Blog Post #2:
In Michael Chabon’s “My Son, the Prince of Fashion,” Chabon discusses his trip to Paris fashion week with his son. The trip was his son, Abe’s, bat mitzvah present. Abe was a little older than 13 at the time of the trip and he was greatly into fashion, Chabon, however, was not. Chabon thought that his son used fashion as a way to stand out from the crowd, to be different and stick out. Chabon later came to realize that his son was so bold with his choice of clothes because he wanted to find somebody with the same interest in fashion that he had; he didn’t do it to be different, he did it to find others like himself. Abe’s exploration of self-expression makes it seem easy to express oneself with how confident he was in his outfits and style, but it was made clear how difficult it was for Abe to dress to his own liking, Abe made it hard on himself and so did others, until he met the right people who appreciated his style. It seemed effortless for Abe to express himself when one is told how confident he was in his style and how often he expressed himself, then one realizes, of course, masters of their own art makes their art seem easy, and the essay then dives deeper into the lengths that Abe went to in order to express himself. Abe had to bear the weight of other people tormenting him on his style, his form of self-expression, and he also had to bear his own self-scrutiny, of trying on and taking off numerous outfits until he gets the right one, and he would do this every night before he went to bed and then again in the morning, as we are told by his father, Chabon. Abe finally found people with the same interests as him at the Paris fashion week, Chabon writes, “‘They get it,’ he said. ‘They know everything about all the designers, and the house, and that’s what they care about. They love to talk about clothes. They love clothes’” (70). Abe finally found other people with the same interests as him, and it made him feel at peace with his form of self-expression, yet, once he found these people, he had to go back home to a place where nobody understood his self-expression, making one realize how difficult it is to express oneself when there is nobody around who understands the self-expression.
