Fancy Pants

When I was 25, I bought my first designer suit.

It was expensive. It was mail order.

And it did not fit.

It was also a tuxedo.

I’d worn a tuxedo exactly four times in my life, and I thought, despite the fact that tuxes were only $100 dollars to rent, that I should buy one—and it should cost over two thousand dollars.

I found a website that sold deeply-discounted designer clothing to fools like me, made room on my credit card, and bought the tuxedo.

It arrived. I tried it on.

And then I wept.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t sit down. The pants were way too tight.

You know when you’re trying to stuff a sleeping bag into a flimsy sack, and you stuff in one side but it comes slipping out the other? That’s what getting my thighs into these pants felt like. This suit was built for an Italian soccer player: someone thin, strong, and slicked up with olive oil. I was built more like an Italian wrestler: shaped like an over-stuffed sausage.

The tuxedo collected dust in my closet for several years while I resolved and re-resolved to lose a few pounds. This was clearly not a high priority since I’d reduced my daily pasta intake by approximately zero percent. Thankfully, I also hadn’t been invited to any black-tie events.

I decided to go to a tailor, who surely could fix anything! Tailors are modern-day magicians. Well, I guess magicians would be modern-day magicians, but tailors are still magical. They have an uncanny ability to make us feel good. I’m not vain, but if I don’t look my best, I don’t feel my best.

I researched the best tailor in Seattle, didn’t make an appointment, and showed up.

***

I open the door and enter the tailor’s shop, silent except for the hushed whispers of the tailor and his client, a well-heeled man in his late 50s which, in Seattle, translates to a Patagonia-wearing-Volvo-driver in his late 50s.

The door closes behind me. There’s no tinkle of a bell, nothing to indicate anyone’s entrance or exit. No one acknowledges my presence. Must be fancy. If I’ve learned nothing else in my time on this planet, I’ve learned that the fancier a store is, the less warm and welcoming its people are. Take the French, for example: They’re the fanciest in the whole world—French peasants dress better than American royalty—but have a reputation for being cool and unwelcoming, thumbing their aquiline but very fancy noses at the world.

I can see the tailor doing tailor-like things to Mr. Patagonia. They speak in that particular sotto voce that every tailor speaks in. I imagine a tailor hailing a cab. He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t wave his arm. He just suavely lifts a hand, as if absent-mindedly measuring the air, and a taxi appears.

I don’t know if they’ve noticed me. I’ve been in this guy’s entryway for what feels like two days, and nothing.

I work up the courage to say something. “Hello?”

Without looking up from his chalk mark he waves me over to the seating area. Must be French. Must be fancy.

Finally, it’s my turn.

“What can I help you with?”

“I need you to make this fit.” I hold up the suit in case he wasn’t sure what I meant by “this.”

“Put it on, fatty,” he says with a smirk. He knows exactly how this charade is going to end but, like a commuter rubbernecking to catch the roadside accident, he can’t resist the carnage.

After a brief and feverish struggle with the pants, I come out of the changing room. I feel like a nervous debutant trying on her gown for the first time, timid but pretty. And sweaty.

“You got any ice water?” I ask. “Maybe a towel to dab my forehead?”

He chuckles. “Okay, hop on up.”

I step onto the dais like a robot learning to walk. I don’t want anything to tear. “There are mirrors,” I say. “I can see your eyes rolling.”

“How do they feel?” he asks.

“A little tight.” My voice is several octaves higher than when I walked in.

He circles the platform, investigating the pants. He grabs the fabric of the fly with far too much confidence and speed for my comfort. “Really? Button fly? I thought we got rid of these in the Middle Ages.”

Button flies were fancy. These pants were fancy. Surely he would know that since he was a fancy tailor. “Yeah,” I say, “I didn’t know that when I bought them.” This was a complete lie. When I Googled Fancy Tuxedo, I also added With Button Fly.

He brings over a chair. “Sit.”

“I’m good,” I say. The pants wouldn’t survive me taking another step, let alone sitting down.

“I need to see how tight they are when you sit.”

“I think we both know they’re tight.”

He points at the chair. I step down, holding my breath so I don’t blow out the pants and say a quick prayer to whatever saint is in charge of making sure pants don’t explode.

I sit.

The pants make a soft noise that, if I spoke pants, would translate to, “Oh God, why!?” I’m still holding my breath.

“Hmm,” he says, squinting as he investigates the seams, “these are really tight, mostly in the thigh.”

“Yeah.” I gasp for air.

“I have several Seattle Seahawks as clients.”

“Great!” Is my face blue?

“You have thighs like them.”

“Okay!” I’m going to pass out.

“You have thighs like their offensive linemen.”

That feels unnecessary.

“But the upper body of a cubicle worker.”

“So what does that mean for me?”

“I can’t let these out far enough to fit your—thunder thighs. You’re going to have to return them.”

“You knew that the moment I walked in here, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why’d you have me try them on?”

“I couldn’t resist. You know when you drive down the freeway and there’s an accident?”

“Rubberneckers. Yeah. I know. Is there nothing you can do for these pants? For me?”

“You could lose weight.” He looks down at my thighs, "Like a lot of weight. I think you’ll have an easier time returning the suit and getting a bigger one.”

He clearly doesn’t know that I had bought the suit from one of the fanciest online clothing stores that doesn’t offer returns or refunds, let alone that I am determined to lose enough weight to fit into this suit.

“Okay!” I waddle back to the changing room and slip out of the suit, and by “slip out of” I mean I spend 20 minutes sliding them down my legs inch by inch until my legs were free. The strain marks on the pants are visible. As are the strain marks on my pride.

***

I would go on to keep the suit for years, transporting it from home to home, always looking at it the same way I looked at the extra pounds on my body that kept me from fitting into it: “You’re still here?”

Eventually I would sell the tuxedo for pennies on the dollar, to some other fool with a dream of being someone he’s not constructed to be. 

I’m happier now, though not necessarily lighter. And I’m okay with that because that’s part of growing up: realizing you can lose the last 10 pounds, but won’t.