Playing dress-up

I know very little about men's fashion. I know when I think a man looks well-dressed, but I don't know how to make that happen on a man, specifically BT. My brain locks up completely, not unlike when I try to figure out what shoes to pair with harem pants! And BT certainly doesn't know how to dress himself either. But I'm trying to build up his wardrobe so that it consists of more than:

* 1 pair frayed jeans with holes developing in butt area
* 1 pair nice work pants
* 2 suits, rarely worn
* 1 tux (um, I know), worn once
* 5-ish pair badly frayed, worn-out, busted up chinos/work pants/whatever one calls these, many of which have holes in the butt (wtf is up with all these holes in the butt?)

He's good on shirts. Shirts are easy to find for BT without actually having to bring him along to a store. As are shoes. But pants! Pants are my personal chagrin but also my personal quest for excellence. Not only can I never find pants that fit ME (except for two weeks ago when I tried on a pair of black pants at The Gap and they magically fit me everywhere EVEN THE BUTT and EVEN THE LENGTH and I fainted dead away with surprise, then woke up insisting it was all a dream, then I realized I was still wearing the pants and they still fit and I almost fainted again, etc.), I also cannot find pants that fit BT. WHO are the people who can fit into the pants that are being sold at stores?! Are they magical creatures? Are they unicorns? Are BT and I both of such an unimaginable size and shape that pants manufacturers simply cannot comprehend that we would even exist, much less require pants?

At least I have the option of wearing skirts and dresses, but BT does not. Especially not at work.

So last weekend, I was prepared to drag BT to the outlets to get him several pairs of pants and some jeans. However, it was pouring rain and I didn't fancy a one-hour drive up 400 consisting of poor visibility and lots of hydroplaning, something that sounds fun but really really isn't. So we went to the regular mall instead.

Well, miracle of miracles, we got him 2 pairs of jeans! One of them looks really good on him, but he thinks they are too tight, but I'm sorry, they are just not. The other pair is looser and doesn't look as good, but he likes them and, more importantly, they do not have holes in the butt. They are both too long because pants are not made in his length and we have made the mistake of going with slightly too short over slightly too long, which then resulted in everyone being treated to frequent viewings of his blindingly white socks every time he sat down.

I don't want you to think these 2 pairs of jeans were easy to come by, no ma'am. First of all, he had to try on elevently seven hundred pairs of jeans because there are sooo many styles of jeans available. Secondly, while I was ferrying jeans back and forth to the dressing room, BT kept wandering away wearing a pair of the store's jeans, and leaving his own crappy frayed pants in the dressing room, only to have a sales clerk pick them up and start walking away with them, which I'm glad he noticed in time to rescue.

After trying on All the Jeans in the World, and finding 2 acceptable pairs, I thought maybe we could try and find BT some chinos or khakis or whatever business casual man-pants are called. But BT had reached the end of his limits and required IMMEDIATE pancakes. He was getting fussy, so we had to head over to J. Christophers and feed him.

So the quest for business-casual man-pants will resume this weekend, when I will drag BT to the outlet mall, rain or shine, armed with several Lara Bars and a Nintendo DS with a selection of games. In case of more fussiness.

Thus concludes Thursday's edition of Frumpywonder's First-World Problem Theater.