Gunn's Golden Rules (15 page)

Ultimately, though, I think leaving your subbasement is well worth the trouble. And what else can we do? We’re human beings. Try as we might to avoid it, and as hard as it might sometimes be to act civil, the truth is this: We need one another.

W
HENEVER
I
MEET NEW
people, almost without fail they say, “I was so afraid of what you’d say about my clothes!” The truth is: I really don’t take note of what other people wear unless their outfit blows my mind for good or for ill, and even in that case I will rarely say anything unless I’m asked.

When I was taping
Extra!
the other day, the camera guy said, “Oh God, I just know you’re going to be disappointed in what I’m wearing.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You’re hoisting a camera and down on your knees and moving around. You need to be agile. It wouldn’t be right for you to be in a tailored suit! You’re dressed appropriately!”

I get a little shrill when I talk about it, because it seems like people are either too worried about what they have on or not worried enough. People are really intimidated by fashion, and as an educator and a fashion lover I think that’s such a shame.

Meryl Streep said in a 2009
Vanity Fair
article that she was over trying to appeal to men. “I can’t remember the last time I really worried about being appealing,” she said.

I don’t totally believe that she doesn’t care. It is true that she’s really eschewed fashion. I think it’s smart, intellectual Meryl speaking, saying she’s too smart for style. But no one’s too smart for it. Providing we leave our cave, it matters to all of us.

When we look good, we feel better. That’s true for everyone. You feel better able to tackle the world. It’s not a good feeling going into an exam without having prepared, and it’s not a good feeling leaving the house without having dressed to be around people. Just the way it never rains when you have an umbrella, you’ll never run into people if you look fantastic. But go outside in pajamas, and you’ll run into every ex you have.

The key is not being dressy. The key is being appropriate.

Someone at my neighborhood grocery store once said to me, “Wow, you really do wear jeans and a T-shirt!”

“Yes,” I said, “at the
grocery store
.”

It’s all about context. I wear a suit to work, to weddings, to funerals, to the theater, and to church. When shopping at the grocery store or running errands, I have been known to wear jeans, because it’s totally appropriate. The jeans fit me and are clean, and I usually pair them with a jacket, but yes, jeans!

Some people think of dressing up or being polite as a burden. They think having to wear a tie or use the right fork or send a thank-you card is a kind of shackle. To these people I say: Getting out of bed is a shackle. If you feel that way, stay in it! Invest in a hospital gurney and wheel yourself around on it when you need to go out.

I get very impatient with this whole “comfort issue” with clothing. Yes, you don’t feel as comfortable in clothes that fit you as you do in your pajamas and robe. That’s a
good
thing. You’re navigating a world where you need to have your wits
about you. If you’re in a lackadaisical comfort haze, you can’t be engaged in the world the way you need to be.

Would I be more comfortable in a business meeting wearing my pajamas?

No! It would feel, honestly, very weird. I would think,
Where’s my IV? When do I take my next meds?

Wanting to look good in public has to do with the respect that I have for myself and the respect that I have for the people around me. One of the things I love about New York City is how much people dress up for one another. Walking down the street is such a pleasure, because people are really turned out. Yes, it probably took them more than five minutes to get ready, but it was so worth it. They make the city a prettier place.

In her wonderful memoir
D.V.,
Diana Vreeland (who was born exactly fifty years to the day before me—lucky me!) talks about how she prepared nightly for the arrival of her husband. She dressed up for him every single night:

Isn’t it curious that even after more than forty years of marriage, I was always slightly
shy
of him? I can remember his coming home in the evening—the way the door would close and the sound of his step … If I was in my bath or in my bedroom making up, I can remember always pulling myself up, thinking, “I must be at my very best.” There was never a time when I didn’t have that reaction
—ever.

That’s kind of lovely, I think. It’s always better to err on the side of beauty over comfort. It might get tiresome in practice, but it’s a sweet idea. And it’s certainly better than being the dowdy, depressing, slatternly housewife played by Shirley
Booth in
Come Back, Little Sheba.

People who are lazy about grooming make me a little crazy. And I’m not talking about getting a blowout or putting on a ton of makeup or getting a haircut every week. I’m talking about bathing and other basics. What are you saying about yourself and about your feelings for the people around you if you give up on these simple things? You’re saying, “I don’t care.” And if you don’t care about yourself or the people around you, why should others care about you?

Grooming inappropriately can be as bad as not doing it at all. One time I was out to brunch, and a patron at the restaurant started clipping his nails. He was even with someone, who you’d think would have stopped him! It’s such a distinct noise. My gag reflex kicked in. When you see it on the subway, it’s bad enough, but at a restaurant? There was a lot of eye contact around the room, but the staff didn’t throw him out. He just finished, and then left the clippings there on the floor for the staff to clean up. That’s in my bad behavior hall of fame, and it’s a good example of someone being far too comfortable out in public.

I also question people’s definition of “comfort.” Sure, oversize T-shirts feel soft on your body, but you know what’s genuinely comfortable? Being dressed appropriately for your surroundings. It feels good at the end of the day to take off your fancy shoes and put on your slippers, but it also feels good to know that all day you looked good and smelled good and that the people you encountered had a positive impression of you and enjoyed having you around.

For my job with Liz Claiborne Inc., I host a ton of shopping mall events. I’ll be honest with you: I love them. My colleague Leah Salak and I do Liz Claiborne Inc. multibrand fashion
shows for the shoppers at the mall. We pull clothes from the mall’s own stores so the customers can actually buy what they see. It’s fun and it’s also intended to be educational. We show people how they can mix and match, how they can take a dress from day to night, and how an item of apparel can be made ever more versatile.

We work with five to seven of our brands, which include Lucky Brand Jeans, Kate Spade, Juicy Couture, and DKNY Jeans. I always mix them up as much as possible. The business-side people always complain about mixing and matching on the runway. For them, taking a Kate Spade dress and putting a Juicy Couture coat over it is some kind of sacrilege. But I’m very blunt: People don’t wear one designer head to toe. So we show people how they actually will wear things, and ultimately, I think it benefits all the brands, because you see how versatile each item is.

Then we have a Q&A session after, and I always find it so touching how women will stand up in front of eight hundred to a thousand people, open up their jackets, and say, “Tim, look how thick I am through here. How can my clothing help me with this?”

It’s so wonderful how comfortable they are talking to me about these things. I love hearing about real people with real issues. We live in a bubble here in New York. Of course, I mostly like the bubble! But I also like to get out of it for a reality check, and the reality is that a lot of people are not comfortable with their bodies and need a little help making what they have work for them.

Maybe it will be helpful to hear that even in New York, the women who are supposed to be fashion idols aren’t happy with their bodies. When I’ve gone to the
Vogue
offices I’m always
struck by how insanely thin everyone is, even the editorial assistants, who aren’t in front of a camera. I think:
How many eating disorders are there on this floor?

One former editorial assistant I know says that even though she’s a healthy weight and height and usually wears a size 8 or 10, she felt morbidly obese while she was working there.

Isn’t that a sick statement on the industry?

There is a famous cafeteria in the Condé Nast Building, which houses
Vogue, The New Yorker, Glamour,
and a ton of other magazines. It’s a feat of architecture, and yet everything about it horrifies me. Everyone there is so thin, and no one is eating the gourmet food on her plate. There are skinny mirrors on your way out. You know, throwing up your food is not healthy, just as obesity isn’t healthy.

I’m always saying I have the greatest respect for whatever size a woman is. We can work with whatever we have. To larger women who want to feel good about their bodies, I’m always talking about the opera divas—those big, beautiful, proud women who are so sexy and powerful. It’s ridiculous that a woman with that kind of build wouldn’t celebrate it. I know I find curves attractive on women, and most of the men I know do, too.

Of course, I also want people to be healthy. The girth issue in America is not about the clothes. You can dress the opera divas, and they can look great. It’s about health. I know how hard it is to lose weight when you drive everywhere and fast food is so cheap. For what I pay for a deli wrap sandwich across the street, I could go to McDonald’s twice, and that makes a big difference if you don’t have a huge food budget. But you have to find a way to stay healthy no matter what your budget is, whether that means exercise or cooking fresh food.

If a very overweight woman asks me to dress her body, I will say, “You can’t remain 450 pounds. Forget about picking the best clothes for your size; we can always help you look your prettiest, but it’s just not healthy to weigh that much.”

For the last three seasons, I’ve worked with finalists of
The Biggest Loser,
helping the contestants to dress their new bodies. They’re still not small, but they’re certainly half the size they were. And they are so much healthier. But they are faced with a fashion conundrum, because most of them haven’t even been in a department store in years. They’ve just been home in their sweatpants. Now that they have so many decisions to make, they find the amount of choice almost debilitating.

These inspiring individuals are wonderful to work with, but I will say the men are often very difficult. They don’t want to try anything new. They don’t know what looks good on them, and they get into ruts. They don’t want anything that remotely fits. “It’s too confining!” they cry. “It’s too constraining!”

I have to say to them, “Listen, sister. Get over it. That’s what it feels like when a pair of pants fit.”

I’m always shocked by how conservative people can be when it comes to their looks. The worst hairdo ever was the eighties puffy bangs. It wasn’t good then, but everyone had it, so you could kind of forgive it. Now there are no excuses.

When I did
The Oprah Show
recently, I helped do makeovers on seven men. They were great with the clothes, totally game. But oh my, when the grooming people came in, it was another story. “You’re not touching a hair on my head!” they yelled. “You’re not touching a hair on my face!” As if they looked so incredibly fantastic being hairy like that.

I am always shocked by that kind of attitude. We’re talking about
hair,
folks. It grows back! If you want to be Grizzly
Adams again, you can. But I’ve noticed that when people take the risk, they often like what they find. In the case of one man on
Oprah,
there was a whole new person under all that hair, and he was actually pretty hot!

I said this on
Oprah:
If Mother Nature had her way, men and women would both turn into a giant bush. You have to pay attention to the messages you’re sending out. I think unruly facial hair shows insecurity, or a real disregard for one’s image.

Nose hair is a plague on our culture. Men need to keep in mind that there’s hair growing from
everywhere
. Tweezing, waxing … there are tools—little electric things can be put into ears and noses. It’s not painful. Everyone needs an additional mirror to help see these things. In our city, we spend a lot of time standing cheek by jowl with others, and it’s hard not to notice when a bush is growing out of someone’s ear.

These guys I met on
Oprah
were in their late thirties, early forties, and still wearing clothes from college. It was a Peter Pan complex, basically. They didn’t want to grow up.

I see parents dressing like their children sometimes, and it disturbs me. When we do fashion shows at malls and the juniors’ items come out, I deliver the opposite of a parental advisory warning. I say, “If you are over the age of sixteen, look away! These clothes are not for you.”