#offbrand wonder bread aesthetic

[sunlithope]

hw task 10: wardrobe

describe your muse’s aesthetic in five words or less.

Unremarkable; forgettable above all else.

does your muse spend a lot of time on their outfit and appearance? how long do they spend getting ready in the morning?

Usually around forty-five seconds, and most of that’s waiting for enough water to fall in the shower. If he didn’t have superspeed, he would still only take around twenty minutes at most; he doesn’t have many clothes, they essentially all go with each other, and they’re all laid out very neatly. His biggest time expenditure is taking a longer shower every few days (five whole minutes instead of thirty seconds) because he’s paranoid about his downstairs neighbors thinking he doesn’t shower.

does your muse consider the way they dress to be trendy? would other people agree?

Clark and his Ma designed his entire wardrobe to convey a message, and that message is “wow is this guy boring.” He isn’t noticeably unstylish, he isn’t noticeably stylish; he just isn’t noticeable. If other people bothered to look at him, they’d probably agree.

how often do they buy new clothes? are they the type to keep a outfit for years or replace it after one wear?

Clark lost his entire wardrobe on arrival except for the suit (and the Suit) he’d been wearing, so he’s been doing a fair bit of thrifting. Once he’s got a modest wardrobe together he replaces items only as needed. He’s gotten quite good at small repairs like sewing buttons (having to rip off your shirt several times a day helps give occasion to practice), but it’s the rare piece of clothing that lasts more than two years without getting stained, ripped, or torn somehow in the course of his day.

is your muse the type to accessorize? how much?

He typically carries around a beat-up messenger type bag with essentials in it (see below), and of course the glasses almost never leave his face. Back home in the wintertime he’d occasionally show one (1) scrap of personality by wearing a scarf or two that Ma knit for him over his Unremarkable Winter Jacket, but the scarves didn’t make the trip. He misses them.

how much time do they spend on skin care/makeup/grooming?

A few minutes to heat-vision off stubble every few days. Clark considers himself lucky his hair doesn’t grow quickly, because if ‘shaving’ is a little tricky, haircuts are a whole entire Mess. One time in high school he accidentally gave himself a mullet and almost burned the house down because he couldn’t figure out the right angle for the multiple mirrors to get to the back of his head.

if money and societal expectations were not a concern would your muse dress differently than they currently do? if so, how?

If fashion wasn’t one of his most important tools in keeping his secret, he wouldn’t mind experimenting a little more. ‘Experimenting’ for him would be wearing some actual bright colors, or letting himself outside his apartment in a t-shirt that actually fits for once. He does have a few casual comfortable items but they’re all for staying in. As for money, it’s a pretty big limiting factor - he doesn’t earn a lot, and he absolutely needs the privacy of a single, so almost all of his small salary goes into affording that. As a result most of his clothes are from thrifting.

would your muse wear the same outfit two days in a row if they knew they wouldn’t run into any of the same people?

No, he’s regular about rotating through his clothes. You could be forgiven for thinking he’s wearing the same outfit, though, since all his outfits exude similar vibes. (’meh.’)

have they started dressing differently since arriving in washington? was the transition difficult? do they prefer the clothes here or back home?

Much to Clark’s irritation, it’s been difficult to find clothes that are ‘his’ size secondhand - clothes just large enough to conceal his build, but not so large that you can tell it’s on purpose. So unfortunately, right now a fair few of his shirts and one suit jacket actually fit him properly.

Clark’s bag has one large pocket with his work tools - reporter’s pad, pencils and pens, laptop, voice recorder, press pass, wallet, and water bottle (for show). The side pockets have a LOT of just-in-case items. Three handkerchiefs, a suspiciously extensive first aid kit complete with ibuprofen, insulin, and antihistamines, two prepaid visa cards with 25 dollars apiece on them, about fifty dollars in small bills, a burner phone sewn into the lining, chargers for his phone, the burner phone, iphones, and androids, an external battery pack, flashlight, a little sewing kit, a glasses repair kit, and two small bars of Emergency Chocolate (Tony’s Chocolonely, and miss him with the dark stuff, Clark is Team Milk all the way). Yes, all of these items have backstories as to why he’s carrying them.

top center picture with grey suit from Lois Lane & Superman in “Glasses,” written by Jeff Loveness, pencils by Tom Grummett, inking by Cam Smith, coloring by Adriano Lucas, lettering by Tom Napolitano, middle left panels showing casual to disguised from Superman: Birthright #3, written by Mark Waid, pencils by Leinil Francis Yu, inking by Gerry Alanguilan, upper left and middle right publicity stills from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, bottom middle and bottom right open source stock photos, dialogue from Superman: The Movie (1978), Kryptonian cipher font from kryptonian.info.