Deadshirt

Taking a break from committing suicide with food, Mike Pfeiffer will absolutely answer your questions on anything you put in the digital mailbag of justdandy@deadshirt.net. Regardless of whether or not you think Mike is a mature adult, this column is probably best for Mature Adults. As a Mature Adult, you accept responsibility for any actions you take after reading this column. Just Dandy is intended for entertainment purposes only, and we’re sort of required to warn you not to try any of this at home.

Dear Just Dandy,

Ripped fishnets: still sexy or a trashy throwback to a forgotten rock era?
Any tips on ripping fishnets at home?

Sincerely,
HoleyRollr

Yes! A fashion question! Let me crack the can of off-brand fruit-flavored malt liquor I keep for occasions when people trust me to tell them how to dress. I know I’m not everyone’s first stop for fashion advice because my wardrobe is evenly split between clothes my mother hates and clothes my mother probably wore and “Stevie Nicks-Tyler” is a niche look, but every once in a while people come to me with sartorial conundrums. Largely I get them when people want to look mosh-pit ready or DTF and wouldn’t ya know it this seems to involve BOTH of those things- if your question also involved using a series of layers of clothing to cover up stains so that you could avoid laundry for two months and still go to work then it’d be a Just Dandy Hat Trick and I’d drop a celebratory shot of whiskey into this off-brand fruit-flavored malt liquor. (Here in Sharkatraz we call that a “Riddler’s Car Bomb” because jokes about Batman Forever are our personal cryptocurrency.)

So first there’s a motivating Andrew WK-style feel-good objective answer and that is that If you feel sexy in something then it is sexy. In general, my wardrobe lives and dies on the idea that instead of being fashionable you should have your own distinct style cobbled from things that you find appealing and items that hold totemic power to you, which is why I wear a series of pins, badges, buckles, and hand-me-downs acquired from friends, lovers and the lairs of vengeful witches who cursed me to write an article every week or else turn back into a scarecrow. It’s true that just intrinsically feeling sexy is a tough skill to master to the degree that it lets you wear anything the way it works for Johnny Depp (who perpetually looks like he collapsed into a pile of discarded scarves and rings after an intense blowjob in a vintage haberdashery and decided to make a series of fashion don’ts for mortals into his look) but I think you’ll generally find that if it makes you walk the walk then you should go for it.

Developing this kind of swagger has a lot to do with posture. I try not to pay money to hang out with nerds I don’t already know or hear Amanda Palmer so I’m not generally a TED talk guy, but this video about Power Posing is worth a watch:

TONY DEFRIES WAS RIGHT. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT IS CONFIRMED. THIS IS A GAME CHANGER.

STAND LIKE A SUPERHERO AND YOU BECOME A SUPERHERO

You can see this happening in all the greats- Mick Jagger straight up looks like a clown mask in a mint-green shirt with giant useless titty pockets in the video for “Dancing In The Streets” but he still does that supernaturally powerful chickenwalk and so you barely notice that he looks dumb.

Just realized that so far my big examples of this have both been dudes, let me show you a Charlize Theron video that will change how you enter rooms:

Murder.

Now occasionally this leads to some severely misguided fashion choices applied with confidence that still look fucking terrible. Obviously I’m thinking of fedoras, here. The problem there is that the wearer is fundamentally misunderstanding basic energy flow. Putting on a fedora doesn’t make you Frank Sinatra, the clothes that Frank Sinatra wore were the way that he expressed that he was the Chairman of the Board. It’s the same reason that buying a Slash Signature Appetite For Destruction Les Paul doesn’t immediately let you play “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” The clothes are the instrument and you’re the artist and you’ve got to project your vision through them. If you don’t already feel like a raging torrent of Punk Rock Hormones then putting on fishnets looks fake and nerdy. Start with the vibe inside and radiate.

But there’s a much more subjective answer I can give you and that’s that fishnets are currently useful only for a drag-show version of sexuality. They’re visual short hand for promiscuous femininity and kind of so over-the-top that it would take some serious power posing to use them in a serious show of intimate seduction as opposed to an in-your-face sexual power play. So figure out what the goal of your outfit is and work from there. For my money, I find that a simple pair of black tights that get torn up through Living Hard are the sexiest alternative hosiery option but your mileage may vary.

As for how to tear them up? Oh, the answer is simple. It takes a partner, you’ve been doing it since you were a teenager, best with a little mood music…

Obviously I’m talking about laser tag. All that running around in the dark is sure to snag you on a nail or something and you’ll have a Taylor Momsenesque set of stockings in no time, all ready to be the Belle Of Getting Kicked Out Drunk From The Ball.

NEXT WEEK: “Dear Dandy, where do I get rid of all these torn up tights?” The answer involves me reimbursing you for shipping costs.

That’s all for Just Dandy this week! Pfeiff will return next Wednesday to answer your questions about sex, pizza and rock n’ roll, or literally any topic you can think of. Shoot him an email at justdandy@deadshirt.net or tweet @ModDelusion using the hashtag #JustDandyDS.