Shirt

I'm looking for a shirt for a difficult friend. He spends more on shirts than I possibly could. So there's that. It must be something he wouldn't think of himself but something he'd wear if given him. He is extremely particular. I figure a summer shirt is sort of a throw away thing anyway. It's not so important as a dress shirt.

I do know one of his favorite ties was a Hermes that I've only seen once. It was standard dark blue with diagonal lines and with tiny repeated blue/red/white pattern of Napoleon just standing there. But instead of his hand shoved into his shirt as they did, his hand is shoved into his pants. And you have to look very closely to see it or else all that you see is a tiny repeated Napoleon. And he wore that to work quite a lot because the overall look was standard club tie.

And I do know a favorite shirt of his is dark with repeated paisley pattern. It's a very rich looking complex shirt although only short sleeve. I've seen him wear that same shirt a few times.

I see this person only once a year at most. He is aging and extremely isolated. He no longer does all things he once did. Second guessing him is nearly impossible. But I did manage to pull this off last year and I'd like to repeat it this year.

He is Scandinavian. Pale skin and light brown hair now mostly gray. He looks a bit like Edward Kennedy but paler.

I know, right?

With teeth that spread outward like a fan. Just a bit.

I noticed a bunch of men modeling on Zappos, I think, and they all looked bogus and absurd in light colored shirts. Except one wearing a dark shirt. He was the least model-like, the messiest guy, unshaven, a total mess, but his dark shirt stood out among all of the rest in a group. So I bought the dark shirt. And that worked. Later when I went over there he was all, "I'm wearing your shirt" and I was all, pfft, eh. But it worked. He pointed out the length worked and the pattern worked. He liked it. And he wore it.

But now I'm thinking a light shirt for summer. Maybe white. And I still want an unusual pattern. Not a regular pattern. I saw one that is excellent but there is only one size XXL and that's just too big. Too bad. It's a light colored shirt with print of skaters falling all over the place. But you have to look closely to see them.

That would have been perfect.

Too bad.

I looked at thousands of shirts at Nordstrom's Rack. They have ridiculously marked up shirts reduced to regular cost. And they are all very good shirts. You can narrow down the search to patterns, short sleeve, mens, etc. Their results are a bit repeat-y. You can buy shirts originally over $100.00 for much less. They're all over the board. But so far I haven't gone wrong even once.

More of this sort of thing.

You can buy very expensive shirts for a lot less but still rather high. Like $150.00 down to $60.00 or so.  I notice the best prints are subtle. So subtle that you don't even know they're a print until you look very closely. But I want something weird, not something a bit uncommon but still rather traditional. I want to avoid everything traditional.

This would be perfect. It's patterned but subtle. It's long. It's boxy, not thin or tapered. It's pattern is almost non-existent. 

Too subtle. It's not actually a pattern. And it is too dark. Now I want white, not this dark. But this would still work. Too bad it's uninteresting. It doesn't have any unique personality. The guy doesn't work anymore so he doesn't have to be careful. 

In fact, he doesn't even socialize that much anymore. So it's possible to step a little bit beyond normal. 

Last year I bought this one for myself and I like it a lot. It's instantly one of my favorite. I'm close to buying this one for him but then that would be duplicating and that's unacceptable. Plus it's too dark.

Repeat of my own. So this one is out. It's a very good shirt. I've seen this on Zappos and on Amazon.

This is the shirt that I bought. It's come up in searches half a dozen times and I stop each time and look. Its white, or near-white and it has repeated pattern that isn't usual. All the other Hawaiian type shirts are actually rather common. 

I don't know. We'll see how it goes. It's a bit of a cop out.

Along the way I found some really funny stuff. 

I like this one. You can draw it yourself on one of your own t-shirts. But it's so cheap on Amazon that it's not worth the trouble. Just buy it instead. At this link there are a whole bunch of weird things like this. 

Come on, that's hilarious. It'd be easy to draw. I have a million different cloth-inks that could be used for this. Possibly thirty or so. Just scratch it onto a regular t-shirt. You can even use the original pocket.