After 7 months of living out of a bag preceeded by 18 months of living as a crazed political workaholic who left most of his crap in a locker in lower Manhattan preceeded by 2 years of being an artsy bum and computer nerd in Brooklyn, I find my wardrobe is running a little thin. As it looks like things are ramping up in the "professional" arena, I'm going to have (at the very least) to go out and get something I can wear to one of those meetings where there's a big table and a majority of the other people are wearing suits (though maybe not ties).

This means at a minimum I'm in the market for shoes, slacks, a dressy shirt and probably a jacket. Or something that's equivalently responsible-looking. That's one outfit, but as I hate (hate) shopping for clothes, my thinking is that this might be the time to do a more or less total overhaul. Like a band-aid: one motion; right off!

Some staples like 517s, wife-beaters, boxer briefs are unlikely to go out the window, but basically everything else is up for grabs. For the professional stuff, I'd rather not get something standard. Not only do I find most businesswear to be spiritually crushing, I also have an active economic interest in preserving my image of creativity, eccentricity and rebelliousness. In a word, I need to retain some style.

However, what that style is... that's an open question. My friend Molly Keough had some interesting shirts to which she had sewn bits of fabric that made a graph of average worker's wages vs. CEO compensation 40 years ago and today. I've also seen some cool stuff done with stencils and silkscreens. I'm into the whole DIY ethic, but I'm also not the most crafty at these things, might rather want to support someone trying to make a living.

So. Any suggestions?