Fashion Statement

This evening, we go shopping.

"We need a Cabinet reshuffle," Stanley announces to me urgently over the phone.

Recently, Stanley had been doing some serious contemplation about clothes.

Usually, his contemplation about clothes revolve around getting rid of them - then getting stark naked and diving right into bed with partner of the day.

Tonight, Stanley's plan with Carl and I involve just that.

Except, nobody's getting naked or diving right into bed with our best gay pal.

Thank God. I can't force myself to be lesbian.

Stanley is out on a mission to replace all his clothes in his closet. 

Last week, Stanley met one of his secondary school friends L, who is now an established personality in the fashion industry.

"Oh my word, I suggest you take off that t-shirt the moment you're home and shred it to pieces and then burn it away," were L's opening words to Stanley as he stepped into PS Cafe that afternoon.

According to L, it is not permissible for 38 year olds to wear t-shirts with cartoon prints and appear in public and walk among humans.

They not only make you look like you're wearing your nephew's clothes, worse, they also make you look like a lao gay, L said.

Stanley couldn't even voice out his inner thoughts of who died and made you fashion God because, truth be told, L is indeed a respectable icon in the world of fashion, having cut his teeth (and endless bales of fabric) as he carved out a respectable career in the industry.

"I had always dreamt of the day when someone looks at me and immediately tells me that I need to take my clothes off. And I should have been more specific," Stanley wrote in our group chat with Carl and me during his coffee with L that day.

But the coffee session turned out to be quite fruitful.

And our born again fashionista is determined to impart his newfound knowledge to us.

"Now, now, now, now, now" Stanley shouted into the phone. "Before I start sounding my horn and announcing that I am arriving," Stanley threatened.

"And trust me - when I am associated with the words horn and arriving, you know I will be a loud, full blown drama queen."

I immediately sprint down the stairs and wave the moment I see Stanley's car approach.

I step in and - I am greeted by a mourner.

"Whose bloody funeral are you attending," I ask with love, looking at Stanley's all-black getup: Black polo tee, black pants, black shoes.

"This is the Black Widow look," the drama queen said with mystery in his voice.

"I can imagine why your husband would want to kill himself."

Turns out, Stanley was so convinced by L's advice that he had decided to disown almost all of his existing clothes.

The only few pieces that L had given his approval for Stanley to wear in public, as a respectable man approaching the big four-O, were his black Fred Perry polo tee and his skinny black jeans bought from Top Shop some seven years ago. 

Twenty minutes later, a very task-oriented Stanley reaches Carl's block and in comes our dense friend.

"Wow. Who died?" Carl asks, looking very concerned as he eyes Stanley's clothes.

All our adult lives, we had known Stanley to be a very, shall we say, adventurous dresser.

He never wears dark colours. My beach-boy tan skin cannot pull off such dull tones, he would say.

And so, Stanley's wardrobe is a burst of colours.

From bright yellow skinny jeans (which can be spotted from the moon), to questionable singlets with sequins and, God forbid, a pair of purple checked bell bottoms (which Stanley bought in his mid-twenties at Far East Plaza and occasionally wears to house parties), Stanley Ong proudly owns them all.

But tonight, oh, tonight is different.

"The old Stanley Ong has died - and this evening, we will all be reborn," Stanley explains in a theatrical voice to anyone in his car who would listen. "Come, join hands with me, sisters, and rejoice."

I turn to Carl and say: "I don't think we're not going to a funeral. We're going to a cult group".

At 5.27pm, Stanley drives us to our destination: Peninsula Plaza.

Stanley is making bespoke shirts.

"Rule number one," Stanley said channelling his inner Karl Lagerfeld, "is that everything must fit your body."

And so, Stanley has decided to custom-make casual shirts.

"Even if you're tucking out the shirt and rolling up the sleeves and wearing it with shorts, it's worth to tailor make them," Stanley said with conviction.

Customised shirts are perfect, Stanley conveys what he learnt from L.

They fit your body and there's only that one such piece in the world. Even if someone wears the same coloured shirt, it at least fits you and accentuates your curves.

"The last thing you want is to step into a restaurant and see someone else wear the exact clothes you're wearing. What if the other person is hotter than us?!" Stanley asks the group in horror, then proceeds to answer his own question: "Then I will have no choice but to rip those clothes off his hot body."

That night, after trudging 7,000 steps (according to Carl's fitbid) to hunt around for Stanley's age-appropriate clothes, I ask myself:

Is it that vital that we dress our age? 

Why can't we wear cartoon t-shirts at 38?

If an 18 year old can dress up in shirt and tie, surely a 38 year old can wear cartooned tees?

Stanley once told me that when he was 18, he had wished to quickly grow up and start making money so that he can walk into Zara or Top Shop or any boutique and point at apparels and say this, this, this, this, and this. I want one in every colour!

Twenty years later, he says he still wants to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

But instead of shopping at only Far East Plaza, he can now afford bigger and more expensive labels. And splurge on time pieces. And bespoke shoes. And leather bags.

But once in a while, Stanley still likes to dress up as his 25-year-old self.

His argument is simple: He still looks young, he still is in good shape, and he's a grown up who can decide on what he wants to wear.

Or can he?

Would men our age be frowned upon if we wore tight and brightly coloured singlets with torn jeans and walked along Orchard Road?

Even if we don't fall prey to evil instagrammers, can we push our luck further?

What if we were in our 50s? 60s? 70s?

How far are we able to push our limits before people started talking behind our backs? Or warning us to shred and burn our clothes?

Are we so critical because we're gay - which implies that we must inherently have good dress sense?

Then again, shouldn't gays be allowed to be loud?

Does sexual preference even have a part to play in this unspoken rule of dressing to one's age?

As I inspect my own wardrobe that night, I realise that I have no answer.

I do have one revelation though.

That this boils down to two categories of dressers.

Those who give a shit and wear "proper clothes" so that they don't look out of place.

And those who don't give a shit about what others think: i.e, your aunties who squeeze into sexy tube tops and mini skirts which must have been stolen from their granddaughter's wardrobe, or uncles who still dare to sport blonde hair and proudly wear see-through singlets and leather pants.

I text the group and ask which type they'd choose to be.

"I am busy," Stanley types.

"I am standing in front of my wardrobe and thinking, it's time to stop looking like a lao gay and to look my age for once.

"I'm getting all my colourful gay clothes out of the closet and preparing to look like a real gentlemen with dark, boring tones," he continued.

"But they're not going to be dull, hunny. They don't call it fifty shades of grey for nothing."