The Black Hole of Fashion

I fully expect, at some point in the image consult process, to be told that I am terminal, that there’s no hope for me. Perhaps it will come later this week when I get the results of my body analysis. Once everything is punched in to Kathryn’s computer program I expect that something will be spit out like the following:

• You are not proportional unless you’re a platypus
• No clothes in existence match your body type
• You may not use the word “style” in a sartorial sense
• “Colour”, as a concept, does not work for you, so;
• Wear a lot of black, and,
• Stand in the dark whenever possible. Alone.

I’m getting a little concerned for Kathryn. It’s all right for me to be an amorphous blob, as I have been one for a long time now. In her case, she quite innocently agreed to this idea prior to meeting me, assuming that I was not a grotesque and misshapen freak of nature. I imagine that she has been calling all her image consultant friends, who then express disbelief when she recites my body statistics. A partial list of their suspected comments:

• “Kathryn, you’re such a kidder!”
• “I think your measuring tape is broken”
• “Were you drinking?”
• “Is this a platypus?”
• “Oh. My. God.”

Full on face transplant has not yet been discussed. I presume she imagines that attention to my hair will address the crime that is my visage. This is a head of hair that has sent many otherwise competent stylists weeping. I don’t know why. It seems like nice hair. I wash it daily and pretty much leave it alone otherwise, as it has proven to be uncooperative with my efforts, doing whatever it wants regardless of my persuasion to do something else. I pick my battles.

The sum total of my experiences so far have been thus (I wanted to do three bulleted lists today, and I will not be deterred):

• Williams Coffee Pub has good takeout coffee
• It’s been a nice, sunny day each time I’ve met with Kathryn
• The view from her studio is great
• There are improvements available to me to be made
• Kathryn thinks she can make them
• I have an unholy love for sleeveless t-shirts and bandannas
• I’m afraid. I’m very, very afraid.
• I can’t turn back. I need material.

Compelling? Perhaps not. But the juggernaut is in motion. All aboard the Platypus Express.