Who Is Andrew Beattie?

Dearest wonderful you,

Have some good tidings and I absolutely insist that you take them all.

So here I is on a bright and breezy Wednesday afternoon, back at my laptop, and void of any ideas whatsoever on how I should start today’s little update so I’ll just take off all my clothes and jump straight into the naked jelly wrestling.

I’ve found myself in a bit of a quandary recently which isn’t that huge a surprise as I spend most of my waking life in one quandary or another but this one is most odd and snuck up on me in the dead of night like a giant praying mantis. It suddenly dawned on me last week that I need to buy some new clothes. A lot of new clothes.

I’m aware that for any normal person this wouldn’t be a huge issue or even an issue at all but then I am not that normal a person, I came to terms with this a long time ago and I suggest that you do to, it’s much easier this way. Before I go on with the very moment that this moment of fashion conscience struck me I’ll tell you exactly how I feel about clothes.

Nothing, nothing at all.

For me, clothes are not a good investment and in fact I’m almost certain that they are a terrible, terrible investment. Clothes wear out, it’s absolutely unavoidable and so given a choice between some new books which I can potentially read forever or that must have pair of skinny jeans and tie-dye T-Shirt I will absolutely pick the books – Sorry Paul Smith, but you’re no Jules Verne.

I do however have lots of ‘casual’ clothes, jeans, t-shirts, trainers, jumpers et cetera but then that’s purely because they are comfortable and when you have the kind of lifestyle that I have, which is to say not much of a lifestyle at all, comfort is king. As such I pick clothes that look comfortable, and for that reason alone. If I do cobble together something that matches, or heaven forbid looks in any way ‘stylish’, it is purely by some hugely freak event that happened as I was stood in towel deciding which mode of comfort suited best my impending day.  

So why then should I be at all bothered by clothes and why the need to rush out and buy some new ones? Well it happened exactly like this:

I was asked by a friend recently if I wouldn’t mind attending an event that he was going somewhere or other one evening after work. I immediately said yes before my brain registered what I had in fact committed to do and so there I was suddenly going to an event with a friend somewhere or other one evening after work. No huge problem so far. The day before this particular event I thought that I should ask out of politeness what the dress code for the evening was to be so that I could pick out the most appropriate ‘style’ of extreme comfort clothing to pass me through the evening with the right amount of ‘god damn it I’m comfortable’ and general good feeling, to which my friend replied, “The dress code is ‘Smart Casual’ Andy”.

What the fuck is Smart Casual? I thought. Is it even possible to be both smart and casual at the same time? Mused I. Have I entirely missed a whole genre of fashion that has somehow managed to combine Jeans, T-Shirts and Trainers with the suit? Considered Andrew? These were just a small selection of the questions that I posed myself afterwards before I realised that I was entirely the wrong person to be asking in the first place for reasons that I’ve already discussed.

I then decided to stop worrying immediately about this and decided that I would be absolutely fine at this event if I just wore what I wear to work, everyone is a little smart for work, and then followed at least  5 minutes of blissful peace; wonderful, blissful, peace. I needed only to look down to wreck this most tranquil moment and that is because I was in fact sat in work wearing what I wear every day for work which not at all smart, not in the slightest and is in fact, 2 year old chinos, hugely comfortable, an old school type jumper with one of two un-ironed shirts underneath, relatively comfortable, and a pair slip on trainers, once very comfortable now falling apart. Cue mass hysteria.

And so there it was, my moment of fashion reckoning, and I was suddenly in need of some new clothes, a great deal of new clothes at that, a great deal of new smart casual clothes. I’m really banking on this smart casual clothing being clearly identifiable in the first men’s clothes shop I happen to pass when I can finally muster the energy to go and buy them. If all else fails I’ll go for comfort, leave my job and never go to another ‘Smart Casual’ event ever again.

I will add that the evening passed without incident or massive embarrassment due to my lack of suitable clothing and despite the fact that upon entering the event with my friend, who was wearing a suit, I noticed that the invitation advised that the appropriate dress was ‘Lounge suits’. I don’t even know where to begin with that one.

Right, I’ll be off now to carefully consider the future wardrobe of my life and Google ‘Smart Casual’ before bed. The next time I write I may well be the Smartest Casual person you’ve never laid your eyes on but I very much doubt it. Until then,

Stay casual, 

With love,

Andrew Beattie