OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Take This Guy Shopping--Please

Deep, deep , in the fashion bowels of Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton lies a subset of grungy and unkempt creatures. You can distinguish them by the unruly hair, the grimy nails, the clothes so worn and molded to their bodies that they need to be peeled off like bandages.

Our friend, senior John Kawai, is one of these beings. He has exactly two outfits: worn-out chino pants with a big rip across the knee and a rumpled Latin Club T-shirt; and faded kiddie jeans with wide cuffs and a plain button-down shirt, probably handed down from his father’s high school wardrobe.

His one pair of shoes, Nike Airs, had all the air forced out of them two years ago. He doesn’t need to tie the laces. The shoes slip on effortlessly, molded to the shape of his feet. And if he tried to tie the laces, they’d probably disintegrate.

Just when we were ready to approach John about his junkyard appearance, he came to us.

“I need some new clothes,” he said.

So we headed down to South Coast Plaza. Our mission: Take John from bleak to chic.

Armed with wads of cash (donated by his parents, who were eager to see John expand his wardrobe for the first time in five years) and a covey of true friends (who wouldn’t hesitate to tell John if he looked bad), we invaded the mall in pursuit of John’s “New Look.”

We figured John would go best with the “preppy” look. However, we did not recognize the fine line between preppy and drab.

The first preppy store we tried was Banana Republic. This was one of the duller stores we visited--and, consequently, John’s favorite. The moment we entered the store, he gravitated toward the faded clothing section. The first outfit he pointed out was a pair of chinos identical to the ones he was wearing and a faded Oxford button-down shirt. We got out of there as fast as we could.

Our second stop was Polo. We spent most of our time there laughing at overpriced bathrobes rather than looking for John’s prepster gear.

We tried to go for a little more flash and ventured over to the Guess store. Here, we spotted a navy linen button-down with a band collar. With a dubious look, John took it to the dressing rooms. The shirt looked fine, but John tucked it in too tightly and hitched his pants up to his armpits ( a la Steve Urkel). So we figured flash was definitely not the way to go.

We decided to hunt for a pair of good shoes and go from there. After persuading John to wear something besides sneakers to school, he settled on a pair of brown Oxfords for $54 at the Gap shoe store.

Then we headed for J. Crew. Once again, we found John in the boring chinos section, almost lovingly fondling the colorless slacks and washed-out shirts. So we high-tailed it out of there and went to Armani Exchange.

We think that John was rather abashed by Armani’s sophistication. Most of the nicer items were well into the $200 to $300 range.

Our trip to the Mossimo store was not much better. John looked confused, staring instead at the flamboyant women’s swimsuits.

The next store we visited was The Gap. John dragged us to a rack of plain T-shirts. We consented to one piece of banal clothing: a gray-and-brown-striped, long-sleeve shirt for $20.

John nagged us to return to Banana Republic. Their chinos and Oxford shirts were actually nice in themselves--or maybe we were getting tired of dragging a reluctant John around--but we were looking for more variety. But it was getting late, and John was getting insistent. He finally got chinos of a darker shade than his originals ($20) and the Oxford shirt ($20).

John’s look was complete. We threw in a belt, and John was converted to Rico Suave. Kind of.

In the time it took to buy John four pieces of clothing, we could have read “War and Peace.” We found it’s hard to shop for guys’ clothes when 1) the guy isn’t thrilled about it, 2) he had no mall experience and 3) the guy is a guy (it would’ve been easier if John had been a Jane).