Plaid Pants Friday

Happy Plaid Pants Friday. The pants I write about today are not plaid, but as mentioned before, there is a finite amount of material out there about plaid pants.

I have noticed for awhile that guys my age wear nice jeans with nice shirts and sometimes sport coats for occasions that are more than casual, but less than full dress. By “nice” jeans, I mean the kind that you purchase at Saks and pay four to five times the cost of regular jeans. For reasons I can’t explain, it is deemed acceptable to wear fancy jeans to a restaurant when wearing regular jeans would get you thrown out. Heather wears nice jeans out, but I have always considered that to be just a little too cool for my taste. I am a traditionalist. I wear blue blazers. I even have bow ties. I prefer to be slightly overdressed as opposed to underdressed. I was not a fancy jeans guy, until I bought a pair this week.

My desire to procure fancy jeans was spurred by a client meeting a couple weeks ago. I handle some matters for a firm client, who I will call Mr. R. Mr. R is over 80 years old - I think. I have not asked his age, but from the details of his life I have gleaned from his stories over the last several years, my calculations say he must be at least 80.

After Mr. R arrived at my office, I walked down the stairs to find Mr. R seated in our atrium, wearing an oxford shirt, jeans, smart shoes and holding a sport coat and hat in one hand and a hand carved cane in the other. Mr. R normally has his driver with him, but for this meeting he brought his wife, Mrs. R., who is a snappy dresser for a woman of the age to be married to Mr. R. I noticed several "LV"s and "D&G"s on or about Mrs. R., and I suspect Mrs. R does the shopping for Mr. R.

I had not seen Mr. R since late last year, even though I've talked to him on the phone at least every couple of weeks. Between the time I last saw Mr. R and now, I changed my hairstyle from a short buzz to a smoothly shaved dome.

As I walked up to Mr. R's chair, he looked at my head and asked me bluntly: "Gara, Gara, do you have the cancer." I told him simply “no,” even though my full eyebrows should be an indication to anyone that all of my hair has not fallen out. He said “I'm glad; you're a good lawya – I would hate to see you get the cancer.” I presume by this statement that he does not mind bad lawyers getting the cancer, and I am happy that he approves of my lawyering skills such that he doesn’t want me to have the cancer. I also note that older people have a habit of adding the word “the” to just about any word. This habit is unfortunately contagious, unlike the cancer, which I don't have.

Mrs. R was quick to tell Mr. R about current trends in hairstyles, saying, “that’s what young people do now, Mr. R – they shave their heads when they are going bald.” I felt my choice of hairstyle, or lack thereof, sufficiently vindicated, so we stepped into our main conference room to discuss business. As I held the door for Mr. and Mrs. R, and Mr. R walked past, I noticed that Mr. R was wearing a pair of jeans made by the company that makes Heather’s favorite fancy jeans.

Mr. R is over 80, he puts the word “the” in front of everything, and he was sporting some mean fancy jeans. As traditional as I am, I know that if Mr. R can, and does, pull off this look, I can too. I can handle people my own age dressing significantly cooler than me, but when you are out-cooled by an 80 year old man, it's time to rethink your wardrobe.

After asking some friends and satisfying myself as to what sort of fancy jeans would be the proper addition to my wardobe, I purchased a cool pair of fancy jeans:


Next week, Heather and I will celebrate our ninth anniversary. I am going to wear my fancy jeans to a nice steakhouse with her. If the Maitre d' attempts to sit us in the back corner with the other undesirables, I will explain that my jeans are fancy and I expect to be treated accordingly.