I want it.
“I haven’t got any thoughts. I’m just staring vacantly into space, while a distant voice in the back of my head goes, “oh shit”, like a car alarm in the middle of the night.”
—Simon Foster, In the Loop
I have been challenged to rock a vest
This will take more sartorial-fu than I can muster at my current power level. But it is a goal.
No one has any idea how Matt Wiggins sleeps like that. (fin)
Graham Stark finds Magic tournaments boring.
Kate Beaton, bless her heart, worked perhaps a little too hard signing and drawing.
It was super awkward when Adam West started snoring into the microphone.
Brent Spiner is getting old and can be struck with a case of the drowsies at any moment.
David Malki leaned on a guest while napping.
Ryan North took a break from meeting the public to combat jetlag.
I was at the comicon in Calgary
I took pictures of various artists in the middle of blinking. Would it be too creepy to share them on the internet?
Comparison. Notice how the old shirts are just wide enough in the shoulders, but way too baggy everywhere else. The striped one was the best off-the-rack fit I found. In addition to (in my opinion) looking good, the fitted shirt is far more comfortable. I really, really love the fitted shirt. The sleeves on it look better in person and better ironed.
I forgot to align my placket, buckle, and fly for each shot, whoops.
1. gotta start somewhere
A brief history:
When I was young, perhaps ten or so, I only wore sweatpants. All of the time. I am told that I chose them because they required no effort- they did not have zippers or buttons with which to fuss. I was a practical kid. Later on, I recall wearing only corduroys; they were comfy and I liked how they looked. Still later, as a young teenager, I gave in and allowed myself to wear black or grey denim pants. I was set against wearing blue jeans, as that is something that absolutely everyone does (I have since revised the rule to allow only very dark blues). I believe this was around the time that I wore only polos, especially brown ones. I had one brown polo that had a light blue stripe on the inside of the collar, which I loved.
In the last two years, I have become interested in dressing more like an adult. This included a brief and horrible (although arguably necessary) period in which I wore button-down* shirts untucked. I ended up settling on a few shirts of modest design (blue stripes and squares); one pair each navy jeans, khaki chinos, and grey trousers; some v-neck t-shirts of various colours; and four wool (three merino, one cashmere) sweaters also with v-necks, in black, grey, blue, and purple. I have been enjoying dressing moderately well with these items. But a problem emerged: shirts don’t fit me.
I don’t blame them. I have a vertically short torso, and yet somehow also rather broad shoulders. To put it into rough off-the-rack terms, my torso is an S and my shoulders are an M. So I always had to compromise one thing or the other when picking a shirt. I had some success getting my mom to help me (she did most of the work) with bringing in the torso and sleeve thickness of a couple of shirts from Value Village that already fit my shoulders. But I learned I could do better. I discovered made-to-measure websites. There are a multitude of MTM companies that will take your measurements and build you a shirt. Everything is conducted over the internet, as is natural.
There are websites at various price points, but I didn’t want to compromise with this, so I picked a moderately expensive one about which I had read good things: Nialma. Not only did they supposedly offer great quality, but as you will notice if you visit their website, they offer a four-for-three deal. In addition to offering four shirts for the cost of three, Nialma will send just one of the shirts at first, so that you can try it, wash it, and try it again, until you are either satisfied with the fit or request changes to implement on the remaining three (based on my experience with them, they might even replace the first one if it is unwearable). I decided to take this deal, and have been very happy with the results.
I will postpone further writing for now; I try to avoid rambling on excessively. I plan to document some of this story with pictures, whenever I can find time to actually take them. I don’t know if any of this is or will be interesting to read, but it feels kind of nice to type. I will try to make it of some value.
I got some shirts. Things might get sartorial around here for a bit.
