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Let me set the scene.
It’s Saturday and you’re off to meet the gals for a long overdue brunch catch-up. The booking has been in the diary for weeks now and you’ve had your outfit picked out from the moment the plans were made. This week felt particularly long, but you’re delighted it’s the weekend – not least because it’s finally time to bring the new leather trench coat you acquired from a local charity shop out for a spin.
You get dressed with meticulous attention to detail, taking special care to coordinate everything from your earrings (silver hoops) right down to what sunglasses go best with the look (a pair of black cat eyes). The last thing you put on is the trench. It’s not really cold enough to warrant an all-black look, or a jacket for that matter, but you’ve promised it a day out so there’s no going back now. Besides, the weather’s never stopped you before anyway.
You steal one last glimpse of yourself in the mirror before heading downstairs to get on your merry way. For once, the vision you had in your head and the outfit you have on are one and the same, so you’re thoroughly impressed with yourself… that is until you run into your boyfriend in the hallway who takes one look at you and says, “Didn’t know Keanu Reeves was in town. They casting for a new Matrix movie?” Pretty sure Keanu’s was a suede trench coat, but whatever. Safe to say, vision ruined.
Having our clothing choices commented upon is a situation most of us have probably found ourselves in at one time or another – it comes with the territory of experimenting with your style. Usually, the quips are fairly harmless and you can laugh along, but being on the other end of the joke can be hard to live down and the resulting nicknames are often just as hard to shake too. Sometimes even just the memory of a particularly snarky comment is enough to make my cheeks burn. It’s called fashion, Brenda. Look it up.
If there’s one thing we can all take solace in though, it’s the fact that we’re not alone. In fact, the below Twitter thread does a pretty good job of proving that. Reminiscing on exactly what it’s like to try and mix your daily sartorial choices up while living in Ireland (where everything is fair game for a passing remark), one user tweeted to say, “Props to anyone who tries to be fashionable in Ireland. I wore a red beret once in Waterford and someone called me Super Mario.”
The tweet quickly gained traction online and soon thousands of others were sharing details of how certain nicknames came to be. Ranging from Barney (courtesy of a new purple t-shirt) to Inspector Gadget (I think you can guess what the offending item of clothing was here), each story is funnier than the next it definitely helps to know that we’re not the only ones with fashion faux-pas to speak of.
https://twitter.com/CianByNature/status/1427328382937833475
Well worth a read if you need a laugh.
This article was originally published in August 2021.