Vincent Gauthier Can Kiss My Fine White . . .

T-shirt.

I've only met the guy once or twice, and everyone says he's a great guy, but Monday's post on the Pitch's Plog convinced me that he may be the source of the type of small-minded fashion intolerance that has dogged my days ever since my mother arbitrarily told me I couldn't wear striped shirts with plaid shorts.

Here's the part of the posting that torqued my tidy whities -

It was at this point that Gauthier blew my mind – he made me aware of a style faux pas that I’d never even thought to be annoyed by. “I don’t like when guys wear polo shirts unbuttoned so their white t-shirts show underneath,” he said. “That’s why you wear v-necks – so it doesn’t show.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt to show the v-neck artfully hidden underneath.

Gauthier bet me a beer that the guy with his back to us in a neighboring booth was committing the visible-undershirt sin. Sure enough, he was, and after a quick glance around Bo Ling’s we counted half a dozen more men with the same issue. Great. Now I owe Gauthier a beer and I have a new grievance with menswear.

What?!?!?!

Who says I can't wear regular t-shirts under polo shirts?!?!?

I can tell you right now, I'm not going to run out and buy a whole new set of t-shirts just so Vincent Gauthier and Nadia Pflaum aren't offended by the glaring white of the top of my t-shirt. Uh-uh, not gonna happen.

And, from the sounds of things at Bo-Ling's that day, the vast majority of men agree with me on this. Let's stick together on this, guys - we can nip this one in the bud if none of us starts buckling to this freshly-minted attempt to tell us what to wear.

Today, the Gauthier Rule on t-shirts is only a personal quirk, with no force to make us conform. Already, it's gained one proponent, in the form of a Pitch writer who runs around town taking pictures of people because of their "sense of style". It could spread easily - those of us with daughters know that middle-aged guys are presumed guilty of fashion faux pas.