I have recently come to the conclusion that turtlenecks suit me. Maybe that’s because I have a thin neck and the fabric supplies an illusion of bulk. Or maybe it’s that, when worn with my glasses and habitually severe expression, a turtleneck seems to complete what should perhaps be my signature look: a visual homage to Dieter, the German talk show host Mike Myers used to play on Saturday Night Live.
In any case, the wider the neckline, the less flattering a shirt is going to be on my frame. Some V-necks aren’t terrible, provided the V doesn’t descend too far. But a scoop neck? Or a shawl collar? Horrors.
You might not think a Henley would work too well, on account of the rounded neck and vertical row of buttons in the front drawing attention to the pencil-wide throat. But for some reason Henleys look good on most men, no matter where they fall along the twink–bear spectrum.
Mind you, a turtleneck isn’t as sure a bet in my case. Sometimes the style has a dorkifying effect. For example:
When I was a kid, there would come a point during each holiday season when my mom would dress up my three sisters and me and take us to have our portraits taken at a photography studio. One year—I believe I was 11 years old—my outfit involved a red turtleneck under a tweed sport coat. I looked like a prepubescent Newt Gingrich trying to appear relaxed in front of constituents.
To make matters worse, the resulting photo was framed and put on display in our home. My mother has since moved, but she took the yearly portraits with her, and, to this day, they adorn a wall in her house’s upstairs hallway, which you can pass through while watching me adolesce before your very eyes.
Mom did not, however, keep the enormous oil portrait she hired somebody to paint of my siblings, me, and our shar-pei, Ruffles, during one summer when I was home from college. After my parents’ divorce, my father somehow ended up with that indelible work of art, which depicts its subjects sitting in front of a rock waterfall and bravely smiling despite having obviously just undergone painful chemical peels and mysterious limb-lengthening procedures.
At least Ruffles looks okay.
To the painter’s credit, she did not fail to notice my long, slender neck, though I think her representation perhaps goes too far. Forget turtlenecks—I’d need a giraffeneck shirt to cover that thing.
Instead, the painting’s Zac figure wears a loose-fitting green T-shirt that I do remember owning. It was from J. Crew, whose clothes have always run big on me, as captured in the painting by the way the shirt drapes and bunches unbecomingly at the shoulders.
And okay, fine, I’ll grant you the shirt didn’t fit well. But that’s the thing the artist managed to capture with perfect verisimilitude? My scrawny shoulders? She couldn’t have maybe worked a little harder instead to make my sisters look less like they were recovering from having their faces melted off?
Still, as I mentioned, Ruffles does look pretty good. Lying in a sphinxlike pose next to her grotesque human companions, the dog gazes from the canvas in all her wrinkled majesty, sporting an impressive set of jowls you wouldn’t even think of covering with a turtleneck.
Indirect Objects 