Experimental Fashion Friday: It's Electric!

Attention: Due to a technical barrier that prevents Miss Stacia from loading new pictures to Collections are Dangerous via her work computer, Experimental Fashion Friday entries will now be posted a wee bit after their day of occurrence. Takes some of the fun out of it for sure, but don't blame Miss Stacia, blame The Man. And don't forget, your input is still welcome. Now...

Meet Ken Tailey.



Ken is a polished if fairly conservative dresser with a penchant for flat-front khakis and earth-tone sweaters. Every once in a while Ken gets saucy with the sweater selection, his upper half swathed in baby blue or punchy maroon, his lower half balancing the calculated fashion risk in a classic shade of golden sand.

A couple weeks ago, when Ken was brought up-to-date on Experimental Fashion Friday’s mission, he claimed ownership of a “neon green” sweater, promising to pull it out the following week. Alas, EFF came and Ken failed to flash electric green. As punishment I constructed a little Starship Enterprise symbol out of a post-it note and pinned it to his inadequate olive stand-in. Sitting behind his desk with his neatly clipped, side-parted coif, lacquered arm cast (a product of hand-to-hand combat with sell-side representatives) resting authoritatively on mounting stacks of research, Ken looked ready to command interstellar investment fleets to financial victory.

Hilarious, but still not quite experimental.

Ken was prepared to make it up to the Board of Experimental Fashion Friday however, dry cleaning the elusive sweater and sporting it with pride on the very first post-Cayman EFF. The knitwear, of a color not so much neon (neon = day-glo) as 1950's-kitchen-appliance lime, worked hard to broadcast EFF’s message of Bland Corporate Fashion Intolerance to the office.

The movement is spreading.

Better still, in a formidable display of Teammate Telepathy, Miss Marianne McCrann, coworker and Ken's occasional triathlon partner (the two won a race together back in the fall), happened to show up for work on Friday in a citrus-charged sweater of the exact same shade. Standing side-by-side the two analytical athletes melted together, a double popsicle stick of super-tart lime, wooden legs of pressed khaki jutting out from lickable green tops that matched right down to their accenting candy buttons.

Although wearing the EXACT same outfit as your co-worker pretty much negates the individuality component of EFF's objective, coincidences like this one are totally worth the sacrifice.



As for my own EFF ensemble, I chose to go with teal (or “Smurf blue” as coworker Julia McMattress tagged it) in the hopes that it would both complement my fleeting Cayman bronze and augment Kent’s “neon" motif. But the consensus was that my outfit as a whole was a success, surprisingly wearable, and therefore not truly experimental. My coworkers tend to look forward to my “fashion gone awry” moments more than my accidental streaks of fashion competence. No matter that no one has worn teal that bright inside 399 Park since 1987. Forget that my belt, purchased by my mother in her thirties during the original heyday of big buckles and elastic hip-wear, was last flaunted as part of my Halloween costume. Apparently my ensemble isn't experimental unless the sight of it activates the gag reflex.



Time for your weigh-in. Motherly support is encouraged.