Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: It’s Random


I’ve never been short of ideas for stories with precise themes. You know…the ones that require editorial rigor and focus in order to have a single subject resonate. While it’s never been a strong suit of mine—focus that is—I’ve been known to tackle a singular subject with respectable outcomes. This is my long winded set-up for the fact that this little visit with you ain’t gonna be one of those.
It’s unfocused randomanalia time again, y’all. Rather like the multi-sensory deliverable of Whistler's Peacock room. Unfocused randomessence mainly because I am blessed to be covered up with work stuff that pays well but is sucking all of my time and mental disk space. I love writing about sartorial stuff but to cobble the same number of words together about pharma-biotech-diagnostics-medical device strategy is pretty much joyless. The part of my job that I love is when I’m interacting with customers or when I’m speaking to groups of clients or conference attendees—not coming home and writing case studies and summaries and follow-up. When I’m doing the live with groups or individuals thing, it’s my validation that I’m doing what I’m called to do professionally (with the exception of the only other thing that I’ve ever really done for the proverbial wage—worked after school in a Trad haberdashery—which upon semi-retirement and getting LFG into college—I might do once again). So as I’ve posited on other occasions, it’s either a random load of this-ness, or nadda. Now buckle up. Shut up.
Ivy Style at M.F.I.T. deserves and will receive next week, a blog story devoted exclusively to the exhibition, symposium and the accompanying book. But for now I’ll offer a few top-line comments. First, when Patricia Mears from F.I.T. called me over a year ago and wanted to talk about the evolving Ivy Style project as well as where the blogosphere fit in the oeuvre, I was happy to provide whatever insights I could. I’m on the record for being an ersatz-academic nerd type and could make matchbook collecting and curating an erudite endeavor. So this was right down my alley. Or does one always go up an alley? In?
But after my first phone call with the delightful Ms. Mears, (Who by the way, is well published and knowledgeable about women’s fashion and haute couture but was admittedly flummoxed about the whole Trad-Ivy-Preppy menswear thing) I thought…“Hell, if you wanna get this Ivy Style thing right, just get Paul Winston, Richard Press, Charlie Davidson, George Frazier IV and Bruce Boyer in one room and you’ll have all the literary, blood lineage and Trad-Ivy Mother Church retail stores legacies that you’ll need to land on a great version of what this was and is all about." I never needed to say it because that’s exactly what Patricia did. And with a dash of writers like Christian Chensvold and academics from around the globe, the book is and symposium will be—a home run.
I’ve yet to make it up to Gotham to see the exhibition and won’t until I head up to attend the conference but I’ve seen most of the exhibits in photos. And I’d say that just the opportunity to see Richard Press’s dad’s cashmere Prince of Wales Glen plaid sportcoat would be worth the trip.
Bottom line is that the Ivy Style exhibition catalogue is more than just another picture book. And I like most picture books. It’s a visual treat with academic heft. Like me.
So let’s shift gears inelegantly and just make a hard left turn and recap my previous five or six days. See the hands on the left? Those are the wise and learned but still learning—hands of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, my good buddy and author of To the Manner Born blog. I had to rescue him last Thursday and my best strategy for Toad recovery-rehabilitation included the following unguents…a boutique hotel in Old Town Alexandria, cocktails, great food and finally, a lovely woman to accompany us during dinner so that both of us would come off as better looking and cultured. Mission accomplished. 
Sunday night saw me at Urbana with Dominic Casey and George Glasgow, Jr. from the George Cleverley mafia over in London. I stopped by their suite at the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row for a quick and vaguely conjugal visit with my next pair of Cleverley’s that are mid-way through their gestational coming about. Half of you will marvel at them while the less courageous and unimaginative remainder of my seven readers will want to check me for a fever. Until I have the time to write a story exclusively devoted to explaining every weft-warp detail of this fuzzy fabrication, I’m only gonna show you the deliberately edited and aggressively cropped photo above. Stay tuned…or not. I don’t care. And if you think I'm kidding--about the not caring part--you might need to check your own damn self for a fever. I don't care.
Oh, and this is a try-on model that the Cleverley boys had sitting about in the suite. Preening actually. The hide is carpincho…from the rodent-esque Capybara and it’s sublime. Glove leather soft and chances are you’ve a pair of gloves made of it. 2013 might see me carpinching a loafer of some sort in it. I care.
But the most delightful event between Toad Rescue and Cleverley Contrivances was my two-night visit with LFG. She came to my partially dismantled Casa Minimus and I reveled in her homework catch-up and her dance class shuttling and sleep deprivation recoup. No sleepovers, no competition from other, more appealing weekend options. It was bliss. Like the old days. You remember, don't you? It was a year ago.
My Sperry sportin' little dancer…post classes…bagging the goods for our valve closing white-trash taco party. White trash tacos are heavy on processed ingredients and the only allowable meat for the trailer park, anything but esoteric, Pawn Stars-Pickers version of the concoction is ground beef.
Add the chemical packet included in the kit. Bam. Just add a neighbor and their three year old little boy and we gotta party. Party be a noun.
This ain’t hyperbole or drama. I feel whole again...restored as a dad…after my two-night LFG weekend. And for those of you who are hyper-vigilant regarding my digs, the original upholstery on my sofa is what you see here. The decade old slipcover is currently under forensic review and fumigation. After that, it’ll probably be on ebay.
Further along the random trail…I’m always late to the technology party but this Instagram photo thing for the iPhone is new to me. And I love it. I posted the photo above on my tumblr and several of you asked again about the source of these Kilim slippers. So here you go, again. Contact Pammie Jane Farquhar at Nomad Ideas. Tell her what size shoe you wear in European sizing. She will send you a photo of what she has. You select your poison and send her your card details.
I hate shopping but I like stuff. And my stuff affinity is usually rather precise and eccentric so my dosh gets spread all over the globe. But I urge you, if you live in the D.C. area and are in need of anything Alden or Crockett and Jones or from another smattering of tasty shoemakers, please go by and see the guys at Sky Shoes on Wisconsin Avenue. There’s little in this aesthetically barren town that I buy…save for the lovely offerings at Sterling and Burke and an occasional Polo/J. Crew tchotchke. But Sky Shoes will always be my go-to place for some of the more mainstream shoddings that my anything but mainstream a_s desires. Go see them. Spend money.

This is it for now folks. I’ve gotta rejigger my to-do list and then not do it.

Onward. Sandy unimpeded. ADG II
Ps…and speaking of Sandy…an older cousin of mine—I had about twenty first cousins—gave me two Sandy Nelson albums when I got my Slingerland drums in the 6th grade. I played this stuff over and over and over till I finally blew the speakers out of my mom’s big a_s piece of furniture stereo in the living rooms. And forty years later, my eardrums are in about the same shape.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Sartorial Washington, D.C.


I’m probably on the record somewhere in this blog stating that living inside the Beltway—residing as I do—literally seven miles from the Hill—six miles from the White House—and not being in politics is like living in Hollywood and not being in the movie business. Washington, D.C.  is a three-button sack coat, goofball town, awash with sycophants.  

This wasn’t always my opinion. There was a time when I loved the academics of politics. I loved United States constitutional history and I loved reading the 17th and 18th century political and social theorists. And I worked for a U.S. Senator the summer between my junior and one of my senior years of undergrad. Then the taint wafted in. Slowly. And rather like slow growing hardwood trees, the taint; when it did unfurl, was sturdy to the point of calcification and in my mind—it was here to stay. I love the academics of the political process. I loathe politicians. My rather decided view of all this culminated when during one of my several assignments within the pharma industry, I lobbied (I love the new, perhaps more palatable characterization of special interest tactics. Instead of lobbying, it’s advocacy now) agencies, legislators and policy shapers.  
Even the most well-meaning newly elected legislator will, within their first term, become to some degree, convertedturned. The big money, the court of jesters that include staffer toadies who would literally, I kid you not, wipe a legislator’s butt if asked, are laughable on one hand and downright pitiful on the other. I moderated my Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. bias slightly after reading his diaries but only a little bit. Loyalty is good. Unwavering allegiance without question scares me. I honestly believe that Schlesinger would have done anything to or for JFK and RFK...upon demand. Ok, so perhaps he wasn't a bow tied sycophant. But he was a J. Pressed lap-dog. 
I’m ok with ego and eccentricity but I’m less disgusted with gaudy shows of power and money when one comes about it in ways other than at the people's expense. And what we have on the Hill today are not servants of this country’s citizenry and our best interests. Oh, and state legislators are just as bad or worse. My home state’s legislative branch was for years, flat-out; for sale.
So it becomes rather obvious why sartorial panache doesn’t have to be part of the success formula in political Washington, D.C. The currency here is power—not style. There are a few exceptions to the rule but unfortunately, most of the best examples are historical ones. Come to think of it, sartorial Washington has fallen from its rather low-set three-button goofball sack coat perch and has landed on less defined ground. Even the most sociopathic political opportunist woulda looked ok if they’d just had one of their butt-wiper staffers drive them over to J. Press for a couple of suits and matching accessories. Remember Jim Traficant?
And with the exception of those Ivy League keystone cop knuckle heads at the CIA who led JFK to green light the Bay of Pigs—and with their hiccup or two regarding Vietnam, we’d be better off morally and sartorially if United States foreign policy was still led by those patinated statesmen who wouldn’t dream of stepping out of the house unless swathed and shod in Chipp, J. Press, The Brethren Brooks or some visiting Savile Row tailor or cobbler. Acheson and Harriman come to mind.
The current round-up of politicians offers more bad sartorial examples than good ones so let’s look back for a moment. Texan John Tower who was anything but towering, physically…was a natty dresser. Never did I see him without well placed linen in his breast pocket. And his ties were impeccably dimpled. I wonder if some of his sartorial knack came from hanging around Savile Row while attending the London School of Economics. Tower was a great sartorial specimen even though a little too Adolphe Menjou-esque in his studied perfection.
But I’ll take too well-studied and over-groomed any day, compared to the myth busting carriage of Barney Frank. So much for the prejudicial stereotype that says gay men are fastidious, neat and aesthetically advanced.
And I’ll say that the Kennedy brothers were an exception to all of my biased generalizations regarding sartorial Washington. Why? First, it’s their genetic predisposition for big, white incisors and really thick hair. Next, it’s their wealthy father’s investment from an early age, in their wardrobes rich in London bespoke and New England Trad-Ivy content. They learned it early on and never wavered too far from it. 
If Jack and Bobby had lived long enough to see Nehru Jackets, Members Only windbreakers and Nik-Nik shirts, something tells me that they’d have taken a pass.
So what about those other Texas boys, Connolly and Johnson? I love this photo. Lyndon and John at a ceremony honoring their mentor and surrogate father, Sam Rayburn. Friends and power seekers…at each other’s expense—one in the same. Texans without hats? It seems unthinkable. 
Connolly in a three-two peak lapelled single breasted rig. Rail thin. University of Texas.
Might this be Exhibit One in the “Does a picture really say a thousand words" Trial? Texans can do hats. Most times, it’s better that non-Texan politicians eschew the urge to top. But look at the HappyWarrior in the middle. He’d a looked even less comfortable with an obligatory “when in Rome” temporarily donned Stetson but geez…could there be a greater divide…a more dichotomous gaggle than HHH and these two Texans?
LBJ’s sartorial performances weren’t ghastly but it was obvious that he didn’t give too much of a damn about clothes. He was the hang-dog, jowly, big-eared Uncle Cornpone to JFK’s Trad-Ivy everythingness. But LBJ was a master strategist and a formidable tactician. History now trends toward assigning LBJ the rightful assignation of the most legislatively capable operative to ever occupy the Senate. He was the United States Senate for almost twelve years. Don’t believe me? Read Caro’s latest LBJ volume, Passage of Power. The first forty-seven days of LBJ’s presidency saw him reach back into the Senate and pull JFK’s stalled legislation out of the proverbial shitter. He knew how to get it done. The Harvards, as he called them, who ran the Executive branch before he took over, did not. Even though he urged...begged actually...most of the Harvards to stay on for at least one year before resigning their posts, it took his tactical, pragmatic, Cornponessence to legislatively actualize what JFK's Executive had initiated.
But there were a couple of things in Caro’s latest volume that challenged me. So consistent with my pseudo-academic, mighty-erudity-ness, I wrote Robert Caro to seek some clarification. Stay tuned for the response.
Ok, I’ve wandered aimlessly here and haven’t really made much of a sartorial point. I reckon the gist of this is that I live inside the Beltway for reasons that damn sure exclude ones political, sartorial and duende-acious. I am mad about clothes. I am mad at politicians. Now let me go see about what’s left of my hair.

Onward. Having already voted, I am…ADG II...your humble servant in all things sartorially random.
Oh…one more thing. The last campaign I cared about was when LFG ran for the Presidency of Wonders, her aftercare program when she was in the 2nd grade. I’m a strategy consultant but fearing a biased, daddy taint if I actively engaged too much in LFG’s campaign; I delegated the task to my one of my business partners and his daughter who is LFG’s age. And I've already been clear on the risk that politicians take when trying to wear hats or helmets. Candidate LFG on the other hand, rocked her little pillbox topper don'tcha think? Even her Chief of Staff, Gromit, is reasonably well topped in his rain hat.

Here’s my partner’s write up on the winning LFG campaign strategy…

*Strategy Works for Seven Year Olds

“LFG, age 7, recently decided to run for the Presidency of “Wonders”, her after school care program. When asked what she would rely upon to get votes, she paused for a moment to reflect on differentiating strategy options. Subsequently, she declared that the kids attending the aftercare program should be empowered to have more choice in the selection of activities and resources for their utilization.

LFG then concluded that she should hire the services of a strategy consultancy to assist in building a winning position around the theme of “kid’s choice”. L.T.I.  (Lauren, Tommy Inc.) was retained to craft the strategy. Lauren S___ weighed in on the “Choice” strategy and along with her associate, Tommy S___, created the following strategic playbook for LFG:

As part of the consulting arrangement with LFG for President, LTI (Lauren, Tommy, Inc.) have developed a strategy built on what LFG has said is most important to her constituency and designed to ensure her election as President of Post School Care…

Let us set the scenario…

LFG strides into the main play area and up to the Daisy Duck podium.  She turns, recognizes the Speaker of the Playground and those who were unable to attend due to nap time.  She grabs both sides of the podium and stares directly into the eyes of Madam Post School Care Facility Owner.  She pauses for dramatic effect and says…

“It’s all about making the Right Choices

The Right Choices for…

•             Healthier Snacks
•             Kid’s Toys in the Playroom
•             Frequent Field Trips
•             More Cooking Days

The CHOICE is really simple…LFG, the Right Choice!”

She stands still and relishes the applause, nods her head one time, turns and exits to the standing ovation she will so richly deserve.

LFG won a hard fought contest utilizing the well-honed “Choice” strategy created through the collaborative efforts of her team and L.T.I.”

*This is a true story. And yes, LFG won.
  

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: J. Press-A Bowtie-And a Girl


By the summer of 1990 I’d started slipping…down that slippery slope of Flusser bespoke. But old habits die hard and even though I’d decamped the 3-button sack coat, hooked center Trad-Ivy mother church in favor of Savile Row fuzzy, I’d always slip back into the pew for an accessory or two.

But let’s talk girls first. I’d moved from Montclair, New Jersey to Old Town Alexandria but found myself back in N.J. and NYC a couple of times each month for a meeting or some other home office command performance. And 1990 also saw me in western New York state for three nights every other week. My company needed someone to manage our pharma business and our five salespeople up there and somehow, they decided that it would be a “developmental” task for an up and comer like me. That’s code for … “Hell, little ADG is single and he probably loves to travel and he’ll get a lot of travel points and…” so there you have it.

The Marriotts…Carrier Circle-Syracuse, Millersport Road-Buffalo, Wolf Road-Albany and the Thruway-Rochester (where I would once again stay, several years later when I was back in graduate school—this time at R.I.T.) became my homes away from home. No offense to those who call these towns home but I couldn’t wait to leave them and return to D.C. And then I met a girl. A breathtakingly beautiful one. In Syracuse. I then found myself staying in Syracuse for long weekends during that winter when anywhere else, temperature and sky color-wise would have been preferable. But this beautiful woman…just out of college…Kelly LeBrock identical twin—lookalike and for some odd reason, she liked me. The things we do amidst pheromonesque moments.
It was a tangle. And a joyous one at that. After the spring thaw and a flurry of Syracuse—Old Town weekend trips, we planned a long weekend with my best friend and his wife in Upper Montclair. We had dinner plans in Chelsea that Saturday night but the Syracuse Stunner and I headed to Gotham earlier for a stroll around. My mind’s eye still has a clear read on her cocktail dress. Manhattan’s mid-afternoon summer weekend emptiness amplified the incongruence of a cocktail dressed woman shopping with me at the old J. Press store. Hell, the fact that she was with me was incongruent…independent of season, time of day or geography.
I miss the old J. Press store in New York. But then again it’s no secret that I live most of my time yearning and wishing and recalling and remembering things that aren’t here anymore. I like patina. The J. Press and Chipp joints were tucked around the corner from the Brethren Brooks and as I ponder their proximity to the mother church, I kinda think of that other room in the back of the magazine shop in my hometown. Standard fare up front, more esoteric, edgy and erotic stuff around the corner on 44th.
And there was a guy who worked there back in the mid-80’s when I started going there and he was still there on that stifling hot Saturday afternoon when I walked in with Ms. Cocktail dress. He was big. Unhealthily so and seemed to be larger very time I visited the store. He had a booming theatrical voice and round tortoise shell glasses—long before the rest of us started wearing them. He sold us a bowtie that afternoon.

My summer Saturday outfit furthered the incongruence. I felt dowdy in my navy blazer, rep tie and seersucker trousers compared to my chic date. “I want you to buy this bow tie and put it on now.” I kid you not; I’d a bought and donned a monkey-suit if she’d asked. And so I did—buy the bow tie. I never had to suit up in any costumes. But I woulda.
I still have the tie. Silk shantung might not a been my first choice but then again, I wasn’t driving the decision bus that afternoon. I was merely a passenger—mightily proud to be along for the ride. I donned the tie and we met up with my friends for dinner. The next day we spent it poolside back in Montclair and my Syracuse Stunner avec bikini was everything my best friend’s wife wasn’t—avec a celibacy inducing one-piece…replete with modesty skirt. The next evening as we packed for the airport, my friend’s wife, in her best Junior League single stranded pearl smile pulled me aside and whispered…“Don’t ever bring that woman back to my house again.”
I can’t quite remember the exact circumstances leading up to the demise of my Syracuse love fest. I no longer had to cover western New York and there was plenty to keep me smitten in D.C. Then one night a year or so later I’m reveling at the Casablanca Ball which was always a blast. I used to go with a gaggle of black tied, evening dressed friends and the marble columned National Building Museum venue made the fun soirée even—funner. “Hello Mr. G.” Yep. It was my Syracuse Stunner…stunning…in sequins. What are the chances? She’d moved to Annapolis a few weeks earlier. News to me.  An hour later we extricated ourselves from the Building Museum for less crowded digs.

The next year saw an on again off again flurry of our relationship tries. Then I was set to move to New Orleans for a two-year assignment. And she met a guy that she thought she should marry. I thought she shouldn’t and I wrote her a long letter, pleading with her not to. I received the letter back—unopened. She lives far away now…is on her second marriage and everyone knows the outcome of my nuptialessence. We exchange an email every now and then in sort of a Dan Fogelberg Same Old Lang Syne “woulda coulda shoulda…why didn’t you open the letter” kind of way.

Most of me likes to keep that memory right where I have it…In the old J. Press store on 44th street on an oppressively hot Saturday afternoon. With this woman who desires me and desires me to be in a silk shantung bow tie. Another part of me wonders what woulda happened if she’d opened my letter.

Onward.

ADG II …with the source notes that motivated this story cited below…

> -----Original Message-----
From:  _____
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2012 2:30 PM
To: D G
Subject: Twenty-one years ago this week...

“I relocated from Syracuse to Annapolis, MD. As fate would have it, I unexpectedly ran into you my first weekend living there; we had both attended the ball at the Building Museum in DC. Funny the things that stick in your memory...”

On Oct 4, 2012, at 3:39 PM, D G wrote:

“Ah...yes. And C___, the other thing that comes to mind is your lovely, sequined dress that hung in my closet for several weeks after bumping into you at the ball. I think I delivered you back to the Hyatt in Rosslyn with you avec an old pair of my Levis and a sweatshirt. I recall that you looked just as stunning in that outfit as you did when I talked you out of that sequined dress when we got back to my place.”

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Patches

Here. Look at this. It's a patchwork sweater of some sort. I intended to write a Trad-Ivy Tuesday story about all of the patch things I wore in college but I don't have time. So Trad-Ivy Tuesday will end up being Trad-Ivy Thursday this week. I'm about to jump a plane to Cincinnati. Oh joy. Plus, blogging occupies my mind and distracts me from other things and I don't want that. In other words, blogging right now, unless I'm writing some wallowing-self pitying story, gets in the way of my suffering.
We not only wore patches...we all used to sing Patches at about one in the morning--KA House time. "...I told mama I was gonna quit school but she said that was daddy's skrictest rule..." Most semesters they told me that I was gonna quit school.

Onward. To Cincinnati.

ADG Twice.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Barbour: Fall 2009

Fall 2009 or fall 2012. It really makes no difference. Barbour is timeless. Barbour...or at least their capstone icon models like the Bedale and the Beaufort, remains a correct constant amidst all other things trendy, transitory and tacky.
But other things do change. And I don't like it. Nor do I have to. I want this little girl back. The one who would do things with me like run...really fast...towards the Fiction tent at the National Book Festival on the Mall because she knew how much her daddy wanted to hear Daniel Silva speak about his newest thriller. This was "let's hurry daddy because I know how much you love Daniel Silva"...not the current... "the faster you walk, dad, (not daddy--that's been banned) the faster I'm gonna walk. Sorry that you're offended but really, you can't expect me to actually be seen with you."
I want my little girl back. The one who wasn't embarrassed to be at the book festival in her soccer kit because her daddy forgot to pack a change of clothes at 0-dark-thirty when they left for her first of the morning soccer game.
You know, the little gal who looked upon with almost fan-like admiration, the chivalry of her daddy relinquishing his Bedale to her so that she'd stay dry and comfy.
You remember, right? The piccolo sized gal who was still little enough for her daddy to prop up on a table so that she could see and hear her favorite at the time...Jeff Kinney...author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Daniel Silva be damned, my baby was not gonna miss the thrill in being part of Jeff Kinney's story telling.
Daddy's  little partner...who gladly allowed and quite frankly expected...that he steady her with a paternal hand. Steadying her while daddy gets soaked by a constant, misty rain. No eye rolling, no tisk-tisking. And in the fall of 2009, daddy's IQ had yet to plummet so precipitously as has been the case since. Going steady? Ain't gonna happen.
Where is my sophomoric silly girl? The one who, on the arduous walk back to the car, post Daniel Silva and Jeff Kinney book signings--daddy and daughter were both so happy to meet their authors and get their books personalized--amused herself with skits about being attacked by the Barbour Bedale Monster Within.
So who's currently the child? I am. I know. Pouting all-to-be-damned. And if the man-child above...wore those high waisted Gurkha shorts today, surely the no-longer-a-little-girl would send him "right back upstairs to change, young man." She'd probably grant clemency on the Barbour. Everything else though, is bound to change.

Onward. Reluctantly.

ADG, II

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: The Debate Results

Trad-Ivy Tuesday Thursday
After careful deliberation and of course; your input. I've made my Kilim decision and am now prepared to also reveal my 2013 GTH trouser choice. The decisions were not easy. Since the offerings were seductive and the reality that one shouldn't have all of 'em seemed to waft in and out of decider land, I was vapor-locked and flummoxed during various moments during the trade-off process. 

Editorial courage is something I seem to have plenty of during work hours. I spent seven tedious ones yesterday working with two brand managers...creating first, the vetting criteria for tactical resource deployment and then guiding them through go-no go decisions based on the criteria. After seven hours of editorial rigor that netted them over a million dollars in marketing budget efficiencies...that's fancy talk for savings...I told them I shoulda taken the project for a percentage instead of my day rate. 
So why can't I practice the same level of efficiency and restraint in my personal and sartorial realms? I suppose that mainliest reason is that I damn don't want to. Thanks. After days of wearing such rigs as evidenced above, I'm looking for the quirk when I get home. 
Only one of you nailed the trouser choice. I've already got tons of reds and blues and all the other spectra of usual GTH colors. So why not be gaudy? Why not be impertinent? In less predictable hues? 
And thanks for all of the suggestions regarding my next pair of Kilim shoes. Certainly some of the choices that I disqualified from the get-go were tasty. But I already have a pair that lands similarly, color scheme-wise so again, I was looking for something different. To diversify the quirk. Shut up.
Flo suggested that I darken the lighter regions of this Kilim construct with a slapdash of strongly brewed tea. That's exactly what I'm a gonna do when this pair arrives. A Tea Party. Yep. Or maybe some skrong coffee. Flo gets me. Indeed.

Onward. Slammed. In all good ways.

Eighty Gee, Twice.