The Look

 Alright. I can confess it now. 

My wife and I both spent time poring over the river of images generated by this year's Met Gala. 

Like it mattered. The annual fundraising dinner for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute provides us, the unwashed, a glimpse into the world of high price couture and the people who slip inside these "wear it once" fashion dares. It has been going on since 1948, and the first themed Gala was held in 1973. 

This was long before I became an interested bystander. I have my wife and her own innate sense of style to thank for getting me to stare at celebrities mincing about in clothes that are created for form not function. This event in May caps off what began months ago as we took in the Academy Awards' Red Carpet meander, the celebration of the phrase, "Who are you wearing?"

It should be noted here that the fashion statement that I made ahead of our wedding to my wife was that I wanted all the groomsmen to wear Hawaiian shirts. I wore a white tux with tails, accentuated by a vest and tie handmade by my wife from scraps of an Aloha shirt that did not make the cut. I wore my father's pants, not specifically because I needed "something borrowed," but rather because in my haste to get up into the mountains to prepare for the celebration in the meadow, I left them in my mother's closet. 

The all-black Converse hi-tops were not a case of forgotten footwear. These were specifically purchased for the event and worn with all the pride. They were my statement. And that statement was, "I'll wear a tuxedo, but I'm still wearing sneakers underneath."

I did much the same thing when I was by my then fiancée to accompany her to the Art Deco Ball, an annual event held in Oakland to help preserve and appreciate that era. I wore a tuxedo to that as well. My wife helped coordinate my cufflinks and studs with the maroon pair of Chuck Taylors I wore with it. She understood my quirky sense of style, brought about by my own inner twelve year old. 

Since then I have worn more occasion-suitable apparel to events such as weddings, funerals, and the occasional Bar Mitzvah. Even my shoes. I own more than a dozen ties, but I don't have much call for practicing the knot. I am most often found in a souvenir T-shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans, with the ever-present threat of my wife asking me, "Are you going out in that?"

Which brings me back to the finery on display this past week in New York City. I looked for the telltale signs of Converse Hi Tops, relieved to discover that no one had appropriated "My Look."