Here Is What I Did This Weekend: Got Jeans, and Almost Famous

Shopping is something that either evokes fond memories of American Apparel trysts and insults-disguised-as-mockery (when I shop with mostly female friends and the odd few gays ones) or boundless trepidation (when I shop by myself). I've struggled to come to terms with this strange dichotomy, and have made the following self-discoveries:

One, I don't really care that much about fashion, and consequently am not very fashionable. Up till three years ago I thought Old Navies was an acceptable expression of one's individuality; I completely missed the point about polka dots; and I still don't get these palestinian scarves. The best I've managed to pull off is to be tasteful: that is, to wear the bland looking jeans and the inconspicuous chucks and sweat-shop-free grey t-shirts that just screams "university student", "the Guardian reader" and "passive consumer of culture" (whatever that means). Standing by the wall I might as well just be the wall.

Two, my problem with shopping alone is a result of conflicting psychological undercurrents. This I figured out as soon as I entered the Gap at Bay and Bloor this past Saturday to seriously shop for jeans, my only pair having just ripped in certain vital areas.

Now is as good a time as any to freely admit that I have an inferiority complex at clothing stores, especially at the snootier ones where you are expected to know what you are talking about. Now Gap usually doesn't rank that high on snootiness, but this being Bay and Bloor, the wage-slave-cum-sales-associate descended on me like vultures that just smelt rotten meat.

Very preppy, sexually ambiguous male in his mid-20s: Can I help you?

Me: ummm...I've just taking a look around really.

I spent 10 minutes literally looking around before realizing it was the women's floor. More nerve racking was the somewhat morbid looking "wall of jeans" laid out for men upstairs.

Me: umm..."boot cut", wonder what that is. "Slim fit"? I can't tell the difference.

Black? Navy? Pre-stressed? Easy fit? I forked over everything like my life depended on it. On top of that, I can't remember my size--it's been THAT long since I shopped for pants.

I hunted down an attractive 50-year-old sale associate with a Yorkville Drawl and asked her if the 32 in "32X30" referred to the waist size; she noticably paused a second to suppress a snigger before asking me what I wanted so she could find it for me. I just died little inside.

The thing is that normally I wouldn't even waste my time feeling bad about these people, but just then I felt as never before the need to justify my existence to this tanned and attractively turned-out fashion horde (lowly fashion hordes at that; see Holt Renfrew): I read goddamnit! I can talk hours on end about why the Raj failed and why Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed. I can tell you about Baron Haussman's Paris and Man Ray's Paris. I can recite Manhattan's movie script backwards if I had the inclination, eh? Eh?

I was lucid enough to realize that these people have no time for the Raj and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

I did end up finding the ideal pair of jeans though, and paid for it. At $100 it is like the most expensive piece of clothing I own--I've paid my dues to hang out with my more glamourous friends.

p.s. one of my photos from flickr got featured in Torontoist's weekly roundup of good photos. That got me really excited for like, three seconds. http://siqister.blogspot.com