Today Brad Pitt teaches us an important lesson: Any man can be brave. But not every man can be courageous.
To be brave is to wear head-to-toe neon. Okay, sounds interesting—but isn’t that just about mustering up the right mix of chutzpah and self-confidence? Anyone with a library card and a jar of beard oil can do that.
Courage is something else. Courage is wearing a neon green pullover sweater under the most beautiful earth-tone cardigan in the world. Clay red over a Coachella neutral. His jeans? Distressed. His hat? Floppy with character. And underneath his luxurious dueling banjos of knitwear is a coil of T-shirts—remember: never let cashmere have direct chest contact. Over his shoulder is a bohemian bag of undetermined profile—we can’t see it, because he’s reaching out to touch another human being.
On top of this symbiotic color story of tops is a sage-green scarf—the color of wisdom, according to the ancient text of my Twitter drafts—looped around his neck like an honorary sash. “Congratulations, Mr. Pitt,” it says. “You’ve merged all the mysteries of the desert in one fit.”
This is the choice to confront uncertainty—mixed knits, neutrals and neons—with boldness. It looks amazing. This is courage, and it shows.
