This happened to me in London last month. It was a depressing wake-up call to the realisation that, however I might see myself (am I not still in my mids-30s?) others are not blind to the reality; a 46-year-old man getting fuller in the figure by the day. All the excess padding that comes with age. That particular sales assistant’s father, by the way, turned out to be 45.
There are other reminders. The words “slim fit” on the labels of many jackets’ shirts and trousers for example. They might as well read, “not for most straight men over 40”. Tightly tailored shirts may sound appealing (again that image of what you think you look like) but the button-popping reality is not a look one aims for. As for Slim Fit trousers, forget it. You might be able get into a pair but the tapering will accentuate even the most modest gut. Trust me. Let it go.
What to do? Well, apart from selecting the best cut for you, when you find yourself staring at the cliff face of middle age, unable to fit into clothes made for Burberry androgynes, the weapon for us men should be colour, and lots of it. It works for me.
Shirts, for example, should not only be fuller, they should also be loud. Think of it as camouflage. Who wants ‘classic’ white and blue, or even sobering grey and black, when we can go for a bright pink, deep blue, vivid green, intense checks or dazzling stripes? Ditto trousers. I like my cords – needle or jumbo, I make no discrimination – chinos and moleskins in vivid sky blue, brick, purple, rust, canary, bottle green and even salmon.
True, these colours may not be for the fainthearted, but if you still want to cut a dash in a world in which clothes are increasingly made for slimmer men, this is the way ahead. A splash of silk in the breast pocket doesn’t hurt either. A word of warning though, life in this particular fashion lane can be quite hairy, especially in our part of the world, where men tend towards the conservative and by and large don’t “do” colour. There will be comments. And you will be bold.
Besides the flamboyant flair, one can find comfort, if not glory in middle age. At a wonderful museum by the Roman ruins in Baalbek, there are two statues of male torsos; one clearly that of an important man, a Roman general perhaps, the other, a younger, Adonis-like athlete. The latter may have the tightness and promise of youth but it is the mature/maturing bust of the older man that stirs the soul.
His stomach, while not excessively paunchy, has the spread of a man whose days of Corinthian glory have clearly passed. Yet he bears an authority, a sense of a life lived that the younger, more sculpted man lacks. The last time I was there, my older sister unashamedly manhandled both before declaring, “I know which one I’d prefer”.
