It may be a timeless garment, but does it fill you with fear?
“The name’s Polo Neck. …Black, Polo Neck.” If you didn’t already, please go back and re-read that opening line in your best Sean Connery accent, because if clothes could talk, the black polo neck would always introduce itself like James Bond. There’s just a certain something about a black polo neck, isn’t there? It’s classic, yet cool. It’s timeless, yet contemporary. It’s refined yet rebellious. It’s a three-piece suit and a biker’s leather jacket all rolled in to one. How on earth all this works I have no idea. I just know that it does.
And yet… I must confess something. I don’t actually own one. Why? Because I’m intimidated by them. For all that the black polo neck is a wardrobe essential, I find that it makes such a strong impression that you actually need to be a certain sort of person to pull one off. Or pull one on, as the case may be. I know that this will sound ridiculous to confident people, but those with more of a shy and retiring disposition will know exactly what I mean. You think something like this – “Ooh, I like that. But is it too cool for little old me?” There are actually lots of clothes likes this: pretty much anything that’s eye-catching and that promises to make you stand out from the crowd.
As children we tend to be less inhibited. I personally had a phase of wearing exclusively black polo necks with black tracksuit trousers. Like some sort of pocket ninja, I was completely hooked on the all-black vibe. When my mother tried to coax me out of the black stuff and into something with the sort of colour, innocence and frivolity in which a boy of seven is more typically attired, I was not for turning. Wearing black had become a sort of necessity to me because I had grasped, even at that young age, that there’s nothing quite like black clothes for making you feel like one heck of a cool dude....
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