of my face. Some days, my hair looked like a bird nest that had just weathered a hurricane. On such occasions, I usually spent at most 30 seconds to try to make it look reasonable before giving up. The worst fashion faux pas has to be the endless array of white pants that I wore to class throughout high school. I don't even know how and where Mom was able to amass this massive collection of white pants, but at the time I didn't really care. I guess part of the reason I was so unconcerned about it all was that Mom was actually able to put together some rather preppy-looking ensembles for me. I think I looked pretty mature and professional in my old high school pictures, definitely much more so than in pictures taken during the first half of college.
All of this leads me to one conclusion: Despite the fact that Mom is the most ruthless fashion critic I have ever known, the Godmother of Style, the Vogue Despot, a Mrs. Blackwell, if you will, I don't think I trust anyone else's judgment more than hers. In fact, I have never ever disliked any piece of clothing she has ever bought for me, save for all those white pants which I only loathe because they did attract some unwarranted ridicule. Whatever shirt she picks out for me always looks great on me. In another parallel universe where she actually has artistic skills, she would be a fashion designer. She could launch her own brand: Qin Ken New York.
Of course, being a Chinese mom, she has some requisite quirks: sometimes she buys stuff for me that are the wrong size, like that time she sent me 2 or 3 dress shirts that were WAY too big. I had to give one of those shirts to my friend Justin, who looked quite fashionable wearing it even though he's almost a foot taller than me. The bastard. Another thing she does that drives me bonkers is that if she finds a shirt that she really likes, she HAS to buy that shirt and another shirt that is either identical or has the same style but only differs in color, which explains why my dad, brother-in-law and I have more than a few pieces of clothing that are identical. I'm just glad that I almost always like what she buys for me.
posted by Gary at
3:06 PM
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