Fashion tips from a slob

Lord knows I’m no fashion plate, but a recent trend really bugs me. It’s men wearing tailored suits with sneakers.

I’ve seen it a lot in the last year or two, on TV and even at formal events like weddings. I’m not sure it’s appropriate yet in the Wall Street financial firms, but you never know.

I realize sneakers are probably more comfortable than wing tips, but if you’re searching for comfort you wouldn’t wear a suit and tie in the first place. You’d relax in a T-shirt and shorts with your sneakers if you’re serious about comfort.

I hate to dress up, but the four times a year I do, I try to do it right. I guess when your father worked in a clothing store, it’s ingrained in you. For dress up days I have a navy blue blazer and a navy blue suit — with black leather dress shoes. I’m ready for any occasion, from marrying to burying.

I’m from an era in the 1960s when snappy dressers were guys who wore orange paisley tuxedoes to the high school prom. They thought they looked pretty snappy, too. I thought I was quite debonair in my white dinner jacket at my prom.

Al Roker, the weatherman on NBC’s Today Show, is a sharp dresser. He’s elegant but not trendy. He doesn’t wear sneakers, but fellow Today Show host Carson Daly does. Nate Burleson, former NFL player who is a co-host on CBS Mornings and the NFL Today during the football season, is another guy who wears sneakers with suits. He’s a big guy, I’m not going to make a point to criticize his sartorial choices if I ever meet him.

Brother Art is the only guy I know in Storm Lake who wears bow ties. I’d like to, but I can’t figure out how to tie them. Art has given me lessons but I can’t get the hang of it.

Bow ties were popular in the newspaper business years ago by editors who kept getting their long ties inky when they were working over cases of lead type covered with ink. When I started out in the newspaper business in 1972, I had to wear a tie to work. When I’d go into the darkroom to develop film and make prints, my tie would inevitably dip into the trays filled with developer. So publisher John Anderson gave me a dispensation from that wardrobe requirement, rather than reimburse me for the ties I ruined.

When I was a junior in college I visited my uncle in Washington, DC, who took me out to lunch at a fancy men’s club. Men were required to wear jackets. My uncle, who was a lawyer, had a suit on, but since I was just wearing a plain shirt, the maitre d’ gave me a sports coat to wear. I had to return it at the end of lunch. There was an episode of the TV show Seinfeld where Jerry found himself in the same situation. So Seinfeld and I have something in common.

The biggest fashion faux pas at the Cullen house was to wear a baseball cap to dinner. It just wasn’t done. Mom and Dad didn’t even like us to wear a cap indoors. “Is your head cold?” they’d ask. It drove them crazy to see young men wearing caps in restaurants. It’s common today, even in fast food restaurants, and I remember my folks whenever I see it.

However, it’s fine for women to wear Easter bonnets to dinner this Sunday.