I know, I know.
It's a V-neck.
I thought the same thing once I got home and pulled this T-shirt out of its carrier bag to try it on for the first time.
It's a bloody V-neck.
You see, I'm a bloke, and as such "going shopping" is actually just a "trip to a shop". If I notice that one of my consumables has entirely depleted or I've destroyed one of my core possessions through some poorly reasoned shenanigans, I will purposefully leave the house seeking to replace them. I achieve this by traveling as little as possible, identifying the brand I'm comfortable with as quickly as possible and buying it outright as thoughtlessly as possible. As a man, I am fundamentally uninterested in looking around for deals, comparing prices from other retailers, having a loyalty card, sampling new flavours, registering to the newsletter, buying one and getting one free, ordering one in, returning one, refunding one, exchanging one and especially... trying one on for size.
I know my size.
It hasn't changed in years - it's always the same.
I deplore the idea of getting dressed to leave the house, only to enter a stranger's curtained booth that offers all the privacy of a West End stage, and undress myself all over again.
If I buy something that doesn't fit, the shop and its inability to markup sizing correctly are entirely to blame. I am more than happy to continue my days inside underwear that's too small and jeans that are too long.
I can't be doing with trying things on.
However there have been instances where that didn't work out so well.
On one occasion last summer I'd just left a meeting with one of my T-shirt design clients and all the talk about creative tee illustration combined with the beverages we'd shared whilst discussing creative tee illustration, amounted to me taking to the highstreet, unsupervised, to embark on a most unwarranted, impromptu T-shirt spree. For Day 166 of my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge I am wearing one of the T-shirts that resulted from that spree; this blue/grey Bench number with elaborate orange, grey and white printed illustrations, sourced from TK Maxx.
So captivated was I with the imagery - a complex layering of Bench's typical architectural rhetoric, interwoven with more graphical text and geometric elements to create an overall industrial feel - I completely overlooked the grotesquely mutated neckline; that horrific pointy plunge that could potentially realign my social standing to that of those morons you see wearing deck shoes in bars in central London in the middle of the afternoon.
Had I have tried the tee on, and not been drunk when I bought it in the first place, I wouldn't now have to be shopping for deck shoes.
