I swear that I’m never going to figure this out. Apparently this colour combination…
is not manly.
I asked Joe, the manliest of men, his opinion this morning. He said that “he wouldn’t wear it”, and also that is was “a funny green”. Joe is not a good barometer for manly colour though, he is so firmly imbedded at the straight-newfoundlander-man end of the colour sense scale that you can’t rely on him for any sort of realistic vision of what other men might find acceptable. Joe’s personal rules for colour combining are as follows.
1. He will wear any colour as long as it is grey, black, dark blue or brown. Deep murky green may also be acceptable as long as it is so dark as to be indistinguishable as a colour.
2. He will not wear a garment that combines two colours, even if those colours appear on the acceptable colour list. Exceptions may be made for subtleties, like black stitching on a grey shirt, but this is pretty dodgy.
3. Although it should be obvious from point #2, Joe will not wear stripes. In fact if Joe sees another man wearing stripes he will often giggle to himself and mumble things like “whoa..what’s HE thinking”.
4. Joe will not wear garments that are too tight (you know, what most people would call “tailored”) and he will not wear garments that are too loose. These are not manly.
Inexplicably, Joe owns and wears a bright yellow raincoat with a silver stripe on it. It’s just a little curve ball that he throws in there to attempt to keep me a little confused for the duration of our entire marriage. Clearly I’m not taking his opinion on the sage green. I call my friend Ken. Ken sits firmly on the other end of the what-men-might-wear scale. Ken actually wears colour, and in combinations. He has even been known to be a little avant-garde with the colour thing…there were these yellow ochre pants. Very styling. In any event, I phoned Ken. I told him the colours, and he asked what they were for. “Clogs”, I reply. I know that I’m going to be vindicated. Any man who would wear an orange shirt and a Utilikilt isn’t going to shut me down. See, the key to getting support is knowing who to call.
“I dunno” ponders Ken. “On your feet? Men don’t really wear colour on their feet. There’s a line there with green…how dusty is the green?”
For crying out loud. I strangle back the urge to say things like “big talk from the man in the skirt” or “shut up…you’re probably wearing stripes…I can’t believe I called you”.
If somebody could just tell me what the rules are so I could nip down to the knitting shop and pick up a ball of something that doesn’t endanger the flow of testosterone around here I’d really appreciate it.
Yarn Harlot
There are no rules. You don’t need them. Just make it gray and all will be fine. I almost never buy anything for myself that isn’t gray, except jeans, of course. I like color, for other people. My graduate degree is in drawing and painting. All my work was about color. I only buy gray. It’s really simple. It’s hard to find a gray that’s just right though.
Okay, here’s nellie-boy’s list of manly colors…specifically for clogs.
If you’re making them for a man, and you’re making the two-color version, make sure both colors are the same weight (preferrably dark hues) and make the bumper/sole the darker of the two. Navy/Brown, Pine/Navy, Brown/Black (where the first color is the top and the second color is the sole). Clogs aren’t exactly masculine to begin with, so color selection is critical.
And I’m wearing a striped shirt with brown, brushed/combed cotton pants…giggle all you want.
Larry, you crack me up. I’m laughing all the way to the stash to look for some grey. Just the right grey though, nothing too “dove-grey”, that would be girlie, and not too light grey, we wouldn’t want it to be wishy-washy, and not too blue-grey, that could approach a colour.
and QueerJoe? I’m giggling, but not as much as your alter-ego “StraightJoe” is.
“Men don’t wear colour on their feet”?? Oh, fer cryin’ out loud… Why don’t mean realize there’s a reason that their girlfriends and wives try to make them wear colours. It’s because it turns us on! You’ll get more sex if you do. Trust me. Now go to the mall.
Oh, but since you’re novices, maybe bring a woman to help you the first couple of times or you might end up with something horrible. Like chartreuse. Yes, I know you don’t know what colour that is. don’t look it up. It’ll send you straight back to the shades of grey.
New reader to your blog… lovin’ it…
The manliest of man’s colors is grey. It clearly states, “Something is here, yes definitely something… but don’t go thinking about it!” For clogs I would go grey and sneak some color in on the bands and the bottom. Like black, or the dark green color lambs pride puts out- Ponderosa Pine.
You never know, though. My dh will wear solid blue oxford shirts at work with his jeans–green only occasionally, mostly if the laundry gets low. That’s it. And no patterns ever. And yet! About ten years ago I made myself a Kaffe Fassett coat. “These are large, but they drape beautifully on everyone,” sayeth Kaffe. Then I met the guy: he didn’t have to duck to go through the LYS’s door, but close. My 6’8″ guy looked at that big thing in 68 shades of wool and mohair and gleefully declared, “It fits me better than it fits you. Go make yourself another one!”
I did! In 86 colors for mine. So there. Just try to swipe this one! The sleeves are too short on his for him, but he doesn’t care. It is *his*! He jokes about not wearing it around his big brother; see what good it did Joseph? (Not you, Queerjoe, sorry, the original one.) And I shake my head, going, who are you and what did you do with dh? Well then don’t give him back!
JohnnyBoy (my husband) is not a nellie-boy, though he is often mistaken for one.
He is often horrified of wearing color, but, I find that if I point out that a certain color (we’re not talking cobalt or persimmon or melon, by the way, more like maroon or hazel-ish green or brown) makes him look handsome, he’ll go for it.
If I told him Lisa McNulty said it made him look handsome, he’d even pay for it himself.
By de by, chartreuse happens to be one of my favorite colors.
Kaffe Fassett’s as well.
I would be tempted to ring up the local Clogs ‘R Us store and get their input. What is with colour and the male gender anyway? It seems that in nature the male birds or what have you are bold and sassy in their finery but the male human types? Hmmmmmmmmm. It’s food for thought.
Happy clogging btw. You will be offering a clogging interlude no? Just a few steps for those of us who are clog impaired? Clogging 101? Clogging for dummies?
The last alternative makes me want to sign up. Really. Truly. Now I have to go out and find the clogs. Oh wait. Is there a particular colour for beginner cloggers?
Regards to the big and little cloggers in your life.
mg will wear gray. He will also wear denim looking blue (he has a denim chamois shirt he loves) and khaki pants.
The only other color that he will happily wear is Burgundy. DEEEEP Burgundy. I have never tried to get him to wear green – but he might wear a dark pine.
Stripes are only acceptable if they are very narrow pinstripes and he has to wear office drag.
None of these rules apply to t-shirts. He will ANY t-shirt – his favorite one is tie died orange and yellow. Maybe tell him the clogs are t-shirts?
And this is a man who is so fucking secure in his sexuality that people of both sexes fall over trying to get him into bed. There are reasons I pick out all his clothes.
Ok, so now i need to make clogs-i thought i was fighting the copycat urge so well, but I was wrong.
Things must have changed since i lived in the US (west coast admittedly). I used to see men in colours no man would ever wear here in the UK (e.g. pink)-except my Dad, who’ll wear pretty much anything. But size is everything-his figure is his fortune-buy him something a trifle large and he will take umbrage.
Hee hee. Until I started dating D., I had _no_ idea how picky men are about their clothes, especially little teeny things, like how many buttons go on their suits. Listening to D. scoff at shirts that are “too purple” or sweaters that only “sharp” men wear is quite entertaining. He does accept a range of colors in his daily wear, but it’s mostly blues and dark greens, with a smattering of browns and burgandies. Maybe men are harkening back to days when they’d want to hide in the shadows of wild forests or something? 🙂
Ohmygod, so true! I was thumbing through the Green Mountain sweater book showing various sweaters to my spouse — “too girly” was his comment on just about every single one, except for a very basic sweater, in dark grey. Booring!
My partner will NOT wear shirts that have button-down collars, a placket down the front, or pocket(s) on the chest. Hello? There’s not much left in the men’s department!
And I’m using that exact “funny green” in a sweater for myself right now. 🙂
I read your post and could *not* stop laughing. Because my bf is the same way. If it isn’t grey (dark, preferably), blue (but only medium to dark, nothing..you know, *bright*), or black he won’t wear it. No stripes. No horizontal patterning. No multiple colors. Not too patterned. No V-necks.
I sat him down with the Sweaters for Men book and I think ONE of them passed muster– all the others were fatally flawed in some way–V neck, cardigan, striped, way too heavily patterned… and of course all the color-work ones were Right Out.
Anyway, thank you for brightening my morning.
Hey Stephanie,
Just working, or uh reading your archives… This seems to be related to something that happened with my husband. He went over to a friend’s house to help with landscaping, and they worked in the rain for many hours. My husband, Martin, did not ask to stop. He waited for the friend, Bruce, whose house it was to decide when to stop. Bruce appreciated this, and later told us it was a sign that Martin knew “the men’s code.” So, don’t let them tell you there isn’t a code. There. Is. One.