This is a response to Weekend-engagement Week 145 Topic "One Piece : Do you have a favourite piece of clothing or pair of shoes? Take a photo and explain why it's a favourite item, you can be wearing it or just lay it out on the bed or something, get creative. You must use your own photos for this post of course and it must contain at least 250 words."
If you asked me even a couple of weeks back what was one piece of clothing that I would identify as my favourite, the answer sheet would have been blank. Because I didn't have one specific piece that is a favourite. There are a lot in my collection I like (of course, why else would I buy them - duh!), I have a few I dislike or never willing to try. But I just didn't have that one specific piece that is a favourite over all others.
But that was all up until just a week ago! A lot can change in a week eh?!
I will not keep any suspense and get straight to the point. It's a pair of plain white Jeans. This pair specifically.
Yep, that's me wearing it. I have another fantastic shot with it but I will save it for a future post, maybe something along the line that fits my own tag of #philosophicalshit (Shameless plug)!
Why has this pair become such a favourite of mine all of a sudden that I felt the need to dedicate a blog post to it?
The answer is a bit complicated and entangled within my head. I will see if I can untie the knots.
I actually hated white pants. No ifs, no buts - just plain hated it. There isn't another piece of clothing (except maybe a bright red shirt) that I just hated. Be it jeans, be it a formal pant, be it a gabardine. My dad was always advocating for it, he even bought a couple of pairs for me when I was in my teens. He always said white is a classy colour and I had no reason to hate them as much as I did. My father actually has an impeccable sense of fashion, I understand it now. I just didn't know better when I was a teen. It's just the age I suppose, you feel revolutionary towards everything your parents say. I did wear the ones my father bought and I didn't have the confidence to pull it off back then, I felt like a clown every time I wore them and I was grumpy!
I think this pair (the one you see above in the picture) serves me a reminder of two things - two very valuable life lessons. One, confidence is key (I will elaborate a bit on this later on in the post). Anything you do in life, if you're confident enough you can pull it off. You can do a better job when you wear an armor of confidence and that takes knowing your strengths and limitations, knowing your fears and insecurities and facing them chin up!
Two, there were a lot of valuable lessons planted in our younger years. I just didn't accept those lessons at that age because I didn't know better. This pair of white jeans is just a symbolic gesture to represent the seeds of the lessons sprouting leaves and realizations that come as I mature. I am sure I will, over the course of my life, understand a lot more valuable pieces of advice I was given in younger days - I will be actively searching for them in my memories!
Hmm, turns out this post could in fact use the #philosophicalshit tag!
Coming back to the point of confidence, when my wife and I were planning on the shopping for our trip - we decided we were going to get out of our comfort zone and try wearing newer, more standout getups! Things I don't usually try. And so I went as bold as it gets, I wasn't looking for anything subtle. I searched out loud. There was nothing holding me back and buying this white jeans was in fact the first bit of my shopping! I wasn't worried about how was I going to look. I just felt confident enough to wear it no matter what, and that was enough.
And the first time I put on the entire outfit, it all fell into place like pieces of jigsaw. My wife loved it! It didn't take me long to realize how dumb I was to not have fallen in love with a pair of crisp white jeans. And I haven't felt this confident about an attire in a long long time as I have with this.
Has a very "wolf of wall street" vibe, don't you think! 😉
To give you an Idea of how much I liked it - I am actually going to go and buy another pair of this exact jeans this coming week just to have it in stock!