The Luxury Myth
The reject Izod polo shirts my parents bought me at an outlet mall on summer vacation—right before the start of 9th grade—had the exact opposite effect I’d hoped for. The moment the shirts with the slight, off-kilter alligators went past the cash register and into our shopping bags, I knew 9th grade would be different. I’d finally be seen and accepted as the cool kid I felt in my heart I had always been.
Strutting down the hallways of Gaithersburg Junior High before homeroom in a matching shirt-and-shorts combo would finally do the trick. Donna, in her sexy Jordache jeans, would get it. Rebecca, with the cute nose and blonde curls, would get it. The Diana Ross-looking girl who never seemed to notice me finally would. Blair from church would see the little alligators and get it. Everyone who mattered would see me and understand that I was just like them. I was cool. I knew what to wear. They would want to talk to me between classes, ask what I was doing after school, and call me on the weekends.
But I never made it back to Gaithersburg Junior High. I didn't get to sport my new Izods up and down the crowded, noisy halls of that preteen stew of rampant social insecurity. My parents had taken urgent steps. By 8th grade, Mom would often find me sitting alone at the edge of my bed in total darkness. Things were way off. I couldn't explain my hopelessness. There was nothing special about me—I wasn't cute, funny, athletic, rich, or even a great student. I was too skinny and my teeth were way too big. I wasn't even wearing the right shirts, the right jeans, or the right shorts. Eventually, my father asked a buddy at work what he could do with his struggling son, asking if his friend's daughter was doing well in that little private Quaker school—the small one out past the cornfields and cow pastures.
In the fall, I found myself on a small campus with hippie teachers, rich kids, Quaker kids, kids flown in from other countries, super-nerdy kids, and other social outcasts like myself in need of a dramatic intervention. I was one of the unknowns, dropped in and "dripped" head-to-toe in the clothes I thought would make the difference. I was dark, Black, and skinny as ever, but I was all Izod down to the socks. The designer haul had been a last-ditch effort made at the end of the summer when my parents weren't sure I'd make it into the safe little private school; they wanted to give me a tiny, questionable leg up in case I found myself back in the dirty Roman Coliseum that was public junior high.
It was a new and strange setting. The kids had ripped jeans, faded tie-dye deadhead shirts, Rolling Stones concert tees, and punk-rocker moto jackets. The rich preppy kids and international students cared about green alligators and the polo ponies. No one else did. I was a goofball trying to find my daily footing with a $12 reject Izod polo for every day of the week. I was clueless, keeping my collars popped with reckless abandon. I was immediately tagged as a boring rich kid. The "special sauce" that mattered here was edge and personality, an interest in learning, occasional access to booze, having something to say about the world at large, and perhaps a willingness to smoke pot. Just as I began to get, RUN-DMC dropped their first album and I could feel the beginning of a major shift in the universe of cool.
I spent three years at that little Quaker school behind the cornfields before my exit to the teenage mosh pit of Gaithersburg High School. I returned to the "terror dome" with a bit of my own slowly emerging personality. I liked being funny. I was crazy about “Purple Rain.” I enjoyed getting good grades. I liked being seen. I liked the idea of being somewhat of a cool kid but understood that brand-name clothes wouldn’t get me there.
The birth of my cool wouldn’t arrive until later in life. It had nothing to do with visible logos on the exterior and everything to do with investing in the interior personal work. I learned that the best brand you can throw over your shoulders is your own.
