FORTY TO 40
Forty to 40 is a Blog & Podcast Hybrid Project looking back, living in the now and pondering on the future as Raymond Nurse turns 40. Each blog or podcast episode will feature topics beginning with ‘F’ such as ‘Foundation’, ‘Family’, ‘Financials’ and ‘Frenemies’ and much much more.
15/40 - FASHION
For ‘First Five’ today, a simple attitude of gratitude is all I have. I think on the memories of ‘Fourteen’ and the joy I had as a teenager transitioning into young adulthood. From sports to church to school and all the extra-curricular activities under the sun, I was brought up in a country, community and in spaces that allowed me to figure out who I am and what I am about without any real pressure while doing so. There was pressure in how you performed in your education but with sayings for everything like ‘If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail’, the onus was on me and no one else to ensure my success was guaranteed. That is one of many great lessons I take with me from these formative years of young adulting. Through it all, I was never alone or left to my own devices so give thanks to those that helped make ‘Fourteen’ and beyond deligthful and meaningful.
Wha we on today?
‘Fashion’ is supposedly in the ‘Eye of the Beholder’ but some things just look bad. I have easily been guilty of a few moments but such is life. One hill I would live and not die on is that whatever touches my skin, I want it to touch skin that is clean. Cleanliness and confidence are two ‘C’s that I feel should be included in any ensemble. If you miss the mark, walk out and own it and know that ya armpit don’t smell dutty. I don’t have much more than that when I think of ‘Fashion’. We experiment and hone our style over decades in the lab then we step out into the streets having a general clue based on the trends, and hues of the time where we stand in the Pantheon of all things fashionable. I want to be remembered having played it safe while looking good enough to not make the ESPN equivalent of Fashion’s not so Top Ten. My style is pretty chill with very tight pants… very tight pants.
When I think of ‘Fashion’, one of my biggest peeves is the color green. I know I know but green is the color of life and nature. Well live, and leave it right there in the forest, on the trees and in the bush. If I could pick one color to be axed from clothes, buildings, vehicles and everything man-made, green for sure is the one. I own 1 army green track pants and bought it since a close friend of mine had an online boutique and I wanted to support her and that was the only real item that she had on sale at the time for men. I begrudgingly wear it indoors.
So if Green is the devil, what color constitutes heaven?
Red duh…
Architects are supposed to be decked out in black and looking dour all the time. I didn’t know this until years after an accusation of devil worshipping was put upon me by Ms. Wendy - If you haven’t listened to any other episodes, that’s my Mumma. She looked at me one day and asked
’Why you always wearing black, you does worship the devil?? ‘No mum, I don’t worship the devil.’ ‘Well, try and wear other colors then.‘
I then proceeded to expand my color palette to black, white and red. Later on I added a few shades of gray, but not as much as 50, and tossed in some blues. As time went by, I realized I also looked pretty in pink but for sure red was heaven for me and kept me from heading to hell in the eyes of the boss lady.
As I spoke about ‘Fourteen’, in the last podcast episode, I spoke about one of my most egregious choices in what was trending. Baggy pants is said choice. It is one of the most worst choices since I know my Levi skinny and super skinny numbers tall. I make sure to even ask the odd time I go into the Levi’s store if anything tighter has come out that I need to know about. For those who look at the picture below of me on graduation day and think, ‘What was he thinking?’, head on over to Amazon and search for ankle pants and you gone clear. The only thing tighter is a pants called an ‘Ex-girlfriend’s jeans’. Enough about the tight boys.
I’m gonna hop back slightly in time for one of my absolute favorite moment in ‘Fashion’. The year is 2008 and I had the privilege of producing merchandise for the Barbados Jazz Festival. Unfortunately, it was the last year of the festival so I had one year in Casual Apparel Design but I got to learn about screen printing, cotton tees and a lot of the production. One of the designs I created during that time frame is included just below.
I love the production of Fashion so I was stoked to go on a mini field trip last year in Tirapur, India to see how Comazo, a brand out of Germany put together their garments.
We getting on ‘Wassi’
I have not done a Feature in a minute but it seemed right to use this episode of Forty to 40 to showcase the brand ‘Wassi Collections’. One of the most Fashion-forward people I know has been crafting this brand and finetuning the logistics and delivery methods to make sure we are all hitting the streets looking better this year than we did last year. At this point, I am proclaiming myself an Ambassador of ‘Wassi’. This year, about 3 or 4 months into it all, I realized that I hadn’t bought a piece of clothing for it. Not a shirt, a pants, a shoe, belt, hat or boxer brief. I thought hmmm, is it possible to go a whole year without doing that? I identified St. Lucia Carnival and My Granny’s 90th birthday as the two events where I might break this now conscious resolution. ‘Wassi’ entered the chat at the right time to remove St. Lucia Carnival from my spots of bother. I got a pack of 5 and thought how cool would it be to wear ‘Wassi’ exclusively at St. Lucia Carnival except for the days of Carnival Monday and Tuesday and any Juve events that I end up attending. When you see me in the road, don’t tag me alone cause @wassicollection on my back.
As I thought about this episode, I reflected on the fact that I have never owned any luxury piece of ‘Fashion’. Yes yes I know, I too poor for that and that is okay. I am glad I grew up clothed sufficiently in life to get to a point where a t-shirt costing $692 is not an item that would make it into my wardrobe. I hope I am never rich enough to be so flippant with funds cause there’s disposable income then there’s that. I will say though, when I finished undergrad in 2008 and started working, my first paycheck went into 3 long sleeved buttown-down shirts. I had a slight lapse of judgment at the time and went down to Limegrove and it was all over. 2 of the shirts came from Ralph Lauren and 1 came from Armani Exchange. To this day, I still have all 3 even though the Armani Exchange one is a little tight around the midsection cause I rocking a bit more adult weight in these times. The fact that I can still pull them out almost 2 decades later helps me sleep better at night knowing the costs of the 3 of them back in the day. I did ask politely if I could get them duty-free so some savings were realized.
One of my absolute favorite memories in ‘Fashion’ growing is of the ‘Dappa Dans’ at Queen’s Park on Christmas Day in Barbados. You will have to drop a search on the internet to see how they get down, that’s your homework. These lads come out in their Sunday’s finest as debonair and showstopping as possible. From top hats to ‘poky ticklers’ aka oxfords aka winklepickers, these guys were dressed to the nines, tens and elevens and strutting all around for everybody to see.
I think this group might have been the origin for the biggest effort I ever personally put into ‘Fashion’. The one party that I would make sure I got something new and fresh for was Summer Bliss. Esquire Entertainment to this day still puts on one of the premier parties I have been blessed to attend in life. The Summer Edition was the one for me and I knew I could put on something nice off, step out and behave like a ‘Pop Kite’. The height of my Summer Bliss outfits brought me one day to search Google for ‘Suspender Polo Shirts’. That was my runway and I gladly pranced up, down, and all over it wukking up bad bad bad.
Speaking of the runway, fashion shows tickle me because those are the ultimate in confidence. My limited height has kept me from those spaces and I am pretty grateful cause man, there’s confidence to pull off a myriad of the looks and then there’s comfort and I would have had the pissiest face on earth if I was decked out in some of these outrageous outfits but money haffi mek. I had my one runway flow and it was for my locs. This is the 2nd time in life I have sported locs with the first time being in my undergraduate years in Jamaica. Jamaica is a lot more stylish and it has a bigger fashion industry than Barbados and as a result, the loc salon I used to go to was having a show highlighting their styles and skills. I would never forget getting a pineapple style done in my hair cause I was always ready to help out where I can. In the pineapple leaves of this style, these ladies put 3 or 4 feathers and I rolled down this catwalk like a Caribbean Last of The Mohican character. That was the first and the last for me.
Jamaica had a lot of cool brands like Cooyah and La Pluma Negra during the time I was studying there. One thing I learned real fast was don’t go in a Jamaica store and ask for baggies. Baggies in Barbados are beach shorts but in Jamaica, it is something completely different. Some might say it is diabolical but I will just leave it as different. I stepped into La Pluma Negra this one time and asked the lady if they sell baggies cause I looking to buy a pair of baggies for myself. The lady looks at me like she being trolled and said, a wha you want? I told her I looking to buy a pair of baggies. She said fi who? I say fa me and at this point she is trying not to laugh and still keep it professional. She said describe it for me. I did as I was told and she said ahhh a beach shorts dat. Apparently, baggies are granny panties in Jamaica, back in Barbados we call them binga bags and I learned to never ask for baggies in Jamaica again.
My earliest memory is influenced by photos of my childhood but I was about 4 or 5 and it was my birthday, I had on a farmer brown that was the epitome of a farmer brown. It came equipped with all the farm animal sounds you could imagine stitched into the actual farmer brown. Moo, oink, baa were all present. For my 39th birthday, I took it back to the overalls in my favorite color of red for a themed outing. I don’t rock with themed outings too often but I was going to the Electric Daisy Carnival aka EDC Orlando for the first time with a group that is deep in electronic dance music and even deeper in the themes for all the different festivals. ‘Fashion’ is unique so it is good fun seeing a theme like love interpreted in a myriad of ways within a group.
You can let me know which Raymond - 4 year old or 39 year old Raymond looked better in the overalls.
I am rocking a black v-neck as I record all Forty to 40 episodes for 3 reasons. One, ‘Fashion’ comes at a cost and it has never been something in my life of import to the point where a portion of my earnings are dedicated to slaying. I record all the episodes and have not decided if I am going to release the videos yet. If I do release the videos and did not rock a black v-neck for each episode, I would have to find forty outfits and that is brain power and funds. Just sitting here thinking about it has me going crazy. Secondly, this will be the only episode, for now at least, that I record in something other than a black v-neck. I’ll do a promo video so you can get a sneak peek into what I’m wearing just in case I never get around to rolling out full video episodes of Forty to 40. My 3rd and final reason is because we are halfway through the year, time is flying eh, and having not spend any money on clothes thus far, I thought changing outfits for each recording would entice me into breaking that challenge.
Hopping back slightly further to Primary School ‘Fun days’. We don’t really get a lot of ‘Fashion’ moments in school as we are still very regimented and colonial in wearing uniforms for school. Our hairstyles, limited accessories and our shoes were the focal points where we could flex our developing couture muscles. When I think back, there is less to divide and poke fun at a child for if school uniforms are the flavor of the day. That was until ‘Fun Days’ happened. We had 3 terms and 1 ‘Fun Day’ each term so 3 days where we got to dress up and hopefully not get dressed down for our garbs. Super casual still with rules to follow and ring in the good times to close out school. We went Barbados colored for Independence Day as well and it was optional but woe betide you if you were one of the handful of yutes that didn’t rock out on the day in something blue or yellow.
As I close out, I think what the future of ‘Fashion’ looks like for me. It looks even more comfortable and unbothered as it is now. I head into my super senior years of life trying to be as well put together as possible without having to do the absolute most. In the 7 years since I have migrated to America, I embrace joggers, v-necks, polo shirts and the dreaded ‘hoochie daddy shorts’. I have my receipts though, I was looking for ‘baggies’ from my Jamaica schooling days and always loved a short pants being nippy and almost nasty so I not new to this, I true to this. I been told by Ashley that my ‘Fashion’ choices are definitely not Black American and I’m cool with that. I am more loafers and less sneakerhead but as soon as I break my ‘No clothes bought in a year’ challenge, I looking to buy my first and only pair of Jordans. I haven’t decided which ones yet, make all the recommendations for me, Please and Thank you.
I challenge you to deliberately go periods of time where you don’t spend on material things, let that creativity pop within your existing wardrobe. At this point in life, I own 25 odd pairs of shoes including construction boots, field hockey shoes, football boots, and a few other specialist types of shoes. Many times I feel like it is too much, and I know persons are out there sitting down on 60 plus with only 2 feet. If you ever look at one hundred and twenty individual shoes and think hmmm maybe this is too much, there is an organization, a co-worker, a family in these times that might need some of that excess. Don’t just clear out that closet for another season without considering donating the excess to someone else who might have a dearth and really really need it.
Leggo the eggo and share some of that high ‘Fashion’.
Manners and Respect and stay Fashionably fly.
The next episode will be a podcast hosted by Ashley Long.
Cheers for listening and stay ever blessed, Family.