My local newsrag has their official Spring Fashion! hat on. This week, tucked among the pictures of Flirty Sandals! and Fab Finds! is a 1/4 page bit on Five Important Items For a Man’s Spring.

  1. Navy Blazer – $1700 – seventeen hundred fucking dollars? For a jacket? Sweet jeebus keerist! For that price, I expect a steak and a blowjob.
  2. Cardigan – Cotton/Cashmere/Silk – $149 “Layering isn’t a word most men think of…” Goddam right it isn’t. Cold? Put something on. Hot? Take something off. Simple. And can you see a guy like me wearing anything containing cashmere?
  3. Jeans – $275 – Yeah, right. See Dean fix the car in $275 jeans. See the sxKitten freak out.
  4. Safari Jacket – $495 – Ok, a safari jacket… a safari jacket. A freakin’ safari jacket. This is an important Item for my spring? Seriously?
  5. Printed Shirt – $49 “Zara trims the shape and makes tropical themes new with pencil-thin monochromatic prints.” Ok, so it’s not a Hawaiian shirt. Really, it’s not. It’s a shirt that looks like a Hawaiian shirt except that it lacks the thing I like most about Hawaiian shirts: the room. Oh, and they’re monochromatic. What the hell good is that? Hawaiian shirts should be big and loud.

In contrast to the apparently hydrocodone induced ravings of a Vancouver ‘fashion editor’ (rather like a Las Vegas ‘taste consultant’ or an Enron ‘ethics watchdog’, what?) I would like to present an actual list of Dean’s Fashion Essentials for Spring.

  1. Levi’s – $39. Hard-wearing yet blue, these jeans cover Dean’s ass and allow him to go to work to earn some scant dough.
  2. T-Shirts – these never go out of style because they were never in style. Purchased in size XXL, they offer sufficient room for Dean’s slothy girth. New for this year: ones with clever sayings on the front.
  3. White socks – the ones that say ‘Stanfields’ across the bottom of the toe section so that Dean can be samies with his 5 year old son. These things are important in Dean’s universe. Dean can buy approximately 1000 pairs of these socks for the price of one safari jacket.
  4. A jacket with stains on it – important for working on the car. You don’t want to do this in a jacket that doesn’t have stains on it, because in Dean’s world, ‘formal wear’ is ‘clothing without stains’.
  5. A leather jacket – this is something Dean would like for spring. It’s hard to stain a leather jacket. Leather jackets make middle-aged men look desperate, and there’s nothing a twenty-something hottie finds sexier than a bald, overweight guy who appears desperate. Leather jackets also work well to keep the wind out, and, with aging bones, this is becoming more important.

Maybe I should look for a job as a Fashion Editor.