What you choose to wear this morning might date and, even more alarmingly, define you. So open those closet doors, nervously flick your fingers across the coat hangers, and ponder . . . will history be kind to me or harsh?

Fashion victims, we used to call everyone who made it a point to keep up with the latest in acceptable attire.

By “we” I mean us Boy Tigas-es in the 70s and 80s who used to adhere to another possibly misguided truism: “Tough guys don’t dance.” Yes, we the wall cacti just wore denims and simple tees every day, even at parties. And it had nothing to do with lack of a clothing allowance.

It was more of a stance, as it still is today, when throwbacks to “rugged individualism”—by way or not of existentialism or bohemianism—still prevail in any demographic cluster.

Funny thing is, the tee-and-denims class makes up the overwhelming majority in our society of class divides, with urban and rural tricyclists clad in Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron muscle tees (not jerseys, as they’re fake!) running a strong second.

Eras are transcended, of course. Even the advent of the metrosexual had a precedent.

The unisex beauty parlor only recalls the 1950s generation of our fathers who belonged to what was then called the Escolta Walking Corporation—that breed of dashing young men, post-war, who went around in sharkskin pants and “tango” shoes (Florsheim was the Cadillac for feet).

When they appeared on the streets in virtual whiteface, they were jokingly called “bopol,” from polvo, which they might have had a Korinna Sanchez type of surfeit after turning away from the mirror.

Now, did Andres Bonifacio really roll up his red pants as is often depicted? He belongs to an age, but wasn’t even aged then, and he couldn’t have read T.S. Eliot and strolled on the beach, daring to eat a peach.

Nick Joaquin, who dismissed all notions of Ka Andy as a plebeian, wrote a long poem titled “Men Without Hats” that lamented a bygone era. One of his dear friends, the artist Danny Dalena, in turn issued a nativist fashion statement by going around the metro, high-digs events and all, in wooden clogs or bakya, and a sambalilo or woven hat.

Now, we shouldn’t say that Danny Boy was a fashion victim; in adopting a unique, singular stance, rather was he a style setter. That no one followed his lead is of no consequence.

“Tanginamo andaming nagugutom sa mundo fashionista ka pa rin!” Now that was an album title of Radioactive Sago Project led by poet-performer Lourd de Veyra. Only recently, he disabused some fellow-poets’ mistaken take that they were referencing Tim Yap or the self-styled Sea Princess. The likes of, maybe, although neither did Lourd allow that concession.

“Clothes make the man” remains the counter-affidavit for fashion styling or simple propriety. Yes, I myself would subscribe to that, if it means having to wear anything that’s Cory yellow to an Ateneo-De La Salle basketball game. Metro bisexuals at the Big Dome we may not be, but we are men for others. 

And so it goes, from Marcos’ shirt-jac through the days of hablon and the barong with the Nehru collar. Or rewind farther back to when shindigs and barn dances (long before the soiree) meant having to go echo-derecho for maong at R.M. Manlapat and evening pants at After Six.

These days even my hip-hopper son may be said to be a fashion victim, since he eschews all my efforts to take him to Prince Philip, preferring to shame me outside our door when he steps out in his vestigial wardrobe: seven-year-old trousers with kadiri frayed cuffs that drag like a trousseau, and a waistline seven inches more than appropriate, so that his boxer shorts can be seen below the navel and sacral dimple.  

We used to call those carconcillos, those boxers. And of course there was the Lo’ Waist Gang with a young FPJ, long before Erap pulled a Dalena or Sea Princess with an orange wristband. 

Despite concerns over being accused of relative degrees of wimpishness, we too have caught on to trends of the times: read defining wear. From black Elpo to Converse to Nike game rubbers, from espadrilles to Crocs and Sanuks, we have been either victims or heroes. Well, a victim if you actually went into a Nike store, a class hero if you settled for Greenhills.

If clothes make the man (though a book not its cover), as that foppish Englishman said, and if his milieu has the Ascot opening season for a display of feathered headdresses, then we have the SONA so our women of substance abuse can show off. Hey, I didn’t say in fuchsia or magenta. 

But there was Sen. Jamby in green, which is just as well, cuz the Archers from Taft won’t take the crown this season. And there was Sen. Loren, who is equally palatable in backless ballroom gown or while checking out carbon footprints in a forest in white polo and blue jeans. I wish someone had invited Anne Curtis, though, to assure the Batasan Hall of a higher incidence of style points and mavenhood, let alone concupiscence.

Gone are Imelda’s big-hair days, you say? With bated breath must we await Darna’s latest incarnation. How does Marian Rivera keep her headgear in the air, and how much cleavage would her bodice allow as her body plunges to our earth? 

Style need not always be equated with fashion, however. There is a certain disingenuous style to Noynoy Aquino that appeals to the non-trapo in most of us. A style of governance, we also sometimes say. So whatever the mode, it can’t be likened to a trend or the latest in keeping up or honest, that is, with statements of assets and liabilities.

Tweeting and/or Facebook-ing upon waking has no bearing on style, unless one means lifestyle, which is simply the way one does certain things, whether or not it draws attention for its charming or disgusting particularity, or provokes contentions on either aesthetic or moral measure.

Times change. So does style, despite that “meme chose . . . ” maxim the French like to repeat (“the more things change,” etc.). 

John Stockton shorts have gone the way of John Stockton, and even Barack O. wears baggy biggies to honor Dolphy’s purontongs when he plays hoops. But B.O. remains a fashionplate, since he’s tall and slim. And it’s said, probably by the Germans, that the more gaunt a man looks, the more stylish he can carry his striped outfit, or the tattoo number on his chest.

As for Web blogs (and Twitter and Facebook), they’re not a matter of style, but have all to do with zeitgeist. Speaking of which, the howl over the latest declared National Artists has nothing to do with Ramon Valera thence Pitoy Moreno gaining their honors as haute careerists. 

Our poet and great writer, who urged for a return to headwear in these tropical Gothic isles, may have the last laugh. Discern his conviction at a Cubao Expo exhibit; apart from this, Freeway has launched a Nick Joaquin Fall Collection of tunics, blouses, and men’s T-shirts with his poems and story excerpts printed on them, in supreme tribute. 

Oh, but should we then expect the “Massacre look” with caps and vests in the future, to honor such a one as Carlo Caparas? Only time can tell, but be very afraid. There is such a thing, scary thing, as estilong baduy,
after all.