Clothes maketh the man wince

They say that “clothes maketh the man”. And if that is the case then clothes madeth me look rather foolish on Monday.


For when I arrived at work and as I settled down at my desk I realised something was not quite right.

I had a black jacket on but when I looked down I realised that my trousers were of a totally different colour – a lightish grey.

Yes, I had managed to put on a different part from two different suits and although I don’t think anyone else noticed (or at least I don’t think so but there may have been titters I didn’t hear), I did feel very self-conscious and for the rest of the day it was shirt sleeves all round. And even when I left I just had my jacket over my arm.

I suppose this is something that can happen to a lot of people but it was only when I thought of it later I realised that it wasn’t the first time that I’d made a mistake in the wardrobe department.

It is said that some people when it comes to dancing have two left feet. Well, on one occasion when I went to the gym so did I.

In a rush to pick up my kit for a gym assessment, I inadvertently grabbed two different trainers – both of which were for the same foot. I had no choice but to carry on because I had a pre-booked session with a trainer but I can tell you I would not recommend this to anyone and I think it is quite a “feat” that my squeezed tootsies managed to survive the session at all.

However, I must confess, there is one thing worse than forgetting the right clothes – and that is forgetting clothes altogether.

I can still vividly recall the time I decided to go swimming during a lunch break (all of this is making me sound very healthy, don’t you think?) and I duly turned up at the swimming pool, went into my changing cubicle, took off all of my clothes off and realised that I’d not brought any trunks. Or a towel.

I had picked up my work bag rather than my gym bag and so I was left naked in a cubicle where I realised, for the first time, that when you go red from embarrassment, it’s not just on your face . . .

So, I then faced the humiliating walk past an attendant who had seen me five minutes before getting ready to undress in a cubicle and then past a receptionist who also looked at me very strangely and must have thought “that was the quickest swim in history” – and also the only one not to have made someone’s hair wet.

It all goes to show, I guess, that how we look truly can affect how we feel and although it doesn’t matter a jot in the grand scheme of things if I had the wrong jacket on or two left trainers (OK, I admit it would have mattered a bit if I’d attempted to go skinny-dipping in a public pool), it does prove that what we wear affects our minds as well as our bodies.

Oh, and here’s a final thought about clothes. Considering many of us shop at the same shops and probably have very similar tastes, don’t you find it amazing as you walk round the streets to see how very few people ever truly look the same? Just look around and see what I mean – but perhaps not if you are reading this in North Korea.