If you intend to gift me clothing1, please don't buy anything expensive. I would prefer only black or white clothing. (White for the hot summer, black for the cold winter.) Also, please only shop online: I want to limit driving, at least driving on my account. I've found a few pieces already, to give some idea of the price range. I'm hoping for tops under $10, bottoms under $15. This goal seems more feasible for men than women; it seems clothing marketed for women is typically more expensive. (It may be better for me to make my own clothing, but I don't know where to learn or how much time it would require.)
Why do you want all white and black?
All these clothes lack style; I just ordered four shirts and shorts from American
Eagle.
These are el cheapo clothes you'd wear to the gym, that's all.
These words were spoken to me by someone
shopping for me today (6 June 2008). This person was disappointed at my lack of taste, and she wanted to get me nice things.
She found that I am turning into an ascetic!
This is more or less the truth. I awoke one morning – 5 June – with a great spirit of philanthropy or selfishness: I found I was no longer comfortable with spending so much money on clothing, while others starve, not for lack of food, but for lack of consideration. The World Food Organization has stated that there is enough excess food in the U.K. to feed 33 million people, with approximately 31 million in need in Ethiopia. It also seems as if the money exists to end world hunger altogether, yet this goal isn't accomplished due to selfishness, negligence and apathy.
What has this to do with the shirt on my back? Consider the previous comment, I'm disappointed: These clothes lack style.
The common mentality in America is that you have the money, American Eagle has the shirts, therefore you should spend the money to
make yourself look nicer. Some feel they deserve it, because they worked as a computer assistant in a university computer lab, or
they worked building houses and highways in the hot sun. I don't feel that way. I have been blessed; all my needs are met. I don't
need to look any nicer, while others do need food, etc. It seems much better that I should get a five-dollar shirt and
twenty-five dollars go to those who need it, for impoverished families to send their children to school, for food to eat, etc., than
for
thirty dollars to rest themselves on my back. Superficially I may look nicer, but how much more callous, selfish and greedy I would
be! You need some nice clothing, to wear to nice restaurants.
Must the innocent die for fine dining?
To be clear, I don't feel entitled to speak about the hard worker wanting nice things: I have never suffered or endured intense physical labor to earn money. I come from a considerably wealthy family and loving parents: I have never needed to work for food. By no means am I trying to say that the poorer classes should give what they have to those even worse than they. (After all, each person must decide for themselves what is appropriate.) Rather, I am typing on my (three-years-old) laptop, from my parents' air-conditioned living room, sitting on their plush couch, to say that I do not need a twenty-dollar, thirty-dollar, sixty-dollar, however expensive shirt, nor do I deserve one. And I have the sinking suspicion that many Americans are in exactly the same position as I, yet feel differently.
I wish to fight against this mentality many around me have, that there is nothing wrong with spending hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars on clothing and cosmetics and jewelry for themselves and each other. I think there is something very wrong with it: we are financing vanity at the sake of human life. How wretched have we become, that we see the impoverished around the corner yet drive to our local mall to stare at ourselves in a mirror? And the clothing stores greet us with live mannequins, humans standing place wearing expensive clothing. Pay no attention to that; look at this instead.
Seeing Gandhi left a deep impression on me. The man wore but a rag, yet was more beautiful than any model I've ever seen. Millions loved him, proving that clothing's effect is negligible, if it affects anything at all.
I have other reasons for this decision. The fashion industry is abhorrent, both for the reasons mentioned above – encouraging vanity at the expense of others' livelihood – and for the following: Men are slighted as rough, dirty and ugly creatures. Clothing for male college students must be wrinkled and torn and plain in design, and must cover unnecessarily large portions of the body. Men may not wear anything soft, delicate or breezy. By contrast, women may wear almost anything they want, because they are expected to be Barbie dolls. Women are expected to be vain almost to the point of obsession, the cosmetic industry asserting that their bodies are not good enough, working with the fashion industry to impress upon them three times the vanity expected of men. For our sake, if not God's, enough already! Do you not realize that through buying their products and following the latest trends that you are encouraging and supporting them?
The solid black attire I wish to wear is thus an expression of rejection and of mourning: to draw emphasis away from what I'm wearing and to mourn the lack of love we have for each other, that we spend time every day caring more about what we wear than how we feel and how others are doing. It was not a coincidence that Jesus instructed his disciples to take not even one extra cloak, but to wear only the clothing on them (Luke 9.1-3). And, of course more generally, to mourn – and remind myself – that others elsewhere are suffering, that this is not a time for celebration but for action. After all, adorning yourself with jewelry and beautiful patterns is an act of celebration, of revelry in one's wealth and status. (Kings and Queens did not wear pearls and gold simply because they had it lying around — well, ...)
By contrast, the solid-white attire is to symbolize the beauty and love in life; that, despite all its problems, there is good in
the world and in the order of nature, and that our Heavenly Father is always present in our lives: we are never alone and without
hope, unless it is by choice. Therefore it is also to reflect Moses' commandment, Be holy, for the LORD your God is holy,
echoed in Jesus' (and many others') teachings. It is also, paradoxically, a celebration: despite the suffering, we have an
ever-present God with us, working for and through us, and it is thus an expression of thanks for the many blessings of God.
More practically, I want black for the winter because it absorbs light, and white for the summer because it reflects it.
The cheapness of the clothing is also to make manifest the fact that I am not better than anyone else in my community,
and to rebel against the idea that clothing should serve to reflect status.
I recall South Park's commentary about this: rich people buy clothing from magazines, poor people shop at J-Mart. The rich kid (I've
forgotten his name) convinces his parents to take him to J-Mart, where everyone (his classmates and their parents) immediately
freeze with shock: What are they doing here? Let's go, honey; we don't belong here.
I wish to rebel against the
stigma and ideology associated with clothing. Thus the solid colors, plainness of design, is to make my clothing as insignificant as
possible. I don't want you to care about my clothing; I want you to care about me. I don't want to care about my clothing; I want to
care about you.
(When finished reading the footnote, you can click your browser's Back button to return to the previous page position.)
To giftmeans quite simply to give as a gift.
This page was last modified Friday, 24-Oct-2008 00:10:36 EDT.