How Clothes Help To Define You

I have never been what you may call a dedicated follower of fashion or fashion victim as they call it these days. However, I do like to go out looking reasonably smart and presentable even if it's in a casual way. And whilst I haven't got an extensive wardrobe, the rack is sufficiently full to change my clothes several times a day if I so desired. And in amongst all that splendid apparel is one item I have something of a soft spot for, and it is not that swamp at the bottom of the garden.

My favourite T shirt is faded and full of holes. Like me it has seen better days, but it means the world to me. There have been times in my life when for the want of more money than would buy a bowl of rice, I have had little more than rags to wear. Or to put it another way, I come from a challenging economic situation, a world of turbulent fiscal waters you might say, or hard times if you like, that took a lot of hard work to escape.

As I sauntered around the hood in trousers with the arse hanging off me, I dreamed and looked forward to the day when I could get dressed in a presentable style. I so wanted to reach a position when I could throw those rags that passed for clothes away. My tailor once told me that ninety percent of what people though of you was based upon how you dressed. That explains an awful lot about my singular lack of success in life in my early years. I once had a friend who didn't have two pennies to rub together, yet he somehow always managed to look a million dollars. He claimed that it's all about at least looking the part even if you are stoney broke. Mind you, for all that, I never saw him get rich just by looking wealthy.

In the end, through dint of many years of hard work and dedication to resolving my fiscal impoverishment, I made it to a wardrobe I did not have to feel ashamed of. So why the point blank refusal to throw that old T shirt in the bin every time my lovely wife jokingly asks me to? Because it reminds me how far I have come.

It helps to keep me grounded. And I wear it with great pride. It is a highly symbolic totem signifying a long journey through life, starting from zero.I wear it almost every day, though only at home. And my understanding other half religiously washes it and hangs it out to dry ready for the next day.

Sometimes she jokingly threatens to cut it up into small pieces for moving around the dust on the furniture. But I know she would never actually do that. She knows how much that old rag means to me.

That careworn piece of fabric has accompanied me for many, many years, and it will continue to do so for a great many more. It is a red badge of courage, a constant reminder of the long and winding, dusty roads I have tirelessly travelled to get out of the urban ghetto I was born into, to the spiritual sanctity of the attire of Saville Row.

I am not what you would call economically rich, very, very far from it, but I can certainly afford as many new T shirts as I might desire.However, nothing could ever replace this piece of old tat that I am wearing even as I write. It is so me. And who knows, maybe one day the rest of the world will catch on to what is my very own unique style.