I was drinking coffee on Sunday morning watching Sophie color at the kitchen table while Jackson played on his iPad when Lauren walked into the room and saw me. Dark jeans, gray henley, flannel jacket. Like I always wear. Except my flannel jacket is probably older than my marriage and luckily soft and worn in all the right places.
She looked at me over Sophie’s crayon box and shook her head.
“Darling,” she said with a smile that knew full well she wasn’t being nice anymore, “when did you last look at yourself in the mirror? You don’t mean stare and contour-check every angle, just look—I mean, when did you last see yourself?”
It’s not a fair question. Every morning I throw on whatever clean shirt and pants aren’t otherwise committed to getting destroyed by breakfast food and kid-related spills. Last week Sophie pulled her spaghetti plate down and got sauce all over my sleeve before I even finished my coffee. The week before that Jackson tracked mud across my shoulder on his way out to the car. My style motto these days is “what doesn’t show dirt and can be tossed in the washing machine?”
“I look fine,” I told her, which was very obviously the wrong move.
She sat down at the kitchen table opposite me and pushed the crayon box aside. “What if I picked out your entire week’s outfits? Let’s see what happens.”
Lauren used to manage retail stores before we had kids. She’s responsible for breaking me into chinos years ago after convincing me those “dad jean” cargo shorts from college were firing me from the grown-up men team. She still lets me wear my flannel jacket—but letting her pick out my entire week’s wardrobe felt like…losing.
“I refuse,” I told her. “Forty-one-year-old men can wear what they want.”
“Can they though?” Lauren asked, gesturing to my jacket. “Because that thing is older than both of our kids and you’ve been wearing it twice a week for the last month.”
She wasn’t wrong. I had noticed that hole last week but had constantly told myself I was going to…. Get back to that. The point is that Lauren knows me too well. My entire approach to dressing these days is comfort/fits with everything/I hope it doesn’t embarrass my kids when they bring their friends home.
But she had her stare down. You know the one. Where your wife has already decided she’s going win this argument, so why prolong the inevitable?
“Fine,” I caved. “One week. But only because I have to see Sophie and Jackson this weekend, and I will never let you do this with my work clothes.”
“That’s fair,” she agreed. “But only because you promised.”
Fair warning: Lauren took notes on her phone when we talked about this. Later that night she went through my closet like she was trying to solve a crime. “How many gray t-shirts does a man need?” She flipped through my closet and found three. “And why on Earth do you own three pairs of khakis that are exactly the same color?”
“They’re not the same,” I defended. “This pair’s more tan colored. These are actually khaki. And these…”
“They’re gray,” Lauren interrupted. “Charcoal gray. Stop buying new pants that are basically the same thing you already own!”
She’s not wrong. Again.
She dug through my closet for an hour, pulling up shirts and judging how they fit in the light. “Half the stuff you own is too big for you,” she said. “You’re not fat but you don’t dress like the you that’s only gained twenty pounds since Jackson was born.”
Sunday night Lauren picked out Monday’s outfit for me and hung it on our bedroom chair like I was five years old. Nice pair of navy slacks (that I owned but would never wear on a regular basis because “They’re too nice to wear doing dad things”) paired with a light blue button-up shirt instead of my default gray henley and a maroon sweater instead of gray. Shoes were brown leather things I’ve had forever but refused to wear “because white pants aren’t in season.”
“I feel like I could still wear this to work,” I protested happily.
“Nope,” she said smiling. “We start here, but I promise you’ll notice everything fits you so much better.”
I spent Monday morning getting dressed, then catching a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror that stopped me cold. Huh. Did I really look different? I mean, sure, I wore a sweater and the shirt wasn’t gray—but everything looked sharper than usual. The sweater was softer than most of what I owned, the pants weren’t swallowed up by my fat rolls in the waist, the whole outfit just….matched? It still felt like me. Just a neater version.
All day at work people kept commenting that I looked “different.” clean” or “nice.” One of the girls in marketing—I think her name was Sarah or she works mainly with Alex—commented that I looked “sharp” when I walked by her desk. Mike, who’s been with the company longer than anyone and doesn’t say more than hello to me on a normal day stopped me in the hallway to say, “nice sweater.” And best of all? My boss David—who spends every Monday morning meeting trying to escape into his laptop—actually looked up from his screen and said “looks like someone wore a real shirt today, Patrick.” New clothes.
I told Lauren about it when I got home and she laughed. (“Obviously it worked, dummy.”) But you know what? It felt nice to feel like I put effort into something and have people notice. The effort wasn’t mine, sure. But still.
Tuesday Lauren pushed me even more. Dress pants again (that Lauren insisted were just “slacks”) but gray this time, and more fitted than I would have picked on my own. White button-up, navy blazer I forgot I had, brown shoes replaced with black oxfords I “needed to wear to work.”
“I feel like I’m going into a job interview,” I complained after dressing.
“You look like you take dressing yourself seriously,” Lauren countered. “There’s a difference.”
And she was right, but man did it feel weird dressing up for work like that. Like people were gonna judge me or something. But they didn’t. They loved it. Mike from shipping, who often asks if I’ve “lost more weight” started holding the door for me. The building custodian—who I’ve been avoiding eye contact with since he finally gave up on fixing our broken printer—welcomed me into the office with a handshake. Even our HR lady Janet waved and asked about my weekend instead of just giving me the once-over like normal.
Lunchtime I text Lauren: Are people treating me differently because I got new clothes?
She texts back Yeah, men. It’s called dressing for success.
Wednesday was nearly a breaking point. Lauren’s outfit included pants that were….tight. I actually had to suck in my gut to zip them up. I complained all the way downstairs.
“These are basically skinny jeans,” I griped as Lauren buttoned the top button on my shirt.
“No they’re not,” Lauren laughed. “They’re just fitted. Stop wearing everything three sizes too large!”
I told you she wasn’t wrong.
She paired thatLook with a black t-shirt that was softer than anything else in my drawer, a light gray blazer, and even white sneakers she “strongly suggested” I buy to complete the outfit. Everything about it was more modern-looking than my typical work style.
I felt insanely self-conscious walking into work that day. Like everyone was going to look at me funny for dressing like some sort of outsider. But instead people actually complimented me. Not nothin,’ real compliments. My boss’s boss—who I see once every six months—stopped me in the hallway to ask where I got that blazer.
Wednesday afternoon David pulled me into his office. I assumed to chew me out about something (the Morrison file?? Quarterly projections?? IDK, guys have meetings for that stuff.) He shut the door behind me and started…
Offering me a promotion.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about developing a senior project manager role here,” David said. “Someone who can help out with the larger accounts, take on some of the client-facing meetings, that sort of thing. You interested?”
I stared at him. Of course I was interested. I’m awesome at my job and I’ve been here for ages…but come on. That was unexpected. “Um, what prompted this?” I asked.
David leaned back in his chair. “Honestly? I don’t know how else to say this—you’ve been dressing like a damn million bucks all week. You’re walking taller, you’re smiling more. I hate that vanity stuff…but you know what? People notice when you take pride in how you look. Everyone who walks into that building thinks you’re the manager now.”
I floated out of his office and immediately called Lauren at work.
“I got a promotion because I looked nice,” I bragged.
“You guys worked hard,” she replied. “And when you blog about style you talk about how dressing well increases confidence all the time. You’ve just never believed it when you preach it to other people.”
Thursday and Friday were even more fun. Thursday Lauren went full black on me. Jeans, t-shirt, black bomber jacket I bought on clearance and still haven’t worn. It was basic as hell but put together in a way my normal stuff never does. Friday was Lauren-approved “smart casual.” Dark jeans, chambray shirt, sport coat with a very subtle plaid pattern that I owned but obviously never wore.
I probably wouldn’t have even noticed how crappy my old clothes looked by Friday if Lauren didn’t pull me aside at lunch and say, “Okay, that was just three days. But did you notice how people have reacted to you all week?”
She was right, of course. I had literally coworkers coming up to me to tell me how great I looked. The barista at my coffee shop giving me a genuine smile when he handed me my usual order. The other dads at Jackson’s soccer practice asking where I got that shirt when we were picking our kids up.
Dinner that Friday night included me complaining about dressing nicely.
“So you admit it,” Lauren laughed while scraping potato peels off Sophie’s plate. “People did treat you differently.”
“I know they did,” I sighed, cutting up chicken nuggets for Sophie. “The whole experiment was right. But doesn’t that suck? Clothes really made that much of a difference at work?”
Lauren paused, wiping Sophie’s face with a towel. “I don’t think you got respected more at the office because you suddenly started dressing nice. I think you told people something different about yourself. You’ve always been detail-oriented and pride yourself on doing good work, but you weren’t showing that when you strolled into work in your stained shirt and baggy sweats. Now you do. And that matters.”
Okay, yeah. Lauren was right. And bonus—I didn’t even miss wearing my old crap clothes after Thursday. In fact…
“How do you think you’d look in a button down and slacks on Monday?” Lauren asked me.
I thought about it, still cutting up nuggets. “I kind of like those.”
We made a deal. Lauren picked out four “base” outfits for me—including nice shirts and fitted pants that didn’t require a belt—and I wore those Monday through Thursday this week. Took Friday off because…pajama pants. Laundry day.
I stood in my closet on Monday morning pondering what to wear when I spotted my old staple—a pair of gray khakis and gray henley that I’ve worn more than any other outfit in the last decade. Grabbed it, then hesitated.
And then I tossed it back on the shelf and reached for one of Lauren’s outfit combos instead. Gray slacks, a white button-up shirt, gray blazer. Threw on a pocket square Lauren added to Thursday’s outfit last minute.
Looking in the mirror I spotted a version of myself that I liked. Put-together without trying too hard. Confident, but still me.
I snapped a selfie in the mirror and text it to Lauren on my way out.
“I see you learned,” she replied. We clearly still have work to do on your pocket square folds…
