Saturday, April 30, 2011

Straw Hats-Linen...and Sunscreen

Last Monday was a somber day for me. LFG was back in school after one of our typically great weeks of vacation debauchery. Debauchery defined as less than rigorous hygiene demands, no curfew and bad food. But at some point we all have to re-engage in more structured and responsible deportment. And I re-engaged Monday morning in linen…with the pastiest ankles to accompany my favorite fabric. It’s only April so the ankle color is similar in shade to the trouser.
And the rest of my rig needed to be a bit less fuzzy in keeping with Monday’s somber nature. Earth tones topped off with a brown polka dot pocket square.  One of my house-model Flussers… 3/2 rolled open patch pockets… seemed appropriate.
Which brings me to the other driver of Monday’s somberness…my skin. I’ve abused it in every way possible since I was old enough to seek the sun and it now shows. I’ve seen sixty year old sun avoiders with healthier, younger skin than mine. I get rather pasty in the winter but can get brown as a berry in the summer…and I always have until now. Sunscreen? Cursory daubs from time to time but I spent my life from birth till now doing all the summertime things that damage your skin. I wore a porn star mustache briefly in 1979 but no sunscreen. 

So I took the Metro on Monday morning to a Dermatologist office in D.C. I knew the lashing I was gonna get before ever meeting this very nice and almost too young to be out of her residency, Dermatologist. I had, luckily, only a few pre-cancerous little visitors that needed to be looked at and all will be fine…if I avoid the sun. A little zap here and a couple of prescriptions later and she’ll see me in a couple of months…right in the middle of sun tan time. Oy.
Which brings me to the issue of hats. I’ve never worn a straw dress hat. My spiritual and pragmatic mentor Toad is the hat king. But as soon as I saw this picture of Tommy Hitchcock in his straw pork pie hat, I declared that if I could ever find one of that caliber, I might give it a go. I love the dichotomy of straw and madras topping off Hitchcock in his camel hair Polo coat.  
But even with my level of not giving a shitake about rules and my love of all things fuzzy, I’ve never peered over into the straw-dress hat realm. Some people were born for hats. Toad seems as straw hat-esque as anyone.
Some people can sport esoteric straw hats with panache and aplomb. People ask me about this picture when they visit but I have nothing to provide. I don't know anything about this fella other than I bet he'd be fun at cocktail parties.
Some folks should leave straw hat esoterica to those who can execute on eccentricity.
So I’m walking to the Dermatology office and the sun is beating down on my head and I can feel it. Really feel it…the hair back there ain’t what it used to be. I encounter the windows of J.Press at about the same time and their hats are appropriately sitting in the windows. I’d already decided to stop in on them during my walk back from the Derm office. I needed to get a gift for a buddy.
This guy was having lunch at a place right beside J.Press and I immediately saw his rig as more ADG centric than if he’d had a straw hat on. Seersucker and a baseball hat…certainly more my speed.
So I go for my scolding and my medicine and sulk back over to J. Press. Gift shirt and a couple of grosgrain watch bands in hand and I’m ready to roll. And then I begin looking at hats. Not these. I’ll wear baseball caps before I don these Trad yet goofball looking things.
But the little modified brim Porkpie provokes me a bit. Coincidentally, it matches my outfit and it isn’t one of those, albeit perhaps aptly priced, three-hundred dollar things. It’s fairly cheap. And I don’t think it looks too absurd when I give it a go.
So I’m now headed to the Farragut North Metro stop in a Porkpie straw hat.
 I’m good with it. Really, I mean how much more self-conscious could a guy like me become after donning this straw topper? None actually. Remember, I’m the guy who wears slippers, outside of the house. Shut up.
So I’m thinking...even with a Dermatologist slathered red nose, that I’m pulling this look off ok.
 Let me know if I’m hallucinating.
And finally, just another shot of my complementary Flusser/Polo/Edward Green contrivance. Open patch pockets always get my attention.
Two inch cuffs. Don't argue this with me. Coarse-weave linen, flat front Polo togs and my EG Koss charity shoes.
Ok, off to soccer. With sunscreen. And a purple nose.

ADG II 

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Pollock Heritage Artisanal Repurposed Trouser

The cura-sartorialists are at it again. But this time they’ve recruited stylonista LFG for a re-interpretative project sure to rival the much lauded December 2010 LLVDH. That’s LFG above. Replete with McNairy-Muytjens black plastic Angst Eyewear.
"Daddy, if I’m gonna work with these guys, you are gonna have to work with ME. Rumination is the name of this game daddy and I can’t seem to get my knock rip-off groove on without these glasses. Now help me roll my shirt sleeves and britches legs up so that they look inordinately skimpy and ergo (yes daddy…ergo) sillier than you've ever kitted out. And then daddy, tell me what rumination is and teach me how to do it.”
Regarding the need for a creative cohort led by LFG…“The other guys might wanna spin some angst shrouded story about why we sought out LFG but the reason is quite simple. We were out of adjectives, man. And you can only re-re-re-interpretate stuff so many times before the dunning drives you crazy” declared Darnell Burgess, spokesperson for collaborists McNairy, Browne and Muytjens. “We were also out of money” chimed Muytjens while Mark “Knock-Off” McNairy simply brooded for a moment before defensively spittling…“Look, we ran out of a lotta sh_t. Repurposed artisanal derivative work will burn lesser men out in eight-ninths the time it took for this uber team to crash. Now reduce that fraction smartass. We needed new ideas, adjectives and a few pairs of worn out khakis.”
So the pentagonal gang put their heads together and declared that khakis, paint, Pollock, and an eye-gouging price point would rule the creative day. McNairy again…“Why not? Uncle Ralph had paint splattered khakis for sale in his Madison Avenue Mansion for a couple hundred bucks a throw some time back. With our collective genius, LFG’s paint and her daddy’s khakis, this thing has to carry a thousand dollar-a-pair MSRP. After we finish the prototype, we’ll send it over to Lesserfourthworldia and have kids half LFG’s age crank these babies out like sausage. Oh, and we'll make sure they use lead-based paints. Artisanal, heirloom, lead-based paints. And we’ll have a special little woodblock vintage tag hanging off the pants declaring so.”
And where’s the Jackson Pollock tie-in? Burgess on Pollock…“He was creative and crazy, man. Like us.” “And he was so cool that he even smoked cigarettes” offered Muytjens.
So after a frenzied paint slinging go at LFG’s daddy’s khakis…executed in the LFG-Pollock inspired bedroom at daddy’s house, a PHART wafted. The Pollock Heritage Artisanal Repurposed Trouser prototype was born.
This from Burgess…“We can’t thank LFG enough…for everything. Even McNairy cracked a smile her way between pastel pigmentated slops and drops.” “Ok, ok, so she helped a little bit. But we would have broken through this constipationary creative drought at some point” pouted a paint-weary McNairy.
The PHART remains outdoors at present. Curing and wafting its pastel Pollockness in preparation for next steps. If the "lifestyle inclusion-premarketing gullibility test" goes as well for these babies as it did for the LLVDH, you too can apply for PHART ownership…at a thousand bucks a go.
Onward. Splattered. And wishing it was still Spring Break.

ADG, II