Clothes I Can't Believe I Bought
by Tom Coleman
Tom Coleman writes for commercial and entertainment media from his home in Brooklyn, NY.
I ordered it from one of those tiny ads in the back of Yankee Magazine, the ones that extol the virtues of pure maple syrup and fat kid camps in Maine. The ad that caught my eye, however, and would later drag me down the path of sartorial ruin, promised “Genuine Irish Tweeds.” It pictured a dashing Pierce Brosnan type wearing a jaunty tweed cap, smoking a pipe and clutching a border collie. How could anyone resist.
Since this was the 80s, long before the Internet and Craigslist killers, the ad gave an address to write away to for a catalog. A catalog that soon arrived, and still miraculously arrives almost thirty years later. No matter where I move, they still manage to find me. I swear, those in the Irish tweed trade have the same tracking skills as Dog the Bounty Hunter and student loan officers.
The catalog was filled with images of the Irish tweed lifestyle. There were guys forging streams in tweed trousers. Couples picnicking on tweed blankets. Children snuggling teddy bears made of tweed. (“Wouldn’t they get a rash?” I wondered) It was a magical tweed world and I wanted my little piece of it.
Initially, I wanted the full- Sherlock Holmes coat, but soon learned the splendor of Irish tweed doesn’t come cheap and my college budget needed to accommodate both tweed and beer, so I decided upon a vest. And what a vest it was: Donegal tweed, with no vents, in shades of russet and olive, genuine horn buttons and leather trim on the two front pockets. If this vest worked its magic, I would soon be shooting skeet in the Cotswold’s or be invited to the country home of at least one Viscount.
According to the catalog the vest would arrive in about ten business days. It was early autumn and I watched the weather forecast religiously, hoping for the perfect temperature. I didn’t want to be sweating like a pig and I didn’t want a jacket covering up all the tweedy goodness. Anywhere within a 53-61 degree spread, and I’d be golden.
The day the vest arrived I resisted tearing at the box, like a lion feeding on a gazelle and went as far as using “the good scissors,” to open the box, so as not to damage what wait inside. When I opened the box, the vest looked even better than it did in the catalog. I was thrilled. I decided a white oxford shirt would be the perfect thing to wear under the vest for its initial test drive. I gingerly put the vest on. The tweed fabric was heavy and handsome and I examined the magnificent horn buttons as I pushed each one through the hand-stitched buttonholes. I truly had gotten my $63 worth.
Then I looked in the mirror. The vest sat squarely on my shoulders as if I were wearing a cardboard box. The large buttons on the vest started about three inches from my neck, so that the collar of the shirt barely poked out, not unlike a baby’s bib. The tweed was so heavy and stiff it forced you to move robotically. The overall look was less Irish country and more Third Reich uniform. I looked like a giant Nazi baby robot…or one of the Von Trapp children gone very, very wrong.
But despite my initial concerns, I decided that maybe all the vest needed was a little “breaking in,” so, I wore it to a party a few days later. When I arrived, the comments came from all directions; “Why are you dressed like a pilgrim?” “Did you get a job at Bennigan’s?” “What religion is that outfit from?” I was crushed. There would be no Cotswold hunting trips in my future. In fact, I feared if I continued to wear the vest in public, I would be shunned and chased from the village.
I wore the vest a few times after that. Usually at holidays, as family cannot hurt you with wardrobe insults, they just bounce right off you. Something to do with shared DNA. The vest remained in the back of my closet for many years until it was given away to the Goodwill during a move. And over time, there have been a few other lapses in wardrobe judgment, items that cause you to shake your head and utter “Why?” Like the suede clogs, the patchwork sweater, the weirdly tight French trousers. They all seemed like great ideas at the moment, but how things change. That’s why I stick to khakis, you can never go wrong.
I hadn’t thought about the tweed vest in a long time, until recently. I was talking to my sister on the phone and she asked, “Hey, do you still have that tweed vest with the horn buttons?” “Why?” I asked. Thinking that after all these years, maybe someone would finally offer the compliments I knew the vest deserved. “Cause,” she replied, “I’m putting together the kid’s Halloween costumes and one of them wants to go as Pinocchio.”