What not to wear - neon polo shirts!

March 21st, 2008

Andrea Burns, a fashion writer based in Melbourne, is launching a crusade – against a certain kind of casual clothing. As she puts it, ‘a fluorescent sickness has descended on the city. Everywhere you turn, a neon relic from the 1980s is rearing its ugly head, assaulting the senses, burning the retina.’ She complains about any number of items that she’d hoped would never rear their ugly fashion heads again: ‘Ray-Bans with fluorescent arms, batwing shirts in assaulting bright shades, neon tights and rainbow pumps. Nightclub dance floors are swarming with enough colour to trigger an epileptic fit.’

In order to restore some decorum to Melbourne, and to save the damaged eyesight of those who have to endure the day-glo garments the city is addicted to, she offers a guide to who can wear fluorescent colours – it’s good enough advice for us to follow here to. Here’s her list of people who may wear fluoro:

1. DELIVERY drivers. If you are delivering something we want, you can continue wearing the bright yellow polo shirts. You are one person we want to see coming.

2. CONSTRUCTION workers and couriers. A safety vest in glowing orange is not a fashion statement, but a practicality. A bike courier flattened by a lorry is not tres chic.

3. PEOPLE competing in the Tour de France. Yes, it’s the one and only time grown men will get away with shaved legs and a day-glo lycra one-piece.

She finishes by proposing a mass bonfire of fluorescent garments in the city square because, as she insists - fluoro will never be the new black.

Neon clothing courtesy of alexdecarvalho

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Entry Filed under: Polo Shirts, casual wear, dress code, mens clothing