From our overstocked archives
Sam Smith, 2015 - As a member of the beat generation of the 1950s, clothes rank somewhere below car washing on my list of priorities. And as a child of this period I am stunned that the term we invented - hip - has been so distorted that it now even includes wearing approved coverings for your body.
I early adopted Jonathan Swift's view that "I have always had a sacred veneration for anyone I observed to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher." And Oscar Wilde's assessment that "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six month." And in the 1970s, I wrote:
If the truth be told, I wouldn't mind being considered well dressed. I would love to be elegant if there were not other things I loved more which have a peculiar way of interfering with my efforts to put my best side towards the world. As far back as college, a roommate had me pegged: "You're the only man I know who could make an English tailored suit look as though it came from Robert Hall's." I suffer under the delusion that I work better when I am comfortable. College students, mechanics and farmers all know that.
Another trade that has somewhat maintained honorable indifference to fashion has been journalism, albeit only among its members who do not appear on television.
So I was pleased to see a NY Times article interviewing Wendy Chuck, the fashion designer for Spotlight, a new film about some Boston journalists which included this exchange:
How would you describe the style of journalists?
A. It’s an unthought-about uniform. It mirrors school uniforms really. It’s something you don’t think about when you dress. You don’t really care; you’ve got other things to think about that are not clothes. It says you’re comfortable, but nobody is going to comment on how you look or how you appear. You’re not going to offend anybody. Nobody is going to be able to read much into you.
Sam Smith, 1978 - The father was trying to explain to his son why he shouldn't button the bottom button of his new man's style suit. "But what's it there for, if it's not meant to be buttoned?" The nine-year-old logic smashed over the net. "Well it's, er, decoration. Look at your lapels. They don't do anything either. They just look nice."
"Yeah, but the coat would look funny without these.." The nine year old fingered his lapels. "This button just hangs out here. It looks stupid."
"It's the way people do it. But leave it buttoned if you want." Some ten or eleven year old dandy would set him straight soon enough. The father wondered why he had even bothered. He didn't really care. No one had ever told him why that third button was there. The only reason he could figure out was that maybe it was there for a purpose he had discovered long ago: to move it up a notch or two when the first or second button popped and you were too lazy to find a match. He had gone all year with one button on his best blue suit and no one had said anything to his face.
Maybe it didn't matter. But people said it did. People say a lotof things about clothes. And with them. The other day, with the snow on the ground, I watched a bedizened, agitated gentleman hailing a cab. His hair spray was holding in the January wind; the expensive leather jacket and the long leather boots were so spotless I half expected to see the white plastic anti-theft clip from some Georgetown salon still tugging at them. A cab stopped, he rushed in and gave directions, and as he did so he gracefully swung into the taxi his cargo, a glazed bag from the trendy Georgetown store, E.F. Sly. Was he returning something? Going back for more? Or off to some new place to find something that would look even more elegant in the winter slush?
I probably do him wrong; maybe he was only late for work, but I was certain at .the moment that his clothes and baggage betrayed his mission in life: the acquisition of apparel. He was the man described by Carlyle "whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of clothes."
I say it with a bit of envy, for if the truth be told, I wouldn't mind being considered well-dressed. I would love to be elegant if there were not other things I loved more which have a peculiar way of interfering with my efforts to put my best side towards the world
My
father, who had attended Oxford, retained not only his old school ties but his
old school clothes.. He bought his suits from a tailor on Sackville Row— Jones,
Chalk & Dawson. This was not as extravagant an enterprise as it may seem;
my father wore his suits with a loyalty one normal-ly devotes only to one's
spouse or your grandfather's watch. The orders went to Sackville Row
infrequently but consistently.
When I became of age he tried to hand down the tradition. It didn't work. Shortly after he announced he was presenting me with a genuine English tailored
suit, a set of instructions arrived from JC&D. My roommates and I attempted
to follow the instructions but we were handicapped by not having a math major amongst
us, no beer, the lack of a tape measure and other sophomoric liabilities. We
decided that a yardstick would do the job nicely. All 240 pounds of me were measured,
checked and rechecked by my able assistants and the order sent off. A few weeks
later a letter arrived from England. It read:
“Dear Sir: With reference to your esteemed order, we regret to find when going into the measurements you have given, that .these do not appear to be quite in order, and we do not feel we could with confidence make up a suit .We wonder if you would be good enough to have the enclosed form completed, if possible by a local tailor, and return to us at your earliest convenience. Your further esteemed commands shall have our best and personal attention. With our compliments, we remain. Sir, Yours faithfully, Jones Chalk & Dawson Limited, D. Robinson, Director., P.S. Have you a snapshot of yourself which would help?”
I
was measured by a local tailor, as suggested, and in time the suit arrived, a
massive device that could withstand the worst cold of Boston or the loss of all
of His Majesty's colonies, a magnificent garment for Harold MacMillan no doubt,
but on me indistinguishable from that I might have obtained from Robert Hall's.
I realized then that if clothes were to make the man, I had had it. It was not
that I was without taste. When my older brother bequeathed his entire set of
early fifties ties ranging from pseudo Picassos to a nude reclining on a red
field, I accepted them modestly and hung them in my closet where they remained unworn,
favoring instead the 1 3/4" black knit that those of us who grew up in the
fading of "Happy Days" knew was now the only right thing to wear, unless
you belonged to a club or a fraternity. But I was not able, nor am I now, to
adjust my life in such a way that there was adequate time to make the endless small decisions that separate the
exquisite from the rest of us. I will, in a sudden spurt of reform, buy a new
suit, a complementary tie and shirt, and then find myself toddling around in
shoes that must not be raised on crossed knees less the minimal remaining
membrane of the sole spoil the effect.
There was a time when I thought I had solved the problem. Day after day I just wore
the same thing. I went through a pink shirt period, a green suit period, a black
and blue period.
I even went through a Sears Roebuck suit period.
I actually wear a suit or tie so seldom that it often provokes comment. This pleases me, for I see "nice clothes" as a costume, to be worn to a party or event, which is different than working or doing something.
I would submit that my sin is not one of taste but daring to wear what I wish, letting my clothes reflect the oddments of my mind rather than fighting or betraying it. Anyway, since one of the purposes of dress is to attract attention, my way is certainly cheaper.
So go ahead, kid, button that third button.
