Flusser Apologetics and JMW Turner Unapologetically

I kinda miss ole Daddy. ‘specially now since I’m a full-fledged orphan. Daddy this time being God, aka Alan Flusser. God you say? Yep. He’s a reluctant owner of the moniker but not too reluctant. I mean really, it makes no difference if you are a nice Jewish boy turned Buddhist from the upper middle class enclaves of the Garden State and then four decades Gotham habitué or like me, a country-ass redneck from the Palmetto State. Everyone loves a bit of adulation.  But my life circumstances have had me missing Alan’s Washington visits and my scant Gotham sorties haven’t offered Flusser Fellowship in over a year.

I started it. I’m the one who first called Alan God. I’ve admired him since way before he ever befriended me and started taking a lot of my money. And I’ve said it a zillion times and I’ll say it again to you knuckleheads who say “Alan Flusser? What happened?” Nothing has happened, dumbasses. Alan’s riding the waves of time just like the rest of us. 

And the “What happened?” question seems always posited on those forums in context to thirty year old publicity/jacket cover photos of Alan. Unless you are splashing on embalming fluid every morning, I’d bet that a thirty year progression of your mug shots would show us a journey not dissimilar. So back off of Daddy.

I’ve aged ten years in eighteen months. Shut up.

I too used to hang on to the idea of Alan Flusser, circa 1984 just like I did with Ralph Lauren, circa 1978. These were my Ed Sullivan moments for both Beatles-esque sartorial acts. The moments when they not only forever installed themselves in my sartorial and aesthetic register, but when they were also both on f_cking fire. Shut up. These were Ralph’s horse blanket Shetland plaid sport jackets (made in the USA by Lanham) moments and Alan's horizontal dress shirted, gut end braces, chalk striped drapy trousered, double breasted days.

But things change—all life is transitory and that includes sartorial epochs. Bruce Springsteen said “every now and then you have to break your own narrative” and National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones said that “if we don’t question our patterns, they become our prisons”. Alan and Ralph have never strayed too far from their core strategies but for the sake of their own engagement, relevance, and perhaps amusement, they mix it up a bit.

Artistic licence (If he’s is anything, he’s an artist) and relaxation would be two characteristics of Alan that I’d use to distinguish the current state of his evolution.  Alan is a grandfather and is long past the need care too much about the opinions of the general public or investors or journalists. So what if most of the world thinks he needs a haircut? I hope he grows it down to his ass and then sells locks of it. I'll buy some and a make a bracelet. Shut up.

Courtesy of Gentleman's Gazette

Look at the sockless daddy...with kick ass Gucci Deal Sleds on. Stronger than wolf nooky. Yep.The one-time arbiter of beltless, Thurston braced drapy trousers and made by Old Man Cleverley himself, buckled or laced shoes, now wears slip ons and flat front belted trousers almost exclusively. His two daughters flipped out when they discovered that he actually bought a pair of jeans. 

And the man is obsessed with comfort. Lora Piana drawstring lounge togs? If they exist, I bet Daddy Fluss has them on right now. Me? I’m in a dirty, terrycloth zebra print robe that I stole from the Hotel Monaco. 

Photo from The Trad

When scores of you suggested that I remove of couple of the dingy-ass cotton bracelets from my left wrist, I added three more. I only thinned out my circular fellowship of bracelets for my mamma’s funeral last week and I hope that Alan only grooms differently for such rare situations. I walked my sister down the marital aisle twice. I don’t think I’ll have to attend a re-do of my mamma’s send off so I’m going to reload my wrist. GTH.

And speaking of “GTH devotees”, I just saw the JMW Turner Late Pictures exhibition at the Tate Britain and was blown away. Every picture in this show was Turner aged sixty-five to his death at seventy-six. Nothing earlier. Radical. Mind bending. And imagine how imposing his pictures were to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Art Establishment of the time. Oh and here's a Turner self portrait as a young man. Probably idealized a bit but still, he was a young shaver when he painted it.

“The EY Exhibition: Late Turner – Painting Set Free is the first exhibition devoted to the extraordinary work J.M.W. Turner created between 1835 and his death in 1851. Bringing together spectacular works from the UK and abroad, this exhibition celebrates Turner’s astonishing creative flowering in these later years when he produced many of his finest pictures but was also controversial and unjustly misunderstood”.

Turner even as a young man was always an incredible capturer of water and clouds. Water and air’s movement, energy and emotion are difficult to memorialize in any medium; watercolor, pastel, drypoint, tempera, or oil. And an artist’s attempt to convey it tests greatly their mechanical skill and even more so their talent for finding and then really, really seeing these magical properties.

Whistler had the same talent for seeing and conveying dawn, dusk and midnight. Anyone with basic artistic skill could capture a lush, painterly image of the old Battersea Bridge. But Whistler shrouded it in atmospherics. Twilights and dawn peeks, mists and vapors. He and Turner saw what others didn’t but that’s only one part of the gift. The artist must then transfer it. And this is the moment when talent and skill must congregate. Ralph and Alan. Congregationalists.

The volume of Whistler’s Venice pastels exist mainly because of chilly mornings and early evenings.  When he deemed it too cold to transfer artfully his mind’s eye capture on to an etching plate with a needle, he would bide his time drawing, courtesy of a little box of pastels and light brown cards that he kept in his pocket. 

When his hands warmed up, he’d tuck away his pastel kit and commence etching. I'm just happy that there were days when his hands were cold.

Photo Courtesy of My Damn Self

Folks, to be able to do that is talent and skill combined and Flusser has it out the ass. Still does. His eye remains unrivaled and his skill for conveying it courtesy of colors, textures, and mediums is as Turner-esque as ever. I deemed Flusser “God” long ago after manifold moments of him gently pulling me back from the crag where I’d unwittingly almost fall into the Canyon of Clowndom. Had Alan not steered me to this heathery green cashmere and wool option, surely I'd have ended up with some kind of bright green hootchie cootchie coat.

Photo from Off The Cuff DC

And I'd ape the hell out of Alan. There was a time when I’d simply see what Alan was wearing at the opening of a season or a trunk show and just say, “I’ll have that.” And that was always a good decision. Why try to knock off Turner and Whistler when you can simply have the Master create one for you?

Turner was sixty-five when he threw into overdrive his slaying  of the staid opinions and calcified mores of London’s Art Establishment. And he didn’t let up until he died eleven years later.  They literally thought Turner was demented. Maybe he was and thanks be to the neurosynaptic gods for it. Look at this picture. You almost need to dress for it. Barbour at minimum. Maybe a crash helmet too. 

Turner looked like this when he opened his final can of whoop ass, punching the Establishment right in the nose. Not quite the dashing fella of previous decades but still loaded with juice.

And how could I have rambled on about all this without including my friend and soothsayer of balance and restrained playfulness, the mighty eruditey, G. The Bruce. Boyer.  Bruce’s  afterburners didn’t even feel the need to kick in till he was into his fifth decade of extolling on things sartorial.  I know of no one who has more thoroughly enjoyed…reveled practically, in the digital age of sartorial expression. Like I’ve said before, nobody shit-talks Bruce Boyer.

Flussdaddy remains the go-to man, the unimpeachable control tower for the sartorial takeoffs and landings of stick and rudder Cessna guys like me who think they are the lead solo jet on the sartorial Thunderbirds.

Now get your b_tch ass in the kitchen and make me some pie.

Onward. Going home this week to mamma’s for Thanksgiving.

ADG2. Thankful. 

Navy Blah

My closet is full of fuzzy. You know—my sartorial contrivances that for the most part successfully made the breach from idea to existence in good form. 

I love pattern and texture and consistent with my Pee Dee roots, I’ll always like a little smidge of trashy thrown in too. Exhibit A for this “look at me, look at me” spore that still inhabits my essence is this redneck-ass pair of honky-tonk trailer trash drunk meets the Regatta britches I bought in Charleston the other week. It was half price time at M.Dumas, the only thing left on King Street in Charleston worth visiting (unless you wanna gander for a moment in that museum known as Ben Silver) but oh no…I had to pop for something full-price. That something being these Vineyard Vines please make fun of me thangs. Shut up. Shut the ___ up.

And this is how bad it’s gotten betwixt me and Ms. LFG. I waited till she was back in the room at the Mills House before I slipped down to Dumas and made the purchase. To this day she knows not that they exist since I sneaked ‘em in my travel bag and spirited them back home sub damn rosa. Kinda like the Underground Railroad for shit one ought not to be buying in the first place. Remember...she forbid me to wear my F. Todd Howell Hog Farmer Coffman Specials depicted above. Shut up I already said. 

I’m her father. She respects me and loves me and even though she only grunts at me now, the grunts are mine. All y’all  told me that the grunts are pretty much the only thing I’m gonna get for the next five years and if LFG saw these britches; I do believe amidst her somewhat sequestered feelings for me, she would thereafter cut me off from even the all too infrequent huffs and eye-rolls. It ain’t worth it.

But amidst all my color and pattern craziness, some kinda default anti-GTH override seems to be more consistent than the flurry of fuzziness that busts out from time to time. What is this default override of which I speak? Blue jackets and tan trousers. Case in point you axk for? My zillion pairs of tan or close to tan linen and cotton/silk trousers that I wear the hell out of all summer long. Did I need another pair? 

I thought so and the flat front, beltless, frog mouth cowboy pocketed pair seen here would be my latest contrivance. I still ain’t gonna tell you the source. It’s my dirty little secret but just suffice it to say that my spendthrift self ain’t gonna let Uncle Flusser or Miracle Mark Rykken make me no bespokeydoke britches at seven hundred a go. 

These are remarkably less...price-wise and as far as the need for quality and durability, these are rigorous enough. And tasty, tasty, tasty… ‘specially after we throwed a two-inch cuff on their south ends. Then again anything swathing my still in-shape temple of sexiness is gonna be tasty, tasty, tasty. Speak up.

And jackets? I wear a solid blue one seventy-five percent of the time. Certainly I love other things color and pattern wise and Miracle Mark Rykken at Paul Stuart has a lovely summer jacket in the works for me right now. It’s a great gaggle of pattern and color—with hacking flaps on it to make it just fuzzier enough.

But Miracle Mark also has for me in tandem with that jacket, another, you guessed it, blue one. But oh, it's different. Three-Two Roll--Peaked Lapels--Double Vented of course but the game changer on this one?...Hacking Pockets including ticket. Now that's different, no?

Blue jackets prevail…yet I’ve got those windowpane and tweedy things in my closet that I’m so crazy about and I’ve got a remarkable Russell Plaid jacket for winter that’s sitting right now on Savile Row awaiting my first fitting. It's a different shade than the one above and I’m gonna remain cagey and coy regarding who’s making it for me till I write a story about the jacket and the cutter this Fall. But for now I will say that he is the most imaginative cutter on the Row today…imaginative without being all tarted up like the current stewards of Huntsman's legacy. Damn. When I think that something’s too fuzzy or tarty then it probably is.

My interest in the Russell plaid was very precise. I didn’t want the common version infrequently offered in trousers and jackets off the peg. The standard version is rather brown with a light cream background that makes the already geometrically crisp Russell appear even more structured and harsh. There’s another version...above...that’s slightly greener and creamier and I’m just gonna tell you right now that it will be the bomb. Or as Zbigniew Brzezinski used to pronounce it…“bom-buh.” Now I’ve yet to see my Russell jacket and have deliberately not asked to see photos of it because I want my first sighting to be in situ. I missed my first fitting in New York when my mama blew up but one of my best buddies saw it. Here’s what he said…

“…and after we'd chatted a bit about this and that and him and her, he showed me a lovely exclusive swatch of brown checked tweed -- of which he had only enough for one or two suits -- and it was right down my street. So I said yes. Then he casually asked me if I wanted to see your jacket. Just as casually I said yes, and he brought it out: I was knocked completely base over apex; the antique Russell plaid made up beautifully. So beautifully in fact that I cancelled my original choice of the brown check and told him to make me up the Russell.”

You’ll learn who this fella is that’s aped my Russell when I write the story. Let me just tell you for now that I’ve never been prouder to have someone of his taste level be inspired by something that I contrived. Maybe he can make some headway with my little grunter, LFG.

Oh, and before we get back to blue jackets, the swatch(es) above has been bothering me for six months. I ran across it when I was seeking out the just-right version of the Russell plaid and I can’t get over it. Kinda like the carpincho hide that I’ve been obsessing over courtesy of those clever Cleverley boys. I thought I had it washed outta my noggin after seeing a garish, hip-hop pimp ass carpincho shoe in green. It was absurd enough to scare even my fuzzy redneck rump to death but somehow the carpincho spore has embedded itself once again. Be quiet. I’m not sure which of the two colorways above will prevail. Do you have an opinion?

My mostly navy…blue jacket penchant has always manifested with gold buttons….blazer style. Puerto Rykken and Alan Flussfluss made my blue linen jacket years ago and just assumed that I’d want horn buttons on it and sent it accordingly. And I accordingly called them and requested a set of gold buttons as soon as it arrived. I think it goes back to my college days when every KA wore a navy blazer with gold buttons. All the damn time.

Here I am years ago dancing with a little stunner on the deck of the Disney Cruise-r. Linen Flusser blazer and a dance partner who at that time still thought I was the Cat Daddy. 

Photo stolen once again--from Ivy Style. Shut up.

But times change and some proclivities adjust accordingly. The anti-fuzziness…the duende…the subtle confidence manifest in this man’s navy jacket caught me many months ago when we were having lunch in Gotham. G. the Bruce Boyer was rocking a navy double breasted jacket in a way that made me feel childish about my peacockery. And I’ve had that jacket on my mind ever since.

Photo stolen from Rose Callahan...Order your copy of I Am Dandy today. If not, I'll cut you.

The understated subtlety reminded me of those classic dressers who had very nice clothes but very standard things regarding color and cut. Bill Blass and Bobby Short come to mind. Both when not in formal attire, were usually seen in gray or blue clothes. Superbly cut and minimally accessorized. Could I ever become a student of such elegant restraint?   

I don’t know but what I do know is that I wanted to try such a jacket yet I had no budget for it. Rykken and Savile Row nicked my entire 2013 bespoke budget. So where might I turn for such an experiment and do so for less money? Seems like one thing that’s consistent in this story is my insistence on not uncloaking my sources. To that end, I’ll keep this one under wraps too—at least for now. The first fitting was quite good and I’ll do a write up on the jacket once I get it back after just a few needed tweaks.

It’s a hopsack but not one of those stiff feeling cheapies. Rather nice hand for the money and my hunch is that it’ll end up being a go-to staple. We’ll see how long I last before I tart it up with gold buttons. Yes by the way--that is a machine made button hole. I'm slumming in MTM land instead of bespoke. Most of you mugwumps don't even know the difference so leave me alone and I mean it. And before one of you Style Forum turds leaves an anonymous of course, message about the cheap plastic buttons...they are the try on buttons. Nicer ones will replace the scrimmage set.

Oh, and I couldn’t not do something to make it just a little bit pimpish. The lining is quintessential South Carolina Horry County Pee Dee White Trash. All to be damned. Inspired by G. the Bruce. Tarted up by D. the G.

Duplicates. After the Rykken one rolls in and the G. the Bruce inspired one makes way I'll be down to only six blue jackets.

Final point regarding owning duplicates of the same thing. If you know you've got backup, you're less likely to worry about the consequences of capricious behavior that might damage your goods. Case in point regarding my deportment is reflected here. Amidst that clothing carnage there's a navy blazer. This was a few summers ago when I got a craving flung on me and peeled down right then and there--outside. Can't recall now who exactly was the motivator but I'm sure we had a big time. And for you newbies who haven't read about my other antics, the above is nothing. I've been known to set my damn self on fire. Read here if you don't believe me. Now back to the pile of clothes in the photo...had I been really worried about my clothes getting soiled or had I been wearing a jacket made of some delicate dupioni or a fragile fresco...I'd a probably thought twice and then...done the same damn thing. 

Onward. Home from a wild week that began in Jacksonville and ended in the northern burbs of Chicago…flying with the summer vacation travel rookies. One copes.  

And what'll help me cope this weekend will be some Honky Tonk Healin'. Listen to my boy David Ball, a fellow South Carolina redneck, as he extols the virtues of the Honky Tonk Healin' process.

And one more thing…my mama—the one that was supposed to die last March—walked the other day. Six steps—with a physical therapist on each arm—but still.

ADG the Second One

Quality or Service--Don't Make Me Choose

A reader over at my tumblr asked this question ages ago and I’ve finally made the time to respond…

“OK, as a veteran consumer and occasional custom orderer, which would you say is more important, assuming you had to choose---decent product, with good, friendly, responsive customer service, or excellent product with crappy service. Obviously, you shouldn't have to choose, but some days life isn't as it should be. Whole retail empires have been built on rude clerks (who suddenly fawn when the Special People come in) and McDonalds didn't get where they are by striving for exceptional quality.”

Good question. McDonald’s got where they are via one, maybe two, very compelling strategy (ies) since their inception. I use McDonalds as a teaching metaphor pretty much every week of my professional life and like ‘em or not, they are great strategists. They have been since day-one when Ray Kroc took the McDonald brothers idea on the road. Their strategy…which allows breathtaking wiggle room in areas of quality and customer centricity is crystal clear. It’s …Kids. Yep, kiddies. You get the kids and you’ll get the rest of the family.

So here’s my answer to your question. I will not choose. I will not trade-off either of the two crucial variables that you posit. Well let me qualify my answer. When it comes to the higher priced…bigger ticket items that I purchase, I refuse to compromise. Case in point above. Do those two Cleverley bespoke shoes look the same? Of course not. The lighter one is my replacement pair that showed up after Cleverley, of their own volition, certainly not as a result of any tantrum on my part, declared that they’d start over from scratch and remake my first pair of bespoken shoes. I was poleaxed that they’d actually remake the things. Why? Because the issue at hand wasn’t a deal breaker by any stretch. But after a few back and forths they declared their re-do intent. And I was even more poleaxed when they f_&ked up the specs on the remake.

The price point involved in this example is such that one shouldn’t compromise quality or service or any damn thing in the fulfillment process. This was a FUBAR without explanation and Cleverley did acrobatics to make it right. One day I’ll get off my ass and do a proper story about Cleverley but until then, let me just say that their commitment to getting things right resulted in another bespoke order from me as well as two pairs of their ready-made shoes landing stateside with my name on them. The value equation inputs haven’t really changed...it’s just that fewer people seem to use the centuries-old formula anymore.

Product or service quality/benefit divided by cost is the basic math for value. Consultants who want to make a buck have tweaked the equation a bit in order to make a buck but the core inputs are immutable. One could also blend things like customer experience, customer service and whatever additional smattering of variables deemed important for your value equation. And this varies from person to person, no? I playfully challenged a young kid who purveys rather tasty stuff to take a shot at what he thought was my trigger. It was obvious that to answer such a question about my quirky ass required a bit of thought. But after a moment he said, “Dust…for you, a big part of this is the “experience”.” I think he’s right. I’m a sucker for the story. Hell, it’s why I started blogging. I collect many things but one of my favorite procurements is a moment that becomes a memory. And those moments end up in….stories. I love clothes and I love the clothing business so yes, I’m one who loves the experience. 

On the other hand, I have a childhood friend who enjoys wearing high quality things but told me one time that “I don’t need anyone in a store to necessarily know my name or call me when they have something they think I’ll like.” He’s a rather impatient hunter-gatherer and I can assure you that his value equation doesn’t include an experience variable. He likes high quality goods and any purveyor would be pleased to have his custom but he ain’t gonna be hurt if you are simply courteous and focused on helping him quickly hunt and gather.

Another example…I’m a fairly easy fit for a tailor. Other than my slight stoop, I’ve got no other significant anatomical issues to flummox a cutter. And the good ones know how to get the collar to hug the neck of a stooping plonker like me. (Stooping Plonker…sounds kinda like an 18^th century Prussian military man) But if you have enough clothes made, you are gonna end up having one episode where the play hell getting it right. The suit above is one of my favorite Flusser rigs. But it took them a half dozen tries to get the collar correct. And all of the Fluss team involved in the effort agreed that after the final go, if it wasn’t right, the Fluss would start over.

One of the top ten best humans in the entire world, G. The Bruce Boyer told me about an Anderson and Sheppard suit that he bespokeydoked some thirty years ago where, upon review by the Head Cutter, he was told just to keep that one for “digging about in the garden and piddling around” and that another one would be cut for him post haste at no additional cost. Bottom line was that after fiddling about with the garment for a few goes, it was time to begin again from scratch.

Here’s another example. I’m gonna do a lengthier story later on about one of the nicest guys I’ve met in the last year…Nick Hilton. But for now…I literally stumbled into his Princeton shop one day and met him. Of course I’d heard about Norman Hilton and the Norman Hilton—Ralph Lauren lore of legend etc but I’d never been in Nick’s shop and I didn’t know him. Long story short, he was running a bit of a promo on some piece goods and twenty minutes later, he and I were designing a jacket. Surprise…windowpane…peak single breast…three/two…double vented…open patches…I’d be an easy mark for an assassin.

But there was one problem. Nick happily sent me a smart phone photo of the jacket when it arrived at his shop and my heart didn’t sink but I wasn’t ebullient. I don’t order open patch hip pockets and a jetted breast pocket. But that’s what came in. Not a deal breaker but not a crowd pleaser either. At least when the crowd consists of one person and that one is me…the tariff payer…ADG. But Nick and I couldn’t discern from our conversations or from the paperwork who fumbled the ball or quite frankly, whether or not a ball had even been fumbled. Ok, enough about balls.

I couldn’t swear to Nick that I emphatically asked for an open patch breast pocket and Nick couldn’t swear, paperwork wise, that I did or didn’t. I was prepared to be happy with the jacket and to chalk it up to a need for more precision in my communication. I made no demands for any adjustments, jacket or pricewise because I had no right to. Oh, and as is always my policy, Nick at that point, had no freakin’ clue that I blogged about things sartorial. You already know that I don’t play that card.

Perhaps miracle is too strong a word but it ain’t far off. After seeing the jacket in situ and discovering how they converted it from jetted to patch, I’ll tell you that the open patch breast pocket now adorning my jacket is nothing short of clever. If purveyors want customers for life, this is how you get ‘em and keep ‘em. I can only say good things about Nick Hilton and his crew.

Ok, ok, so you rightfully conclude that my examples are only relevant to the nuts like me who spend crazy money on custom things. Well, my advice is to compromise little when spending money in even our more mainstream places. If Macy’s doesn’t treat you right, offer objective, instructive feedback to their management and then go to Lord and Taylor or whatever comparable store you can access.

There’s a gas station near me…yes…a good ole gas station, well not just a gas station per se whose service bays are always packed to the gills. Why? Because they are focused and competent and professional and walk their talk about being customer centric. They charge a little more and people happily pay a little more. There’s no compromised asked by either party.

Even Brooks and Press et al no longer have but a few salespeople from the days when the value equation was Gospel. But the lethargy and benign indifference of a lot of their hourly workers is still better than what you get elsewhere and I can sometimes live with traces of that. But only traces. One of my biggest gripes with even the Polo Ralph Mothership Mansion is that there are very few people working there who can actually explain why you should pay Purple Label prices for Purple Label clothing. And here's another thought...If you don’t like the service at the Macy’s caliber establishments, prolong your purchase(s) for a while…save some additional money and then go to Saks or Nordstrom. Or seek out the few remaining independent retailers who still value your custom.

So I reckon I’ll close this with a point about trade-offs. When I lived in Montclair New Jersey in the 1980’s, I discovered nearby, a little shoe shop in a strip mall near Pal's Cabin where all of the Baker Benjes Polo shoe samples from NYC ended up. And most of them were my size. A colleague and I would hit it about once every two weeks during our lunch hour and gorge on the giveaway priced tasties. The look, the quality and the price trifecta was such that I wouldn’t then nor would I today, give two hoots and a damn about the experience or the attentiveness of the staff. What I got for what I paid was so incredible that they coulda had poo throwing gorillas tending the register and I’d a still navigated the gantlet to buy the goods. But whenever I’m spending amounts of time and money that even marginally exceeds my 1980’s shoe sample experience, I expect a baseline level of kindness and professional competency from everyone.

Ok. That’s it for now. Time to wake my not so tiny dancer, LFG and get her going for another round of dance recital nirvana. The "don't take photos Gestapo" was in full force last night so I could only sneak this little photo when the house lights came up. She's sixth from the left, front row. But you knew that.

Onward. Heading back to South Carolina on Tuesday to help out with my still deciding mama.

ADG II