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Your Guide to Men’s Leisure Fashion

My interest and expertise in the area of men’s fashion are well documented. I, for instance, predicted the coming of the leisure suit back in the late sixties.

What led me to such a projection was the sudden falloff in the purchase of Nehru jackets, not to mention the fact a group of geologists digging in the mountains of West Virginia discovered the world’s richest vein of polyester.

I also forecast the fall of the leisure suit. This was after four conventioneers perished in their Las Vegas hotel when one dropped a cigar ash on the pants of his leisure suit.

He was engulfed in flames in a matter of seconds. His three companions succumbed to the dense acrid fumes from their friend’s lime-green leisure suit.

Once, while I was temporarily stationed in sunny Florida covering warm weather for the rest of the country, where it was cold and dismal, I was hanging out at the pool at my hotel, working on my tan, when I noticed other male visitors were suffering from various levels of warm-weather fashion impairment.

Women, of course, have the annual Sports Illustrated swim-suit issue to guide them as to what to wear once spring and summer finally arrive.

Men have nothing to guide them. And it shows.

Fortunately, I am also an expert on menswear at the beach, around the pool, and in the hotel lobby.

What many men here do wrong is wear socks that are the same color as their shorts. This is tacky. This is unforgivable.

A man who wears socks the same color as his shorts is a bowler or builds cabinets in his basement or contributes to television evangelists.

To be absolutely correct, a man should wear no socks whatsoever with a pair of shorts. If a man insists on wearing socks with his shorts, he should at least stick to white.

One other thing a man should consider is never to be guilty of New Jerseyitis. Men suffering from this condition wear sandals with their shorts, not to mention over-the-calf, black stretch hose.

Jesus wore sandals, it is true. But he didn’t wear those awful socks with them, and that’s why New Jersey—especially Newark—turned out the way it did.

Here are some other don’ts in the area of men’s leisure fashion:

 Don’t wear a tank top. If you must wear a tank top, at least make certain you have a tattoo to go with it so people will think you’ve been out to sea since the mid-sixties and don’t know any better.

 Don’t wear anything that features a picture of a pelican, a pink flamingo, or a beer can.

 Don’t wear one of those skimpy European men’s bathing suits. If you do, you’ll embarrass God, who didn’t have skimpy European bathing suits in mind when he created man.

 More on socks. Don’t wear tube socks with your shorts or swimsuit. This ain’t the Moose Club annual picnic and softball game.

 Don’t wear clip-on sunglasses. If you do, it suggests you arrived by bus and once wore leisure suits until the Surgeon General declared them harmful to your health.

 Don’t wear white shoes with a matching white belt. That went out with Wildroot Cream Oil for your hair.

 Don’t wear a silly hat. If communists went to the beach, they’d wear silly hats.

As for me, I’m off to the pool again in my Ralph Lauren swimsuit ($575), my Calvin Klein terry-cloth robe ($1,500), my Gucci leather pool slippers ($2,750), and my Bill Blass designer sunglasses ($14,000).

I take no fashion risks. Why should you?