Back when I was a teenager and knew everything with absolute certainty, I showed my mother an ad for clothing and snickered. The text went something like this: “How can the occasion be special if your clothes aren’t?”

Ridiculous idea, I called it. What makes an occasion special is what happens. The clothes are just incidental. To me clothing was practical gear, with the ancillary social function of preventing indecent exposure.

Mom warned me not to minimize the social importance. A prom is not a prom without formal gowns and tuxedoes. What is graduation without the caps and gowns? What is a wedding without the dress? To her, clothes were a costume that proclaimed one’s savoir-faire and sense of style.

Till the day she died, we never reached agreement. She was fascinated by parades, coronations, movie premieres, the Oscars, operas, and other occasions where the most important activity seemed to be wearing clothes. I snickered. Mom insisted I should buy new shoes for my wedding. I neglected to do so. All my life I have nurtured this solid core of disdain, but hard knocks of experience have chipped the veneer off my teenage certainty.

Knock 1: Functionality
Joggers ply the roads between my house and Eau Claire. They wear costumes with bright colors in distinctive splashy patterns. Maybe yellow sleeves and legs on a black jumpsuit, or a white outfit with a wide diagonal green stripe. At first I thought, “Are you celebrating Harlequin’s birthday or something? Why not wear a functional plain gray sweat suit? Your gait already screams ‘Hey, world, I’m jogging! Improving my cardiovascular fitness!’ You don’t have to say it twice.”

Then a nagging thought chipped off a flake of certainty: such garb is not always entirely silly. In a long-distance race, distinctive color schemes identify runners a long way up the road, so their fans can prepare to cheer. In that way the clothes are functioning as gear; they help runners draw inspiration to keep going.

Here’s how gear becomes costume. Non-racing joggers going merely for weight loss and radiant health see those colorful togs without recognizing their narrow purpose. They know they’re supposed to wear prom clothes to a prom, so they conclude they’re supposed to wear running clothes for running. They figure a plain gray sweat suit may be OK for lounging around the house, but for the special occasion of jogging it’s just gauche. 

Knock 2: Memorability
My mother gave my grandfather a pair of denim overalls in a wild psychedelic print designed for hippies for his 80th birthday. We laughed at the outrageous implication that our patriarch had a bohemian’s rebellious attitude and dissolute lifestyle. That gag gift would eventually knock another chip off my certitude. It taught me that clothing can actually transform an ordinary event into a memorable occasion.

When Grandpa died, I inherited those silly overalls. Except for the garish colors, they were good tough denim, held together with stout stitching, and fitted with brass buttons riveted in place. When I received them, they were almost new, and perfect gear for cutting firewood. One day my chainsaw gave out, so I took off for Farm & Fleet to buy a new one. This is not a special occasion, and it never occurred to me to change. On my way across the parking lot, a man who had just come out of the store stopped 10 yards away and gaped. He held his arms out and shouted, “Man, what pants! What PANTS!”

I almost jumped back into the truck and drove 20 miles home to change, but the press of time and the price of fuel overruled that impulse. Bracing myself for further ridicule, I strode through the door. Thankful that the chainsaw supplies are close to the entrance, I grabbed what I needed and headed straight for the checkout, then out to the truck. No other customers or employees commented, and I ignored their glances. I feared I might catch them snickering behind their hands.

Knock 3: Status
Several years later, my sister showed her husband, Rod, a picture of me hunting. I had on brush pants, the kind with heavy nylon facing on the legs. Rod snickered. To him they represented a costume worn by wannabe bird hunters from the city.

I was miffed. I grew up hunting. I deplore pretentious costumes. And I was dead certain brush pants aren’t pretentious. Back in the Ozarks, I hunted rabbits and quail in jeans or khakis, and all season long my legs chafed with deep bloody scratches ripped by greenbriers and blackberry vines. For the pleasure of shooting small game in thorny cover I grudgingly paid the price of pain. When I discovered brush pants, they filled me with relief and joy. They were tough gear. I still got a few scratches, but only shallow ones that healed quickly.

Hunters flock from all over the country to pursue pheasants in Kansas, and area blessedly free of briers. And like joggers adopting racing togs, they show up with brush pants because they have seen photos of hunters wearing them. So hordes of pheasant hunters stroll blithely across swaths of Kansas in the fall, with corn stubble or prairie grasses caressing the superfluously tough nylon facings on their pants. Kansans, wearing perfectly adequate jeans or khakis, conclude that outlanders take to the fields mainly to show off their bird-hunting costumes. They crack each other up snickering behind their hands.

Last October I stopped in North Dakota. For at least 200 miles in all directions, the terrain held nothing but crop stubble, prairie grass, and bare rock. A bird hunter stepped out of the men’s room and went to his vehicle to let his dog out for a walk. He was wearing brush pants. I managed to refrain from jumping out in front of him and shouting, “What pants! What PANTS!” But I couldn’t resist snickering behind my hand.