As we all know, yet may not completely remember, Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day, a time for “themewear” and uniform shamrock green. The physical indulgences of a holiday, such as hotdogs on the 4th, interrupt our otherwise healthy diets in the same way that the strange proclivities of holiday garb, such as flag print shirts on the 4th, disrupt our otherwise reasonable wardrobe.
Most style writers would advise careful moderation in the form of a tightly monogrammed pocket square or a subtle grosgrain ribbon detail in the same way that one’s dietician would advise a carefully portioned turkey dog in lieu of the beef alternative, but I dislike strict authoritarian demands. My message to you, is to simply do whatever you want for these brief moments of vigor that we have designated for our national holidays. Really, just go nuts because that is the point.
I trust any sane individual will regain their sanity after a brief lapse into the dark place of homogenous color identification, so just use these strange breaks from normality to free yourself from the slight limitations of good taste and proper behavior. That’s not to say good taste should be too limiting, as the options provided by traditional menswear often exceed the breadth of holiday novelty items.
The only real “advice” I have for anyone looking to have fun on the holidays is to engage in a period of recuperation following the festivities. If your Christmas celebrations call for a vividly decorated reindeer sweater and candy cane striped wool pants, then perhaps it would be wise to spend the following week wearing a relatively muted palet. It is for your own good really, as it can be easy to overdose on novelty items.
Preventative medicine is hard to come by for this sort of thing. Perhaps wearing silly Christmas hats in the middle of March serves as some form of inoculation to the festivity fevers, but people will probably just think it is your only hat.
