Dear Luv Doc,
I just moved to Austin in December and have found that the dress code in my office is much more relaxed than it was in New York. Any suggestions on where I might get some cool, casual office clothes?
– Overdressed
In the words of Oscar Wilde, “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” Those are decent words to live by in most situations, but there are plenty of examples that prove otherwise: Louis XVI probably wished he had reined in the foppery a bit, and you have to think David Foster Wallace might have been better served if he had watched more Jackass, Geraldo, and Jerry Springer. In Austin, people tend to dress down a bit for pretty much one reason only: It’s effin’ hot. No one will necessarily call you out for wearing a fancy full-length fur coat or worsted wool knickerbockers (which, I am told, are quite popular in the Empire State), but regardless of what your employee handbook states, Austin’s climatological dress code highly encourages bikinis, banana hammocks, and baby oil. Just call that the bare minimum. This may seem a bit outrageous and hyperbolic now, but you’ve only been here since December. Wearing anything made of wool in the summer in Austin is like walking around covered in sweaty fiberglass. There is only one true fabric (well, other than the spandex that outlines your junk) in Austin: cotton. Synthetics, regardless of their myriad features, are, in the dead of summer, basically funk sponges. As of yet, no chemist has concocted a detergent strong enough to fully leech the unholy union of crotch stank, pit musk, and body odor from cheap polyester. Cotton, however, with enough detergent and bleach, comes out fresh every time. That’s why it’s the staple of the South – the preferred fabric of Jesus and Gandhi. Those dudes were chill because they weren’t wearing fucking polyester. So, where to find the best cotton clothing? It’s everywhere, but if you’re looking for cheap, serviceable, cool clothing (and by “cool” I mean that it breathes – the other cool comes from the wearer, not the clothes) the best place to go is Goodwill. I know what you’re thinking: Dead people’s clothes? Yeah, maybe that’s sketch if you’re buying dead people’s polyester because that shit is haunted by dead people’s aromas, but even if the cotton T-shirt you’re buying is riddled with bloody bullet holes, it will still wash up fresh as the morning dew with the right detergent. Jesus would have called that resurrection. The Luv Doc calls that a bargain.
This article appears in April 20 • 2012.
