BEHOLD MY SUIT!

A LIFETIME OF FASHION MISERY COMES TO AN END.

- Gary Shteyngart

THE DREAM

A fine suit made just for me. From the best fabrics. By the best tailor. Paired with the best bespoke shoes.

A suit that would make me feel at ease, while declaring to others, "Here is a man who feels at ease." A suit that would be appreciated by the world's most heartless maître d'. A suit that would see me through the immigration checkpoints of difficult countries. A suit that would convince readers that the man in the author photo has a sense of taste beyond the Brooklyn consensus of plaid shirt and pouf of graying hair.

The suit would serve as the perfect carapace for a personality overly dependent on anxious humor and jaundiced wit, a personality that I have been trying to develop since I saw my lightly mustached punim in the mirror as a pubescent boy and thought, How will I ever find love? The suit would transcend my physicality and bond with my personality directly. It would accompany me through the world's great salons, the occasional MSNBC appearance, and, most important, the well-compensated talks at far-flung universities. The suit would be nothing less than an extension of myself; it would be a valet preceding me into the room, announcing with a light continental accent, "Mr. Gary and his suit are here now." Finding this perfect suit, made by the most advanced tailor out of superlative fabric, would do nothing less than transform me.

THE BODY

Before there is a suit, there is a body, and the body is terrible.