Men Know All About Women's Fashion--Not!

I don’t know of any woman who would willingly surrender the task of choosing an outfit for a special occasion to a man, unless he were Mr. Armani or some other notable fashion designer with impeccable taste. Conversely, I doubt that any man, who is in the market for an automobile, would pass on the burden of such a choice to a woman. There exist no elaborate explanations for this phenomenon, no multi-faceted theorem, no scholarly philosophy; it simply is that—some things we don’t entrust to the opposite sex, period.

I was shopping at H and M in Hong Kong at the onset of spring and the spring line they had just debuted that week was a burst of sorbet colors: lime green, mango yellow, cantaloupe, cherry, and mandarin orange—so festive and enticing that I instantly got swept away in the spring shopping fever. Since shopping is an Olympic sport for us, women, I focused on the task at hand.
I was holding out a reasonably-priced, bright yellow, fitted cotton top, which had sent my pulse rate several beats higher at first sight (this is how women know an article of clothing is meant for us—we feel it, much like serendipity) and I was sizing it up as to whether it would fit me. Out of nowhere I heard a man’s voice say, “That’s way too small for you and the color, oh, not good with your skin.” Several female heads—those of shoppers who understood English, presumably—snapped to his direction, clearly in shock of his pronouncement.

Here’s the thing; when a man says something like that to a woman, he should expect to be decapitated with a blunt-edged sickle. He might as well have said, “Hey lady, you are obese.” So naturally, I took offense, thinking him presumptuous, brash, and uncouth. I probably should have kept my peace and walked away, but I, a mid-lifer performing an Olympic sport, who happened to have skipped breakfast, so the raging hormones, the empty stomach, and the rudely-interrupted shopping spree, was not at all inclined to let him off easily. I turned to him and asked to make sure, “Me? You’re talking to me?” He, a complete stranger, said, “Yes, you,” and unabashedly repeated while pointing to the shirt, “Tsk, tsk, too small—tooooo small.”
That was his death sentence! I closed in on him and took in his nerdy outfit of corduroy trousers and a random tee under a lumberjack plaid shirt—clearly some techie on a day off. In a sweet, sing-song tone but spewed from within a tense jaw and clenched teeth, I asked, “And who might you be? Tom Ford, Karl Lagerfeld, or Yohji Yamamoto, perhaps?” Of course, the sarcasm was lost on him because he simply answered with a clueless, “Huh?” To which I replied, “I didn’t think so,” and promptly walked away. The nerve!

Really, a man should never say to an ageing woman, who has yet to make peace with middle age spread, anything that might allude to her weight or to her fashion sense, unless he has a death wish.

I was still seething when I went to the fitting room. I then squeezed myself into the yellow shirt, the very object of that entire hullabaloo, which if I might add, was perfect with my skin color albeit a little too snug. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with assault on a middle-aged woman’s ego, which to my mind is punishable with stoning, so I wore that shirt out of the dressing room—tags and all—and searched for the smart aleck; let’s call him Mr. Rud Lee. I him found right where he originally was, still browsing in the very same rack of tops. Thankfully, there was a sales lady close by with whom I could make my point, so I said to her in a forceful voice, while parading in front of Mr. Rude Lee, “It fits perfectly, don’t you think?” She surely couldn’t have said anything to sabotage a sale so she agreed, if reluctantly. With arms on the waist, I faced him squarely and said, “SEE!”

The top now still hangs in my closet—tags and all—awaiting the shedding of a couple of pounds for that perfect fit that it deserves. But then, he’s not supposed to know that!

Another time, in a faraway land and a forgotten era, I greeted my New Year’s dinner date at the door wearing hot pants—which reads: really short pants in my generation for all you, youngsters—but paired with black cashmere tights (it was winter) as an attempt at decency and to camouflage the jiggles—he wasn’t supposed to know that! He took a step back the instant he saw me and I attributed the supposedly flattering reaction to the 10 extra minutes of primping I threw in for that special night. But then he said in a pseudo-mocking tone, “Wow, I can’t decide whether you wanna be Robin Hood or one of the Shoemaker’s elves in that get-up.”

I saw red! First of all, because he had the gall to diss my outfit when he, himself, was wearing a Christmas sweater with Rudolph and his red nose embroidered on the front! And second, because he used the word “get-up” which sounded too centennial an expression to even be funny. I felt like slamming the door on his face. But of course not, he was a clone of the young Steven Bauer when he appeared as Manolo on Scarface. What woman in her right mind would bail on him? He never called back though—dang those hot pants!

Last year, my 17-year-old nephew took his girlfriend to prom. She took pains in choosing the “right” dress for the occasion and after much deliberation, ended up with a wispy, periwinkle blue, chiffon, body-scheming, long dress by Max Azria. It was perfect for her as I saw photos and a video of them after the event. Every part of her glowed that night; she seemed to float on clouds as she walked, the dress swishing around her.

As a little social experiment, I asked my nephew, “What did your girlfriend wear to prom again? I don’t quite recall.” His answer was, “Oh, some kind of blue thing.” “That’s it?” I wasn’t quite satisfied so I needled him. “Describe it.” He then proceeded to describe it after several “ums…” “Well, it was blue, kind of like my bed sheet, you know, if like, you wrap it around yourself like I did when I was young. It was all the way down to the floor, and then it had no sleeves.” I wanted to whack him on the head with a throw pillow.

Remember Robert Redford’s character in Indecent Proposal when he had that now-famous, little black dress delivered to Demi Moore’s hotel suite? It looked like it was made especially for her when she wore it, right? Well, let’s not forget that she was the one who chose it; he saw her trying it on at the hotel shop. What about Mikhail Barishnikov as Petrovsky in Sex and the City, didn’t he buy that gorgeous Oscar de la Renta dress for Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie character? Again, she chose it! She had earlier showed him a photo of that dress saying that the dress IS poetry to her. What about Richard Gere giving all those outfits to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? All the credit for those exceptional clothing choices goes to the shop’s stylist who assisted her in shopping.

It is truly romantic, gallant, and heartwarming when a man surprises a woman with a dress or some other fashion item like shoes or handbags—a personal show of affection—whether or not he has excellent fashion sense. Also, it doesn’t follow that if he has good taste in men’s clothes he will be similarly tasteful in women’s’ fashion, which is an altogether different thing—much like nuclear disarmament: fickle and illogical.

Generous gestures from men bearing fashion items of their own picking are endearing, no doubt. But my guess is, if the item is not to the taste of the female recipient, she won’t give two shakes about doing a Jennifer Aniston as Rachel in Friends and exchanging it for a something else she really likes. There have been many horror stories about what popped out of men’s gift boxes for women, some even having grown into urban legends. There was that floral, shapeless muumuu that a friend got as pasalubong from his boyfriend who vacationed in Hawaii. There was that puke-green sequined, spaghetti strapped, body-hugging, micro mini that a cousin received from her fiancée, which she couldn’t be paid to wear—not even for a costume party. There was that somber graphite-gray, long-sleeved, high-necked, dress that another friend who loved figure-baring clothes got from her husband who was so proud to present her with her very first Armani black label dress. Her reaction was, “Who died?” The best thing for men to do in their gift-giving endeavors is to enlist the help of a sister, or a female friend.

Men and women must come to a truce if we must share the space and the air in this world. We will leave you, men, to your cars if you leave us to our fashion, thank you very much.