My friend Dan Brown is a journalist at the London Free Press and a Professor at Western. He’s also got one of the best laughs I’ve ever heard, has a bigger collection of Hawaiian shirts than most people have shirts, and his wife Amanda is equally wonderful. His latest column in the Freeps is one worth sharing so, with Dan’s permission I give you: I’m an XL guy in a slim-fit world.
This column is for men of a certain . . . stature. For these guys, and I include myself in this group, shopping for clothes can be a bit of an ordeal. That’s because when we try on a shirt on in the store, there always seems to be something wrong with it.
Finding an affordable shirt you like is hard enough. You take it back to the change room. You put it on. And the stupid thing barely fits. You feel squeezed. Sometimes I can’t even get it buttoned up. Then I check the tag. Yup, it’s a “slim fit.” Fooled again.
That’s right: I am a burly guy in a slim-fit world. Perhaps you can relate. Call us roly-poly. Call us rotund, or even pleasantly plump. Just don’t expect us to conform to the slim-fit mould. Basically, these clothes are made for the same dudes who like to wear skinny jeans. You know the ones.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have the proportions of an 11-year-old girl. I’m a man, for cripes sake. I like to eat bacon and spaghetti and Fritos. Clothing labels also have other terms for it. Instead of slim fit, sometimes the tag will say “tailored fit.” But whatever you call it, it’s just another way of saying it’s not for a guy who has a bit of a bulge around his belly. Not for me, in other words.
Nor is it just shirts. If you’ve been to an Old Navy store recently, or a Roots outlet, you will have noticed how the pants on display go up to about a 32-inch waist and end there. Apparently anyone with more midsection has to shop somewhere else; I guess hefty guys aren’t expected to be stylish. Clearly, these places don’t want my business. Besides, isn’t the concept of an extra-large shirt coming in a slim-fit version kind of self-defeating? It’s supposed to be EXTRA large!
So I’m at home after my latest trip to the store. I’m on the couch, feeling sorry for myself since none of the clothes I found that I like will stretch across my ginormous build. You know who I feel like? I feel like a huge Hulk, the green-skinned monster who is only fit to wear the ripped remnants of Bruce Banner’s slender threads. I turn on the TV. I start flipping around the channels. And then it comes to me. I know exactly who the slim-fit shirts are intended for.
The Trivago Guy. It’s so clear to me now. It’s him. He is the one who is ruining fashion for the rest of us. He’s the one who is making me have body-image issues. So to the Trivago Guy and all his fellow Fedora-wearing friends, a curse on you. Damn your tiny frames. May you get so skinny that you shrivel up and blow away, you pencil-necked douchebag.