I remember one time I sent out a tweet along the lines of: "A weird thing people do is point out that I'm tall as if it's a surprise to me." Obviously, this always happens. Please cut that shit out. I inhabit this body at all times. As it's known to happen, people replied to my tweet asking how tall I am. So, I told them 6'10" and now no one on the Internet believes I could possibly be as tall as an NBA player. Honest to god, I really am 6'10" though.
I've been tall my whole life: two feet long at birth, 6'6" in 8th grade and, now, at 21-years-old, Blake Griffin and I literally see eye to eye. It feels sus complaining about being tall because I'm statistically likely to fuck more and make more money than the average bro, but it does come with its own set of gripes. Most days I get gawked at everywhere I go because people think I'm famous (which I am online) and constantly ask me if I play basketball (which I do). But the worst part is buying clothes.
Growing up in Indianapolis isn't exactly conducive to putting together a good alphet. In fact, I'd go so far as to say growing up in Indianapolis is the best way to ensure you will brick an alphet if you're not careful. I went through the Abercrombie & Fitch phase where I thought bootcut, distressed jeans and graphic henleys were fire like most people my age. No one escapes the awkward phases of youth, no matter how hard they try to front on social media. We know you used to fuck up every fit and that's okay.
But around my sophomore or junior year of high school, I realized in order to try and kiss a girl once, you needed to be well-dressed (and also, like, be chill and have a good personality and all that other good shit) and not wear sweatpants and hoodies every single day. I threw out 95% of my closet and started from ground zero. Around the same time, Watch the Throne dropped and I saw Kanye and Beyonce's husband rocking Lanvin and Givenchy and generally stunting on everybody's lives. Being a hypebeast, I wanted to dress as well as those dudes. I started reading blogs religiously—The GQ Eye, The Sartorialist, Jak and Jil, Fuck Yeah Menswear, all the entry level shit—and committed myself to improving my look.
As to be expected, there were a ton of hiccups along the way. For example, I remember wearing a hoodie, jeans and boat shoes and thinking it was on point. But eventually, as all things tend to do, everything started coming together. A pair of slim cut jeans here. A pair of dope sneakers there. I was starting to assemble my own personal style. Five years later, I'm finally starting to be comfortable with how I dress, which is a sort of Cyber Goth meets Skate Goth meets Street Goth meets Military Goth sweet spot. There's still room to improve and fire jawnz to cop, of course, but the groundwork has been firmly established.
By now, you're probably wondering what the fuck is the point of this t-piece. Initially, I wanted it to be a woe is me story about how finding clothes is hard as fuck when you're ridiculously tall, but around halfway through writing, it hit me this could be a story about the evolution of personal style. How it's grueling to take bits and pieces of clothing you see on Four Pins and other, less dope menswear blogs and try and make them your own. How it's nearly impossible to look at street style pictures of Kanye and not want to wear everything he has one. How you have to balance timeless pieces with trendier ones to not come off as a thirstball, but to also let people know you're up on shit.
Listen, nobody's denying that it's a tedious process, fam. But, by the end of it all, it's rewarding to be able to look in the mirror and see an expression of yourself through the clothing staring back at you regardless of how much the good lord has blessed you in any particular category. And that's word to Blake Griffin.
Alex Hancock is taller than you. Follow his problematic Twitter here.
