The Texture of Christmas--2014

Texture-Pattern-Shape-Color…tactile and visual attributes. It’s no secret that the fuzzier for me the better. Until now.

Restraint? Well I’m not gonna go overboard. But I do think in my old-er age I might be pulling back just a teeny bit from my Southern, country ass, GTH togged “look at me, look at me” cornpone sprezzatura. Who knows, maybe I’m unwittingly slipping into a phase of official mourning. Somber, black crepe hanging attire included. Queen Victoria did it after Albert died. And God knows she loved Albert better than Peter loved the Lord. That’s almost as much as I loved my mama. False alarm. I just realized that if you’ve unwittingly slipped into something, it’s kinda hard to then deem it official upon arrival. Hold me. I’m confused. Unofficially.

Case in point regarding my new, albeit just a teeny-tiny scooch over towards modulated fuzzy moderation…I took a pass on this orange corduroy Ralph jacket the other day. I’m only six weeks into orphanhood and it just seemed damn wrong on all levels to consider taking title to it. Plus I didn’t go to Clemson or Princeton or Tennessee or Florida or any of those other schools that claim orange as one of their school hues.

But forty years of mourning? I do think Victoria took it a bit too far. What with only wearing black and refusing to leave Balmoral for ages on end and using nothing but black bordered mourning stationery for the rest of her chubby little roly-poly life. Johnny Cash is the only fella who had the color black’s permission to singularly don it for decades on end. And he wasn’t mourning a damn thing.

Apropos of her forty years of black creped-ness, Vanity Fair reissued their original portrait of Queen Victoria in monochrome black with a mourning border when she finally joined Albert and Jesus in 1901.

Here’s the colorful original version from Vanity Fair—June 17 1897.

And another thing about Queen Victoria before we move on…What we don’t know for sure is whether or not she was getting some real bereavement comfort from her trusted ghillie John Brown. I sure hope so. And I’m not just talking about the therapeutic benefits of long walks and talks. We all know that they did a bunch of that. Lord knows I can talk. And walking still comes easy. I’m thinking I need me one of them constant bereavement companions for a while. Butcept a girl one. With benefits.

The texture of my 2014 Christmas has so far been rough and smooth. I’m alone but not lonely. My heart is still heavy—now magnified by this being the first Christmas without my mama—but I’m not wallowing in it. I drove home yesterday. In a MINI Cooper. John Cooper Works performance edition to be exact ("Performance Edition"MINI...ain't that a hoot?)...with my prostate seven inches off of I-95 for 7.5 hours. I need another car. And a smaller...

I’m typing this from my childhood cowboy bedroom and the monastic silence of being here alone isn’t depressing at all. LFG is in Florida, my brother is around the corner at his house and I’ve reconnected with a bunch of childhood friends who are here for the holidays. So I’m by myself in this once boisterous and noisy holiday house but I’m ok. I had a visceral, primal need to be here so here I am.

A tree? Of course. I’ll never have an artificial one but since I was solo this Christmas I didn’t need a big one of any type. So I nabbed a piccolo fir and just donned it with my favorite ornaments.

And thanks to Susie and Dougie for sending me presents. Otherwise the tree wouldn’t a been the only thing attenuated.

Back to texture and pattern...I had to put on real clothes the other day and make some business and personal rounds. And I coulda put on some GTH Christmas corduroy embroidered caca trousers and some retail red waistcoating like all the other holiday revellers. But I didn’t. Remember, I’m in mourning.

So it was a navy blazer and my Daddy Flusser semi-GTH Bronco Buster wool challis togs. Oh, and my Meermins which are holding up just fine in year-two by the damn way. Shut up. 

And I even got a mourning haircut. I figure another year and my follicular vacancies will be such that I’ll go back to cutting the remaindered sprigs myself.

My bereavement is evident in this Polo Chevy Chase selfie that I took while out and about. Time will bring back my smirky little pinch mouthed puckishness. But time has deemed six weeks not enough.

Oh, and by the way…don’t dress like this and visit a retail establishment lest you want them to think you work there. I don’t.

And I tried on a few things that I can’t buy. Including this bereavement brown vest. Buy it for me.

Maybe brown is my mourning color.

Kinda. Brownish green-essence with a green leather club chair. I mean really…how damned crepe laden can a fuzzy-ass flâneur like me become?

Brown. It’s a restrained color ain’t it? But who says the texture-pattern thang has to be? I vote no and you should too.

I’m gonna close this drivel load now. It’s off to the shower and off to lunch. Christmas just ain't Christmas this year. But it's ok.

Onward. Rough and Smooth.

80-g-2

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. 

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