The Secret Cabal Of Well-Dressed Fat Guys

Depending on how recently I've been to the Outback Steakhouse and/or the Pro-Spot P-100 in my basement, I'm either a size 46L or 48L, with a 17.5/36 shirt size and a 38-inch waist. According to nearly every source I can read, this places me in maybe the upper quartile of size and weight among American men. And according to every article I ever read about fitness, aerobics, and macrobiotic diet among this country's upper class, I'm a lumbering elephant among sleek greyhounds. This impression isn't terribly contradicted by what I see in airports during the week: the average male business traveler, particularly in first class, is five foot ten and aggressively fit. In the America of 2013, wealthy people are slim while poor people are either couch-bound fat-asses or steroid-fueled proles trying to outmuscle everybody else at the 7-Eleven.

So if I'm the only Bumble out there with a job, and everybody from USA Today to Men's Health seems determined to reinforce that impression, I have a question: why, when I'm trying to buy expensive clothing, is the fat-guy stuff always sold out?

The image above is from the American Express vente-privee site. From time to time, they have some absolutely stunning deals on clothes. This is the second time they've done a Borelli shirt sale. Trust me, you want to own a Borelli shirt, for all sorts of reasons. I have something like twenty of them, and just putting one on makes me feel absolutely superhuman. In fact, I have eight Borelli shirts still wrapped up in their boxes for the next eight times I feel absolutely inadequate to the task ahead and I need a bit of emotional support. I know there is at least one woman in this country who has never seen me in anything but a brand-new-from-the-bag Borelli.

I hit V-P's last Borelli sale pretty hard, buying one of every available shirt they had in my size. Which was nine of the sixty-some variants offered on the site. My brother, who wears a 38 Regular and a 15.5 shirt, had maybe forty-five different shirts from which to choose.

This is just another stitch in a pattern I've observed over twenty years of shopping for high-end mens' clothing with little bro: everything is always available in his size, and it's always sold out in mine. Doesn't matter if we're at the Zegna boutique in Chicago or the Saks Off 5th on Hilton Head. I'm always short on options.

My current favorite clothing company, Betabrand, usually sells out of 38 and 40 waist pants within a few days of introducing a new style. The same's true for XXL-sized hoodies. Time and time again, I find myself rushing to buy some Betabrand item I'm not even sure I need just because I know it will be gone a week from now.

If well-dressed fat guys are hard to find, why is the clothing in our size always sold out so quickly? Not enough supply? Too much demand? Are clothing companies reluctant to make bigger sizes because they think they're at risk of being stuck with tent-sized tent-sale stock?

I prefer to think there's another reason. That somewhere, in a deep bunker, there's a Secret Cabal Of Chunky Clothes Horses. A room full of 240-pound, six-foot-two men, laughing, joking, comparing their newest Kiton jackets and Zanella pants. And whenever something in their size comes up for sale, they act in a coordinated manner to sweep the entire inventory off the shelves in minutes. They're great guys, these Star Chamber hiphopapotamuses, able to tell the difference between Super 120s and Super 180s with a flick of the thumb, always interested in full-thickness mother-of-pearl buttons and sterling-silver collar stays, tucking Marol shirts into their spreading waistlines and using Alden alligator belts to cinch up the resulting mess. They're always one step ahead of me, laughing as I pick up the stuff they're too sophisticated or tasteful to buy.

I want to find them.

And join their cabal.

I bet they have pizza.