From September '92:

What's the catch? It doesn't match.

The Clash of Fashion

By Rick Horowitz

I think the sweatsuit came first -- a sweatshirt just to kick around in, and sweatpants to persuade myself to get out there and jog. It was soft and cheap and comfy, this sweatsuit, and colorful enough that I wouldn't get hit by traffic. It was teal.

The T-shirt came next -- something I could wear under the sweatshirt. It was nice and long and fitted, so it wouldn't pull out of the sweatpants (when I was wearing the sweatpants) and bunch up inside the sweatshirt. Or I could wear it with just the sweatpants, without the sweatshirt, and it would still work. The T-shirt was also teal.

Next came the sweater. The sweater was a present, a perfectly nice cable-knit. It was also teal. Now I had something else I could wear over the T-shirt; I could mix-and-match it with the sweatpants and give the sweatshirt a rest.

At least I thought I could, until I exposed my new ensemble to the light of day.

Back up a second: You do know teal, don't you -- the power color of our time? You don't? Think of it as turquoise on steroids. You can't turn a corner or open a catalog these days without running into teal this and teal that and teal the other. The trouble is, all teals are not created equal.

My teal sweater, for instance, wasn't quite the same teal as my teal T-shirt, not to mention my teal sweatsuit. The sweater was your bright-blue-green-tending-toward-green sort of teal, while the sweatsuit was your bright-blue-green-tending-toward-blue sort of teal, and the T-shirt, truth be told, was a little bit bluer than that.

In fact, I couldn't wear any of them together, except, of course, for the sweatsuit halves, which were a set after all, and the T-shirt, which as long as it stayed hidden under the sweatshirt (or the sweater) wouldn't clash with anything else, but then again, as long as it stayed hidden, might just as well have been chartreuse.

I was undaunted. The windbreaker store was having a sale: little jackets in little sacks, just perfect to throw over a sweater when the sun went down. And didn't I have the perfect sweater for it?

Actually, no. The teal jacket, it turned out, was greener than the teal sweater, which was pretty green itself. The sweater was only perfect for the jacket if the jacket was zipped all the way. And the teal sweater and the teal jacket were both too green for the teal wallet (also from the windbreaker store), although the wallet was almost as blue as the teal sweatsuit, which would have made them pretty good together - if the teal sweatsuit had pockets. The teal jacket did go just fine with the teal jacket sack, though.

Another present -- a sweet flannel shirt with a bright teal stripe. Just the thing to wear with the teal sweatshirt, yes? (Nope -- the stripe's much too green.) Well, with the teal sweater, then. (Nope -- still too green.) Then why wasn't it even greener? Then I could wear it with the teal jacket -- zipped or unzipped.

Socks. Nothing pulls an outfit together like socks. I bought a pair of teal socks, got them home and lined them up with the rest of the collection. Wrong. Bluer than the teal sweatsuit, even bluer than the teal T-shirt. I could still wear the teal socks under the teal sweatpants as long as the elastic didn't ride up and show a flash of clashing ankle, but who goes jogging in teal socks?

There are bodies out there -- not human bodies, government bodies -- that set standards for things. That's why your radio can hear the other guy's signal; that's why the monkey wrench fits around the monkey bolt. And that's what we need here, definitely: an International Teal Commission, so that any fool (I'm not naming names) can walk into a store and pick up anything marked teal and know it'll match anything else marked teal he's already got.

Without standards, civilization itself starts to unravel.

I won't even tell you about the Jockey shorts.

Copyright 1992 Rick Horowitz