Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Madras Miscellany and ADG Randomanalia…

I think this once per week Trad-Ivy Tuesday yoke is gonna become too heavy too fast.  The idea that I would settle into one decent post per week and have it waft up from the ADG cauldron of randomanalia in an aromatically focused, cogent and vaguely erudite fashion now seems onerous. That’s verbose code for “I’ve got an endless list of Trad-Ivy Tuesday stories but am too lazy and unfocused to write them.”

Bottom line is that it’s just easier for me to do those verbal stream of semi-conscious run on thangs than it is to write more responsibly. I could for example, be working on a more focused and responsible Trad-Ivy Tuesday story right now. But I don’t want to. What I want to do is just drop off some junk. The random stream of ADD whateverishness writing is easy as 1-2-3.Which brings me to Madras Miscellany. A tumblr reader asked…

“Heya D. I imagine this question is probably going to be met with "I haven't decreed that it's patch madras season or decided if there's a general moratorium in effect against the wearing thereof, so you deserve it," but I'm gonna ask anyway. Cookout: Torrential downpour, as in completely soaked (in more ways than one) wearing a pair of bleeding patch madras pants from Banks that are dry clean only. What do I do? Stick them in a tub of water until the dye no longer comes off? Say screwit?”

I’m giving up on trying to govern Madras. Now I know how Mountbatten felt when he turned the Colonial light switch off in India. Or how Charles de Gaulle felt when he said… “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”

And my answer is I don’t care anymore. I’m finished with the burden of trying to extricate madras from the Trailer Trash Honkey Tonk zip code that it seems to go back to, even after we find examples of classic and appropriate madras modulation. It ain’t worth it. You wear your madras the way you want and I’ll wear mine—sparingly—the way I choose. For every appropriately revisionist resurrectionated madras example I see at the Brethren or J. Press or courtesy of O’Connell’s new-old stock, I see three instances of bad tattoos and madras mottled together.

So I am officially relinquishing all of my self-anointed and arrogantly appointed Madras Authority. LFG and I have now spent one week at the beach in Delaware and a week in Puerto Rico (which by the way, is Ocean City Maryland, Myrtle Beach South Carolina and Daytona all rolled up into an island with prettier water and better drinks. Oh, and a four hundred year old fort that’s pretty cool) and I’ve seen enough visual affirmation that this is the right time for me and my Madras Governance hallucinations to let it go. Let it go. Let it go. But not before I popped for the O’Connell’s Madras Swim Baby above. I’m digging the hell out of my Birdwell reacquaintance but I had to pounce on these classics. I’ll leave them in the sun to let some of the new bake out of them and then BAM, much to LFG’s consternation; I’ll be sporting these during our last vacation week in August.

Ok, so what else y’all wanna talk about? Will at a Suitable Wardrobe has some things on sale and no, he didn’t ask me to shill on his behalf. I enjoy going to Will’s from time to time and getting a pocket square or socks or just something to look forward to in the mail. I bought the green paisley linen number above way back before summer and I’ve worn the hell out of it. Get it if he still has one left.

And my latest on sale arrival rolled in tandemoneously with an “on sale at Paul Stuart” package. Tumblr readers were quick to ask about the contents of both packages and I’m sure that the revelation is gonna be underwhelming.

My GTH summer trousers aren’t legendary and don’t deserve such status but their identity, through this blog is known. My 2012 GTH addition above, from J. Mc. is a stellar complement to an already strong GTH line up.  However, when I work in the summer (and yes, I work…and not in GTH trousers) I tend to wear solid color tan linen trousers. Creature of habit? You bet. Toned down trousers to accommodate colorful bespoke shirtings and horizontal chemise stripings? Could be. At any rate, a few of my decade-plus years old tan linen babies have seen much better days.  And trust me, if they could talk, I’d let them write this freakin’ blog.

What was in the box? Flat front linen and cotton blend British tan trousers from Paul Stuart and an in your face oedematously polka dotted pocket square from Will. I cracked down on the inordinate use by bloggers of British spellings while admitting that I like to use the word colour from time to time because the spelling looks elegant. 

And now I must break my new rule again. I mean come on, oedematous vs. edematous? The British spelling is the bomb. Hell, the spelling itself oedematous. That word freakin’ waddles with tumescenticated rotundity. So yes, the dots on my Will square are oedematous. Shut the….

More on the square in a moment but back to the trousers for a bit. As soon as saw them I deemed the fabric a poor man’s dupioni. Years ago Flusser offered a bulletproof dupioni silk in three colors for summer suiting. I was too timid, thinking it would make-up in a shiny sharkskin way. It didn't. The dupioni clothing that I saw come out of the fabric run was bulletproof. It won’t convey in the photos here but there’s a similar hand to these trousers and I like it.  I like the pic stitching that’s noteworthy too. I’ll pick these up from Suh …replete with their two-inch cuffs and we’ll be sporting them in Jacksonville on Tuesday...today. Stay tuned.

Polka dots a bit too fuzzy for you? Pink a little too garish? Scared of the square? Don’t be. Well perhaps you should be if you remain one of those p_ssies who takes more than thirty seconds to stuff a square in your breast pocket. Treat the thing capriciously…wad the varmint up and thow it in. Then pull a couple of the tips out from the wreckage and so that they peek out—prairie doggie style. Any questions? Don’t ask.

Other updates? I feel like I’m trying to carry the conversation at a toy soldier swap meet…the nerdiest aggregation of poor conversationalists in the world. And speaking of toy soldiers and my collecting theme of Colonial Oppression, I picked up a few real old, beat to hell Turcos and Tirailleurs. I like quirky...and these foppish skirmishers bang high numbers on the killin’ quirk scale.

But this is my latest Holy Grail find. I’ve been looking for this Britains Naval Landing Party set for a decade.  

And yes it’s worn and yes the box is beat to hell. What are you gonna look like at ninety? It was a kid’s toy so it’s a miracle that any of it survived.

It’s rare to find a set intact and complete with original, albeit shoddy box. My ten year quest is testimony. Sorry, I should start an antique lead soldier blog, right? Wrong.

And finally, an update on my Casa Minimus decampment and move to Bethesda. It’s all good and it’s the right thing to do...LFG wise. It’s just that I’ve been busy and I’ve not found a suitable place out of the finalists I’ve seen in the Chevy Chase Bethesda corridor. My goal is to be fifteen minutes from LFG and I’ve gotta like the place immensely because I’ll still be there more often without LFG than not.

The next step in my place is the removal of all artwork from the walls and the commissioning of rental property neutral painting.

After that, it’s wall to wall rental grade carpeting and relegating Casa Minimus back over to the folks who’ve managed my rental properties before. It’s all good. Pass me the hash pipe.

Ok, it’s time for me to roll off of this drivel pile. I will say in closing that LFG is still hideously infatuated with her superstar father. Photo evidence above suggests that she was nothing short of smitten during every moment of our recent vacation.

Onward.

ADG II

Oh and PS...1-2-3 was another favorite of mine on the KA jukebox at three in the morning. And I could sing it as good as Len Barry. At three in the morning.

My 2012 Madras Verdict: CAC-Clapton...and WASP Cloth Gone Wrong

I think one of the things that draws me to madras—other than the obvious fact that there’s no better foundation—no better pulpit from which to preen impertinently and manifest CAC vulgarity, is its place amongst my childhood memories. I’ve mentioned before, how I coveted a madras shirt and an alligator belt when I was in grammar school. My older cousins had ‘em and so did the other older boys in my town and I wanted them too. I’m on the record positing the fact that you can’t start your kids on madras too soon. But all of that’s changed now.

Oh…and what’s CAC? It’s my newly derived species within the WASP genus. I’m absent a few, by my definition, key attributes necessary for inclusion amongst the purest of pure WASP species. And you can best believe that I’ve been tore up about it since I was old enough to figure out that I wasn’t one. Even though my father’s people to this day have been on the same land in South Carolina for over two hundred years, my stock still doesn’t stand the most rigorous test of WASP pedigree. And on my mother’s side, we even have a signer of the Declaration of Independence. You’ll see his signature just below that show-offy flourish of one Mister John Hamcock. Peer pressure and jealously; consistent with what the Good Book, my mama and my grand-mama and Uncle Wiley and Mr. Dawkins, my Scout Master said, is a seductive and ultimately, toxic force. My WASP envy got so bad at one point during college that I would curl up and in a tight little ball and cry like a baby about it. And my college gal, Roxanne Burgess, in all of her desire to sooth me, was an enabler.

Roxanne was about two and a half times my size. Big, obviously, but height-weight proportionate. And she was a stunner. So I’d curl up in her lap and commence crying. "I wanna be like the Alsop brothers” I’d holler…tears puddling and then tributarilating, trickle-down like, into Roxanne’s ample cleavage. And then amidst my waterworks, after gulping some air, I’d whine a clarification on my jealous desires.“…but actually I wanna be like Stewart Alsop because he had hair and liked women.” The more I cried—wailed actually, the more focused and engaged she’d become at trying to sooth me. And sooth, oh my goodness, she did. Looking back on those curled and unfurled moments with Roxanne, I’m rather glad I didn’t arrive at the CAC categorization back then. I’d a had to figure out another pathos over which to have a breakdown. Because one thing was for sure, lap curling and unfurling with my Miss Burgess, was a must-do. Oh lordy, I still haven’t uncloaked the CAC acronym. I am, unequivocally, a Carolina Anglo Cracker. Hold your applause. Shut up.

This was supposed to be about madras right? The iconic badge of Ivy-Prep-WASP-CAC ness right? I’m sitting here typing this drivel in my Brooks Brethren patch madras robe avec white pocket handkerchief and it pains me to declare my final verdict on Madras 2012. I was conflicted regarding whether or not to ban it for 2012. The Brothers Brooks, amidst some of their other misguided Spring 2012 offerings, has done a rather admirable job with Brethren Madras this year. So much so that at one point last week, I was ready to simply declare that Madras 2012 in all iterations, would be wide a_s open. But then God availed to me, a peek at Eric Clapton. And in a flash, I reversed my  2012 decision.  Folks, it had to be a divine intervention because I’d a never found this without His help. Bing Crosby in madras...yes. Clapton? Not so much.

Clapton you say? Yep. Clapton is not God but there was a time when that phrase was bandied about. The graffiti was everywhere back in the early 1970’s. Even my uncle Rembert, direct descendant on my mama’s side, of  my family's Declaration Signer, would come along and add his affirmational personal signature to the graffiti. Butcept always with red spray paint. Clapton was always one of the first to disavow the comparison. He's never been God but he continues to be an incredible guitarist and part of my hearing loss is due to playing Layla over and over again on my mom’s stereo while I banged my drums. Clapton’s great. But he’s not God.

This is my Eric Clapton. Kinda like how Cal Naughton, Jr. and Ricky Bobby conceptualized their Jesus in Talladega Nights.  You have your version of Clapton and I have mine. This is my Eric the way I like to think of him…tentative in his budding fame. And awkward as hell in his 1973 rock star sartorial ensemble…in a bad, side zippered boot kinda way. Oh, and his heroin skinny carcass topped by an “Eric, you oughta try perming your hair” mop. He’s evolved over the years. Fits and spurts and side trips and failings and victories along the way are part and parcel of the Clapton journey. Kinda like madras. But Eric appeared to have most of his fits and troubles early on. Madras, it seems, only started getting trashy in the last half-decade.

Clapton is a good man. Clapton still has most of his guitar chops intact. But Clapton…at least my Clapton, shan’t be wearing any madras cargo shorts in concert. I know they’re comfortable. But they aren’t on strategy for Clapton. At least not my Clapton.

 From heroin chic to patch madras cargo shorts in thirty-eight years. And I suppose the pre-concert email suggested that all participants consider madras cargo shorts. Vince Gill got the email. Thanks be to God that my girlfriend, Sheryl Crow didn’t. Clapton in madras cargo is my new embodiment of madras gone wrong. Madras. Where it shouldn't be.

So let’s give madras a rest for the rest—of the 2012 season.

Onward. In linen.

ADG X

Madras—Moderated Part Two

So back to madras—in moderation. The record shows that if the sartorial amplifier goes to ten then I’m surely gonna figure a way to get it to eleven. The stories are legendary at Flusser house and with Rykken about their flat-out refusal to make things for me. Things that because of color, pattern-scale or “add-ons” … they just simply would not let me do.

When I had the suit above made many years ago, Alan Flusser looked at the trouser cuffs, the sleeve cuffs and the flap pockets…topped off by a flapped ticket pocket and facetiously asked if there was anywhere else on the garment I might want another “flap”. Hell, I thought he was serious and so I requested a rundown on what the additional aftermarket add-on flap options might be. Maybe a spoiler or a pop-up windscreen across the shoulders. Oh hell, why not a cape? And I remember Puerto Rykken in a sigh of resignation one time declaring that if there was an option for triple-vents on a sportcoat…I’d request it. I thought about it for a moment and declared that I’d prefer more like a quadruple or pentagonally vented suit. Then you’d have strips of fettuccini flat noodle-esque grass skirt danglers on the rear of your jacket. A much more interesting manifestation of movement … kind of a grass skirt swish-swishing on the lower back third of an otherwise classically contrived contrivance. And who the hell wouldn’t want that?

Easter Sunday seems to be the church house goin’ day when more people decide to attend and they roll in marginally better dressed than usual. I think Jesus chuckles. Jesus Chuckles—he was a wrestler back in ’68—from one of the border towns—near Brownsville. He beat Wahoo McDaniel, or was it Junkyard Dog, like a borrowed mule one night at the Florence, South Carolina fairgrounds. My daddy bankrolled the rumble. 

Oh—clothes and Easter Sunday, that’s it. Bottom line is that Jesus cares not what we wear to His house but I always at minimum wear a coat and most times I’m gonna cinch-up with a tie.  There’s one of my previous handlin’ contrivances above.

But what about madras? It may be too early in some parts for madras inclusion on Easter Sunday. Or some might say that it’s too casual and festive for church. Are you kidding me? Have you seen some of the swathings or lack thereof in the pews lately? I’ll halt the rant right here and refer us back to the point I made about Jesus not caring—as long as you are in the pew. And I wore madras on Easter Sunday. Restrained.

I know not from where this reservoir of restraint in me filled. Alchemy, astronomy, juju, the Powerball Lottery…I’m not the guy to much believe in such. And I have a constant need to pray and almost beg for reassurance of my fundamental faith(s). Alls I can say is that from somewhere, a little madras voice spoke to me…mighta been Wahoo McDaniel…and the voice said in an earth toned-muted-muffled-breathy-throaty  whisper … “you’ve got enough redneck tacky loud “look at me-look at me” madras. Let’s contrive something more moderated-modulated and muted—something kinda earthy.” Then I realized that it couldn’t a been Wahoo McDaniel ‘cause he didn’t have near that kind of vocabulary. Mighta been Junkyard Dog. So contrive and bespeak mutedly I did. Ok…I’m lying. Who in their right mind would bespeak madras? Why pay that kinda dosh for the highest level of artisanship on such a perishable and rarely worn fabric? I felt like I was pushing it when I had Fluss House make my seersucker togs. So I made-to-measure-d it instead.

Fuzzy GTH patch and O’Connell’s loud, horn-tooting bleeding madras abounds in my closet so the impetus and legitimacy for muted moderation wasn’t feint. It made sense. But as usual, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. Three-two roll with open patch pockets and peak lapels…you know…my ADG standard house model? Of course not. But the idea of simply doing a standard Mad Men era three button sack coat which would have exemplified madras in its heyday didn’t trip my trigger. I just had to add something that would make it my own. You know—a tad of fuzziness.

Ticket pocket? Nope. Throat latch? Nah…who needs a throat latch on a summer jacket? Maybe just a ticket pocket? Bellows pockets? Yep, that would be the ticket. Poachers.

Are you freakin' kidding me? Poacher pockets on madras? Surely you jest, ADG. It makes sense on your now scorched and singed cavalry twill rig. And of course it complements the old Ralph contrivance above. But you ain’t gonna be bird hunting or truffle sniffing in madras. Madras bellows…the idea is wrong on every level—from every angle. Get it?

Got it. And get ‘em I did. Just for the sheer wrongness of it. There’s an inextricable defiance of convention—a redneck, un-clubbable aspect of my essence that I’ve learned to embrace. And the sooner you get used to it, the easier our ride is gonna be. Shut up. I don't bird hunt or truffle sniff in my winter coats with bellows pockets either. So sue me.

Muted tones and a sensible tie…Bohemian Club style. Come on…I wanted it to look slightly unconventional—not like a Shriner.

Just enough waist suppression to further my anti Mad Men sack coat look. Don’t try it—unless you too, have washboard abs. This entire fuzzy diced boondoggle of absurdity becomes more bastardized if you attempt to pull it off, or put it on for that matter, with a beer gut. Shriners. Think Shriners. And then just don’t do it.

Lightweight cream gabardine trousers. The old Colony Model from Ralph. I needed to anchor this thing with a sensible trouser.

Go ahead. Hurl your attacks. I’m ready. Ready for all of your tisk tisking and ridiculing that’s really a thinly veiled call for help. Help with your fear. Fear of…Fuzzy.

Let me close with a word or two on madras pronunciation. I reckon the proper pronunciation of the city was “muh-dross”. Same when ordering said curried grub at an Indian restaurant. Regardless of your bloodline, the American region or city of your birth, the clubs you belong to or your academic pedigree…the fabric ain’t pronounced “mod-russ” nor is it “muh-dross”. It’s mad-riss. Stop with the affectation. You’re trying too hard. Your effort to fancify and highfalutinize the good ole American word for this trad obsession reeks of poacher pocket affectation. Pronounce it regular like or I'll smack you. On the noggin. With a vozz.

Onward. Poachin’

ADG II sans young’un.

Madras—Moderated

Moderated—restrained—muted? I’d say the preponderance of evidence suggests that these aren’t general characteristics of my sartorial manifestations. And why should madras ever be moderated? It is by its very nature a casual, happy and festive textile. There isn’t a mourning madras or a funeral cortege replete with an age-old time tested and tradition bound black madras. There’s  no evidence that Prime Minister Gladstone, in his exasperation about the reclusive and mournful Queen Victoria refusing to carry out state obligations, demanded of John Brown to “get that damned Queen out of Mourning Madras and back on her duties!” 

The closest I've come to finding what might pass for mourning madras is the shirt above from Union Made. It MUST be made in Union shops...assembled in various factories across the realm, each one completing a vital step in the ultimate aggregation of said contrivance--similar to the Airbus and the Mini Cooper business models in Europe. Several constituents, Union moderated of course, contributing to the final outcome. Why? Because the MSRP on this one is five hundred and thirty freakin' clams. 

Madras should be happy and my best evidence to support the assertion is one three year old, happy madras clad Miss LFG, on the cusp of having her head of corkscrew curly hair just explode in abundance—after two previous years of head hair sparsity. She’s a little madras gal in full—obviously excited, seat belted safely therein, game face on for a g-forced circular go challenge to her motor-sports skills. At the ready—in madras.

“So what’s this about moderation? If madras is supposed to be happy and casual and fun and colorful and you, ADG are known to contrive some of the fuzziest of fuzzy versions of it, where does the moderation come in?” Well first let me say that my noggin full of drivel to posit on madras has become so voluminous that this now has to be a two-part installment. I’m not sure of the original source to whom the above photo should be attributed—I think the first time I saw it was on Bunny Tomberlin’s old blog—but none the less, it helps me make a point. Too much of a good thing—even in my Trad-Redneck point of view—ain’t a good thing.

 Further…I banned madras for the summer of 2010. You can read it here. Draconian, extreme and tyrannical I know. But desperate times call for desperate measures and when madras ended up in the beach-front head shops and skateboard emporiums …or is the plural “emporia?” ...it was time for a madras sabbatical. Every joint had some version of madras hootchie-cootchie and to me the most egregious misapplication was madras cargo shorts. 

You know, the ones that when worn even by tall people, come below the knee and thus make every wearer look—I don’t know—like they ought not to be wearing them. Throw on  a mini-brimmed straw fedora with your madras cargos...one that could be purchased from the same place and you’ve got yourself a “Brooks Brothers was bought-out by a Collins Avenue—South Beach investment group” bling-bling look.  Or substitute the straw fedora with a baseball hat—turned either direction and you’ve got a “J.Press Pimped and Punked—Pawn Stars—Swamp People” thing going.

Yes, I’ve let this issue work me up inordinately. Mainly because I remember my third grade year at Royall Elementary School in Florence South Carolina. I wasn’t a clothes horse back then. The only swathing-shodding event that I cared about was my annual back to school clothes getting trip that always included a pair of Acme cowboy boots from Phil Nofal’s fine shoes on Evans Street. One pair a year—always in the fall. Otherwise, I didn’t give two hoots and a damn what was chosen for me.  I don’t know how you grew up but when I was in the third grade, my mama told me most everything. Everything. Including…What I was going to eat, what I was going to wear, where I was going on a particular day and what exactly I would do when I got there.  It was all wrapped in stereotypical Southern mama love but it was anything but a dialogue. Socrates’ ass was nowhere to be found in this approach to interaction.  

I wore the clothes that my mama bought  me—after seeing me come out of the dressing room and assuring herself—with the affirmation of the saleslady at the Children’s Shop—also on Evans Street—that the waist was loose enough and the cuffs—turned up enough to stop below the kneecaps—would last through the entire school year.  

But I do remember getting madras pants and an alligator belt with a silver buckle monogrammed with my initials that year too. The alligator strap courtesy of the Children’s Shop. The silver (plated I’m sure) buckle courtesy of and engraved by Jones-Smith Jewellers, also on Evans Street. And the rig looked just like what the big boys were wearing…and I that I was the shit. And I was. In madras. Shut up.

So you see, my decision to ban madras a few seasons ago—to give it a rest—to let it wash out of the always transient fashion fascinations of the blingerati—was based on some deeply held Evans Street memories of how it should be worn. That's Evans Street above--probably a decade and a half before my pediatric clothing needs were met on the High Street. Now back to madras...you can get crazy with it. Fuzzy it up somewhat and surely allow it to be a key plank in the GTH trouser line-up. But at some point there must be moderation.

Moderation. The earliest version of madras had a built-in governor that assured such. It faded. The loudest in-your-face colors eventually became a muted, post impressionistic painterly version of themselves. Bleeding madras? You bet. And now some purveyors of madras today are labelling their garments prominently with a bleeding promise. Bleeding madras essentially went away when color-fast dies and advanced textile production processes trumped the role of the original fabric. Scale, production consistency, ease of laundering and care, cost of goods…you know…progress. Progress stemmed the bleeding stuff. Surprise…things are cyclical and obviously there are folks who weren’t around for the bleeding madras phenomenon and want to know what all the fuss was. They must want to experience how it was to have a garment that literally transformed itself over time through an attenuation of color—courtesy of dyes letting-go, making way for a more muted, mature version of the original manifestation.

You might recall my delight when I discovered the new-old stock of bleeding madras over at O’Connell’s a few years ago and I provided visual evidence of the bleed. Read here if you want. I ordered three pairs of them and would consider myself now adequately stocked with the real deal from a time when not only was the fabric legit but the cut of the trousers is of the same era—slightly higher rise and a mildly tapered leg—unlike the low rise skinny jeaned Thom Brown cuts of today’s “heritage-artisanal-legacy” caca. Hush.

So where am I with spring and summer madras 2012? The weather is getting warm and the need for lighter weight clothes and the desire to switch out closets for the season demands that I soon declare a position. And I’ve essentially done so—having worn madras to church on Easter Sunday. So the one man self-appointed madras board for America will render a verdict post haste. Moderation will be the theme for 2012 and I’ll further my moderated madras discourse—with verdict—in another post.

Onward. In an anything but moderated-modulated patch madras robe.

ADG, II