The Pied Piper of Bougie Excess

There must have been something in the air this weekend. Y’all have piled on me and my mustard yellow half price London togs with enthusiasm. Bring it on-I can take it and actually, if you didn’t give me a little bit of grief I’d think I was falling down on the job.

Captain Mike said…”I just realized where I had seen the "red striped socks + mustard pants combo" before”. The link in his comment yielded this….

I’d say Captain Mike is spot on.

Then Anonymous English Female posited ….”There's one thing that can be said for the red striped socks + mustard pants combo - they match the room-service pizza...”

And ELS with her always delightful assemblage of words offered…”You should listen to your mate at the airport - half-price still doesn't make them any less shouty”. 

I’m the fuzzy dice, Go To Hell pants, slipper shod CEO of don’t give a sh_t. However, the mustard britches response has prompted me to send the trousers to Aunt Tootie’s husband Uncle Neugene. He’s known and prone to assemble some real zingers-as evidenced in his tartan cowboy rig so I’m certain that he’ll put ‘em to good use.

And this is a classic…. Cecelia Mc. … So many cars, so many toy soldiers, so many shirts... You're so used to an embarrassment of riches and that you long ago quit blushing. Who are you, the pied piper of bougie excess?  “The Pied Piper of Bougie Excess”. If I didn’t love my LPC quote in the title of my blog I’d flat out replace it with Cecelia Mc’s stellar contribution-with attribution of course.

My weekend with LFG was great with one little twist in our ongoing father-daughter frolic. She’s growing up. She’d already manifested some of the cool-not cool “don’t hug me in front of my friends” kind of expected manners-no biggie-I can roll with the phases. I know that some of you more experienced parents and those with more than one child are rolling your eyes at this “no big whup” update on LFG. I realize that many of you are saying “just wait old sport-you ain’t seen nothing yet”.

Ok, ok- I get where you are coming from but I’m good at denial. I thought that some of the moody brooding traits didn’t hit till eleven or twelve. My baby is still the sweetest most fun person on the planet but at nine and a half-some of the “next phase” of growing up behaviors are kicking in. She was indifferent about the die cast cars that I bought home from Florida. Even with the complementary back story about the Messerschmitt car replete with You Tube clips-all shown her before I unveiled the little car-she wasn’t very moved. 

Three years ago she would have squealed with delight and talked about it for the rest of the day. As one sympathetic parent told me…”You and your role with LFG aren’t going to be replaced-it will just be rearranged”. Got it. But I ain’t gotta like it.

Thank goodness my Valentines gift bag for LFG represented a decent recovery after the die cast car delivery fell a bit flat. 

Please realize that its' not all fun and games over here. We spent seven grueling minutes making flashcards for reinforcing the revisionist history of our great Country's founding. Shut up Pilgrim. Dig the lime green footies. We stole 'em from Aunt Tootie.

The snow will not melt. The Baltimore-Washington corridor has become Buffalo South. 

The piles of snow have made pedal and auto navigation an often harrowing endeavour if you aren't on main roads. 

And Old Town Alexandria is an early 18^th century hamlet which means we have a lot of little lanes and roads that aren’t “main”. Some have yet to see a plow.

So I needed to do a bit of homeless trad man layering. Camel hair was requisite but not my overcoat. The snow is dirty and I didn’t want to drag it through the ice-muck. Nor did I want to check it at the Newseum.

Flusser kerchief-JCrew zip neck sweater from a zillion years ago assure adequate neck dressing. Redneck dressing.

Merkin went with us-manifest in my pocket square. Still humbled by the gesture.

Dark brown David Saxby flat front cords-by far my best London procurement.

Decided to take a break from Red Wing boots and Bean Hunting boots. Bluchers remained a good choice only because I was careful where I stepped.

I think I mentioned that it's been years since I've darkened the doors of a barber shop. And yes, it's time for a haircut. I'll just snip off all the rogue outcroppings around this cap and I'm good for another month. Shut up.

The Newseum was our Valentine’s Day venue and I highly recommend it. We spent over four hours there with DG…Lily’s best friend and my favorite of all her United Nations Diversity gang. 

They both cut a demo clip as News Reporters. DG choosing a West Wing White House report and LFG choosing a Woodstock Anniversary spot. The Newseum folks type their names into the teleprompter computer. 

The kids then do a dry run and then cut the real video-about a 45 second spot. Five bucks later you have a photo and a link to download the live report.

Parking on the street is an absurd idea. The parking spaces are all plowed in so I relented and parked in a nondescript garage. I knew it was too good to be true when I rolled into a space almost as soon as we descended into the bowels of some building. Alas, I was encroaching on the moorings of the Argentine Navy. We all three got a chuckle out of it.

Johnny Rockets in Georgetown was our co-parenting hand-off destination. LFG’s mother joined us for valve closing-cardio killing fare. Of course LFG and I had the chili laden offerings-why go to Johnny Rockets and order anything else? I don’t even use a menu when ordering. I simply admonish them to “kill us”. LFG’s mom of course had BLT-no mayo-Rye bread-not toasted. Hell, I don’t want to live that long. LFG's sartorial proclivities are troubling. 

I've tried to reason with her my suggesting that she use my choices of color and texture as a guide. She laughed.

Ok…I’ve gotta get to work. I’m gonna post something provocative about my other half price britches-the green moleskins. Can’t wait to hear the response on these-before I send them to Uncle Neugene.

Onward-Pastily in the snow.

ADG and LFG

The Polo Coat-Camel Hair and The Flap Flap

Here’s a bit from a great article on the Polo Coat from Ivy Style and Town and Country….

“The camel hair coat has changed its style a bit over the years, yet remains a classic of the genre. Brooks Brothers has been stocking them forever or at least since the early years of the 20th century, and Ralph Lauren’s version  with flapped chest pocket is an authentic copy of one worn by the Duke of Windsor himself.

By 1930, the polo coat outnumbered the raccoon at the Yale-Princeton football game, which was as sure a sartorial barometer as could be found!”

Bruce Boyer-Town and Country July, 1981 Issue

Now the visual proof of the Duke wearing said coat with pocket flap-only is negated because his lapels were so darned wide.

I can’t remember appreciating the functionality of my clothing purchases to any greater degree than I’m enjoying this coat. Camel hair-to quote LFG once again, is “cuddly” and I now have three versions of it. 

No wonder that the camel hair Polo Coat and its hybrid kin are seen routinely in photos of gentleman in various forms of recreation and leisurely pursuits. It’s intriguing to see the elegant dichotomy and obtuseness manifest in a tennis-golf-polo-turf participant or spectator donning said coat over their activity specific apparel. For lack of a better characterization-cool.

Walter Hagen donned the Camel Polo before stepping up for a trophy and a check. I've already blogged about Hagen's contribution to elevating the income of and respect for pro golfers.

Hagen with that other guy who was known for nice togs.

Polo Coat apres Tennis

And it seems that 19th century Jockeys found overcoats to be quite comforting between rides. I love this windowpane contrivance swathing Mornington Cannon. 

Vince Lombardi avec the Camel Polo. "Now Bart...."

I loved Green Bay when I was a little kid. Why? Who else were you going to root for when you live in South Carolina? I liked their helmet-it has my last initial on it. I got a Bart Starr uniform and helmet for Christmas one year. M.W. got a Miami Dolphins outfit-you could order any team you wanted from the Sears catalogue. I remember breaking my leg a couple of days later while kitted out in my Green Bay rig. My football career ended early-real early.

If the Polo Coat was good enough for The Babe then it's good enough for me.

You can find the coat on cigar smoking automotive entrepreneurs in Delaware.

And a ton of Polo Coat and other overcoat inspiration from Apparel Arts.

Flap Included.

I publish almost all of the comments that roll in regarding my posts-with the exception of the xenophobic white separatist that commented the other day. Most of the digs at me are justified and therefore accepted and posted in the spirit intended. Including the one regarding the chest pocket flap on my half price Polo-Ralph “Polo Coat”…..

Anonymous said...

Think about having Flusser's tailors remove that flap over the breast pocket.

(I think it's why it was left over for reductions.

 No thanks. I actually LIKE the flap. Now I’ve got the results of a sartorial boondoggle or two in my closet and my fuzzy diceyness is certainly no secret so a chest pocket flap on my Polo Coat?-bring it on. It’s just the kind of extraneous accoutrement that I like. Functional? Not so much. I can’t see me engaging in rigorous antics that would cause the contents of said chest pocket to jostle out. So it’s kind of like one’s appendix (bad metaphor-bad metaphor) I suppose. You don’t HAVE to have it.

There are many a sartorial blogger with greater erudition in these matters than me so my research interests regarding the “flap” have petered out. What I did find in my snooping about was a plethora of examples reflecting that said flap has been an option on various types of overcoats for years. Gentry Magazine from the early 1950's was brimming with the "Flap". So there.

Chest Flap Hacking Flaps and Ticket Flap....Flappin' Ones Ass Off. Even I might posit that this one is suffering from Over Flap.

Now the Prince isn't flapping in this photo but his mate to the left is. Where's his boy Fruity Metcalf? Damn I love those British nicknames. "Fruity"...gotta love it. Especially when a guy like me comes from the land of nicknames more centric to "Bubba and Stinky". Binkie Beaumont is another zinger that comes to mind.

Looks to me like a demi-flap. Crescent demi-flap? Sounds like a damned Starbucks order. Shut the Flap Up.

So I can't tell you anything about the Flap-other than I like it. What I can do is leave you with a few other coats that are worthy of recognition.

Merkin's Tony Biddle inspired coat.

The Sartorial God only knows what this is. The onliest thing I can say is that it's stronger than nine rows of Spring Onions. Stop the damn bus and let me off. I gotta have one.

What is this cloth? Cashmere Terry? I think Cashmere Terry danced in the Hootchie Cootchie Show at the Fairgrounds with Aunt Tootie come to think of it.

Vanity Fair caricatures probably offer as rich a repository for Coat Inspiration as on cold hope to find. Some with Flaps. Some without.

Robert Falcon Scott

Flapping-Indeed

D'Oyly Carte

Sam Loates

Arthur Coventry

Some Turf Plonker

And finally, J.A.M. Whistler

Onward-Flapping....ADG