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Is Fashion simply what one wears oneself?

I fear I must issue a disclaimer: what follows is octogenarian; I have few pristine neurons to spare – the box is nearly empty, and those which are left are being saved for my last days. What remains of the still-functional neural wiring that I am willing to repurpose, therefore, is admittedly second hand and possibly damaged in the reclamation for more active service than they signed up for.

So, relieved after my brief moment in the cerebral Confessional, I can admit that my knowledge of Fashion is embarrassingly sparce for an otherwise curious retiree. Take shoes as an unlikely example. One would have thought that with the number of feet that pass me on an average day, at least some of them would have attracted my attention. In the olden days, however, I confess that what those feet supported was of more interest to me; I am (okay, was) what we used to call a leg man, although at this temporal distance, I’m not at all certain it was an important determinant of my journey through life.

In fairness however, before I was ravaged by hormones, I do recall some early childhood curiosity about the shapes of some shoes[i], but that curiosity now seems inconsiderate somehow: like first selecting the largest of the gifts under the Christmas tree before ripping off my father’s carefully placed scotch taped wrapping. Still, I suppose childishness has to start somewhere, eh?

Of course, perhaps that’s unfair; although I may not have espoused adult couture, for years I have continued to resist the once youthful fashion of wearing odd socks, or tearing holes in my jeans to rebel against, well, something.

Okay, I’ve seldom worn a tie to work, but I will admit to sporting a frequently used leather-elbowed sports jacket, clean and frequently washed jeans, and a blue cotton shirt with a button-down collar; I wasn’t exactly a middle aged teenager -just a late-blooming adult.

I have always been enamoured with fashionable running shoes though (the Americans call them ‘sneakers’, the British call them ‘trainers’), but I’m Canadian, eh? I do not run in them, nor perspire heavily through my feet, so wearing them on a plane does not threaten nausea to the people sitting near me. Nor, may I add, have the airport security screeners ever advised me of any threat posed from my shoes.

At any rate, nowadays there is apparently less of a difference, less of a sexual dimorphism in shoes worn by whatever gender is currently fashionable (I have no idea what that means; I must have read it somewhere). But for travellers, the real issue is not the fashion of their shoes as much as their behaviour in confined spaces -to wit, airplane spaces in the middle of the economy section; even more specifically, the seats in the middle of a row.

Frequent flyers have acquired habits they are loath to discard, especially if it is a long flight: as soon as the seatbelt sign is extinguished, and before they can no longer reach down to their feet because the seat ahead is being reclined and there is an urgent need to select the movie they want to watch before the trays must be extended for the supper coming down the aisle, the well-travelled feel the urge to remove their shoes to settle in.

I mean we all do it, but shoelessness after walking around the house to get the suitcases organized, standing in a crowded bus on the way to the airport, then waiting in the departure lounge for the inevitably delayed flight is potentially noxious in the middle seats, however attractive the just-divorced shoes may be to afficionados, or fetishists.

No doubt in recognition of this, there used to be a scent store which sold tiny little packable spray bottles of shoe-and-sock perfume before you went through the security lines. Clearly well-thought-out, the bottles were small enough to go in your carry-on luggage without being confiscated, but not big enough to last more than a return flight. I assumed it was a forever business…

Although I hesitate to attribute it to neuronal plaquing, I forgot the name soon after I retired. But with no more paid conferences, or overseas jobs as tax write-offs, it withered like my short-term memory.

Anyway, on a now rare long-haul flight to New Zealand, I decided to relive some memories and buy some foot spray again while I waited for the gate to be posted on the flight board. I remembered that the store used to be close to an exorbitantly priced bookstore near the entrance, so I began there.

The expensive books were still unsold, and the only affordable ones were crime thrillers with jejune sketches on their covers of people hiding behind corners. It was an achingly familiar start.

The majority of the other stores clogging the concourse were flogging souvenirs, or outrageously expensive regional items of clothing: sweaters, ties, and hats -fashions available downtown for half the price. Even the neck-things that promised a comfortable sleep on the hardly-reclinable economy seats seemed to have inflated prices.

But I had thought ahead: I had bright green running shoes for the trip, fresh blue jeans whose leg ends did not require folding the cuffs to shorten them, and a dark multicoloured sweatshirt that wouldn’t show the inevitable stains I usually acquired from the effort of trying to move my arms and hands freely across the little plastic food trays without spilling the wine. All I needed was shoe-spray.

I wandered through the airport like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, but apart from my reflection in the windows, I could find no welcoming ports. I soon realized there was no longer a wind behind my sails, nor a scent bottle in my carry-on. I had become a tired albatross desperate for somewhere to land.

Still, my travelling competence came back to me as I boarded the plane and sauntered down the aisle like a fashion model to find my seat as the plane loaded. I felt optimistic about the aisle seat I had chosen because it was near the washroom.

I mean who needs foot spray in an aisle seat, eh? There’s always a breeze along the corridor to whisk away sundry and unattributable smells. And then of course, there is the blanket you put over your lap and your unshod feet, so who would know the source of any odour? Like working in a wastewater treatment plant any smell is soon accommodated and ceases to be noticeable anyway.

Maybe it’s my aging olfactory bulbs, but by the time the plane took off, everything just smelled like warm socks. The embarrassed smile every time a flight attendant, or needy passenger hurried past me in the aisle, I took to be from their still unaccommodated initial up-aisle odour processing apparatus; so I smiled too. Despite my utilitarian fashions, or perhaps because of it, I was clearly just another smell to process along the route. Who knew the odour gauntlet they had already been forced to walk to make it this far? Aisle-walkers can only hold their breaths for so long, designer socks along the way notwithstanding.

So I think I finally understand why the scent-store closed: I am my smell; as are we all -unique, despite our expensive clothes, despite the foot-spray, despite the charade. Whether it’s a matter of pheromones, genes, eating habits or whatever, we carry our smells with us, however fashionably disguised. No matter the deodorant, or the aftershave lotion, my dog still recognizes me through all the chemical facades. There is something about each of us that is difficult to expunge.

My dog knows this; the store learned this… it was just my turn, I guess.

[i] https://musingsonretirementblog.com/2022/04/03/thou-shalt-not-stir-one-foot-to-seek-a-foe/

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