Wardrobe Malfunction

At the end of my New York trip this past weekend, I had a job interview at 9 a.m.  I had dry-cleaned my one suit (I've never needed more than one) last Wednesday because of Tommy's wedding, so I looked forward to putting on a freshly-cleaned formal outfit. 

Already running late, I quickly peeled off the wrapping from ZIPS, a discount dry-cleaning service that charges $1.75 per garment.  I put on my suit and tie...then noted how airy things felt in the groin area.  I reached down to check...and felt underwear. D'oh!

Frantically, I took of my suit pants.  It was actually worse than I feared: this was no simple seam that had come apart.  This was a giant, gaping hole in my suit pants.  There was no question that this suit was toast.  And I was panicky and pissed.

Fortunately, I had brought along a pair of khakis.  I now had no choice but to wear them with my suit jacket (after waking up Dave in my terror).  But I kept thinking: How could this have happened?

There are many possibilities.  First of all, this has been my only suit for the past couple of years.  It didn't get worn much during the first year, but it's been worn a TON over the past year.  It has probably been cleaned 4-8 times during that span.  It has been my outfit to every wedding, job interview, career fair and formal event I've had for the past two years.  Secondly, I sweat a lot.  That area gets a lot of friction regardless, and maybe the combination of sweat and strain from this wedding was the final straw. 

Yet I can't help but feel that this was pretty abrupt...how one moment, the suit was totally fine and after taking them to ZIPS, the pants suddenly had this gaping hole.  Usually, you notice signs of wear before that happens.  I don't think it's out fo the realm of possibility that this discount cleaner was responsible.

My suit was a very nice Hugo Boss that I paid a shockingly low price for thanks to SYMS' President's Day sale.  It is normally about 900 bucks, but I didn't pay anything close to that.  My point is that this wasn't a cheap suit -- nor was it made of cheap material.  If it was, the crap I'd put it through already would have been enough to make it rip. 

Needless to say, I need a new suit (or at least a replacement pair of the pants).  You never know when the next interview will come around the corner, so I need to be prepared.  Today, I'm going to see if Syms will sell me just the pants, since the suit jacket is totally intact.  I've been there lately, and I know they still carry my suit.  Regardless, I'm never taking any expensive garment of mine back to ZIPS again.

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