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

Unit Price Grab-Ass

Now let's see. We open this edgy new store that fills the angst-irony-urban twee void that Rugby's departure created. Twenty or so days into it, we start the markdown goat-rodeo. "Now wait a minute, ADG, 15% off the entire inventory is a small concession for driving traffic into the store for a true, "in-store" experience."

I wonder if the consuming public are really this gullible. Build in margins on the front-end so that the discounts, the "specials", the "this weekend onlys", the "preferred customer whatevers" and the like are just part of the promotional mix, the marketing strategy, the commercial plan. What it tells me is that we've conditioned consumers to wait. For if they do so, they are bound to get almost the entire season's line in any and every store, at 25% off...if they are only slightly patient.

As for York Street? Whatever.

Onward. In a Pee Wee Herman Suit.

ADG II

Black Fleece Summer 2013

Gentlemanmac, a very pertinent reader left a snarky message for me over at my tumblr. Here it is…

“Are you ever gonna change that stupid York Street picture that's been up for two weeks? At least put up something cool, like a rottweiler, while you're not posting stuff.”

Spot-on old sport. I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t have time at present to read or write blogs. So as a placeholder and an alternative to my J. Press York Street visual fiasco that so offended a reader, feast your eyes on the Brethren’s Black Fleece offerings for warm weather ’13.

Surely this Goat Rodeo Forrest Gump Bobo sh_t is much more soothing, no?

Oh, and before one of you emails me and gives me the standard… “Yeah, those ensembles do look rather silly but several of the individual pieces would look great as a separate entity, not all bound up in a gaggle of other Black Fleece stuff.” Ok, here’s the deal. If you really believe that; then let me buy you these teabagger britches. We’ll all be waiting to see a picture of you sportin’ em.

Tell Forrest I said hey.

Shut Up; then…Onward.

ADG II

J. Press York Street

From Gentleman's Quarterly

So a reader emails me and asks my opinion about the J. Press-Ovadia collaboration called York Street. I had no clue what he was talking about. After snooping about a bit and landing here; I now have an opinion...

The J. Press York Street conflagration smacks of Charlton Heston in the last year of his life...A Stalwart Alpha Legend cum Rodeo Clown. Sad. Really.

Onward. Stalwarts and all.

ADG II

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

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

This wasn’t always my opinion. There was a time when I loved the academics of politics. I loved United States constitutional history and I loved reading the 17^th and 18^th century political and social theorists. And I worked for a U.S. Senator the summer between my junior and one of my senior years of undergrad. Then the taint wafted in. Slowly. And rather like slow growing hardwood trees, the taint; when it did unfurl, was sturdy to the point of calcification and in my mind—it was here to stay. I love the academics of the political process. I loathe politicians. My rather decided view of all this culminated when during one of my several assignments within the pharma industry, I lobbied (I love the new, perhaps more palatable characterization of special interest tactics. Instead of lobbying, it’s advocacy now) agencies, legislators and policy shapers.  

Even the most well-meaning newly elected legislator will, within their first term, become to some degree, converted…turned. The big money, the court of jesters that include staffer toadies who would literally, I kid you not, wipe a legislator’s butt if asked, are laughable on one hand and downright pitiful on the other. I moderated my Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. bias slightly after reading his diaries but only a little bit. Loyalty is good. Unwavering allegiance without question scares me. I honestly believe that Schlesinger would have done anything to or for JFK and RFK...upon demand. Ok, so perhaps he wasn't a bow tied sycophant. But he was a J. Pressed lap-dog. 

I’m ok with ego and eccentricity but I’m less disgusted with gaudy shows of power and money when one comes about it in ways other than at the people's expense. And what we have on the Hill today are not servants of this country’s citizenry and our best interests. Oh, and state legislators are just as bad or worse. My home state’s legislative branch was for years, flat-out; for sale.

So it becomes rather obvious why sartorial panache doesn’t have to be part of the success formula in political Washington, D.C. The currency here is power—not style. There are a few exceptions to the rule but unfortunately, most of the best examples are historical ones. Come to think of it, sartorial Washington has fallen from its rather low-set three-button goofball sack coat perch and has landed on less defined ground. Even the most sociopathic political opportunist woulda looked ok if they’d just had one of their butt-wiper staffers drive them over to J. Press for a couple of suits and matching accessories. Remember Jim Traficant?

And with the exception of those Ivy League keystone cop knuckle heads at the CIA who led JFK to green light the Bay of Pigs—and with their hiccup or two regarding Vietnam, we’d be better off morally and sartorially if United States foreign policy was still led by those patinated statesmen who wouldn’t dream of stepping out of the house unless swathed and shod in Chipp, J. Press, The Brethren Brooks or some visiting Savile Row tailor or cobbler. Acheson and Harriman come to mind.

The current round-up of politicians offers more bad sartorial examples than good ones so let’s look back for a moment. Texan John Tower who was anything but towering, physically…was a natty dresser. Never did I see him without well placed linen in his breast pocket. And his ties were impeccably dimpled. I wonder if some of his sartorial knack came from hanging around Savile Row while attending the London School of Economics. Tower was a great sartorial specimen even though a little too Adolphe Menjou-esque in his studied perfection.

But I’ll take too well-studied and over-groomed any day, compared to the myth busting carriage of Barney Frank. So much for the prejudicial stereotype that says gay men are fastidious, neat and aesthetically advanced.

And I’ll say that the Kennedy brothers were an exception to all of my biased generalizations regarding sartorial Washington. Why? First, it’s their genetic predisposition for big, white incisors and really thick hair. Next, it’s their wealthy father’s investment from an early age, in their wardrobes rich in London bespoke and New England Trad-Ivy content. They learned it early on and never wavered too far from it. 

If Jack and Bobby had lived long enough to see Nehru Jackets, Members Only windbreakers and Nik-Nik shirts, something tells me that they’d have taken a pass.

So what about those other Texas boys, Connolly and Johnson? I love this photo. Lyndon and John at a ceremony honoring their mentor and surrogate father, Sam Rayburn. Friends and power seekers…at each other’s expense—one in the same. Texans without hats? It seems unthinkable. 

Connolly in a three-two peak lapelled single breasted rig. Rail thin. University of Texas.

Might this be Exhibit One in the “Does a picture really say a thousand words" Trial? Texans can do hats. Most times, it’s better that non-Texan politicians eschew the urge to top. But look at the HappyWarrior in the middle. He’d a looked even less comfortable with an obligatory “when in Rome” temporarily donned Stetson but geez…could there be a greater divide…a more dichotomous gaggle than HHH and these two Texans?

LBJ’s sartorial performances weren’t ghastly but it was obvious that he didn’t give too much of a damn about clothes. He was the hang-dog, jowly, big-eared Uncle Cornpone to JFK’s Trad-Ivy everythingness. But LBJ was a master strategist and a formidable tactician. History now trends toward assigning LBJ the rightful assignation of the most legislatively capable operative to ever occupy the Senate. He was the United States Senate for almost twelve years. Don’t believe me? Read Caro’s latest LBJ volume, Passage of Power. The first forty-seven days of LBJ’s presidency saw him reach back into the Senate and pull JFK’s stalled legislation out of the proverbial shitter. He knew how to get it done. The Harvards, as he called them, who ran the Executive branch before he took over, did not. Even though he urged...begged actually...most of the Harvards to stay on for at least one year before resigning their posts, it took his tactical, pragmatic, Cornponessence to legislatively actualize what JFK's Executive had initiated.

But there were a couple of things in Caro’s latest volume that challenged me. So consistent with my pseudo-academic, mighty-erudity-ness, I wrote Robert Caro to seek some clarification. Stay tuned for the response.

Ok, I’ve wandered aimlessly here and haven’t really made much of a sartorial point. I reckon the gist of this is that I live inside the Beltway for reasons that damn sure exclude ones political, sartorial and duende-acious. I am mad about clothes. I am mad at politicians. Now let me go see about what’s left of my hair.

Onward. Having already voted, I am…ADG II...your humble servant in all things sartorially random.

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

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

*Strategy Works for Seven Year Olds

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

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

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

Let us set the scenario…

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

“It’s all about making the Right Choices

The Right Choices for…

•             Healthier Snacks

•             Kid’s Toys in the Playroom

•             Frequent Field Trips

•             More Cooking Days

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

The Marriotts…Carrier Circle-Syracuse, Millersport Road-Buffalo, Wolf Road-Albany and the Thruway-Rochester (where I would once again stay, several years later when I was back in graduate school—this time at R.I.T.) became my homes away from home. No offense to those who call these towns home but I couldn’t wait to leave them and return to D.C. And then I met a girl. A breathtakingly beautiful one. In Syracuse. I then found myself staying in Syracuse for long weekends during that winter when anywhere else, temperature and sky color-wise would have been preferable. But this beautiful woman…just out of college…Kelly LeBrock identical twin—lookalike and for some odd reason, she liked me. The things we do amidst pheromonesque moments.

It was a tangle. And a joyous one at that. After the spring thaw and a flurry of Syracuse—Old Town weekend trips, we planned a long weekend with my best friend and his wife in Upper Montclair. We had dinner plans in Chelsea that Saturday night but the Syracuse Stunner and I headed to Gotham earlier for a stroll around. My mind’s eye still has a clear read on her cocktail dress. Manhattan’s mid-afternoon summer weekend emptiness amplified the incongruence of a cocktail dressed woman shopping with me at the old J. Press store. Hell, the fact that she was with me was incongruent…independent of season, time of day or geography.

I miss the old J. Press store in New York. But then again it’s no secret that I live most of my time yearning and wishing and recalling and remembering things that aren’t here anymore. I like patina. The J. Press and Chipp joints were tucked around the corner from the Brethren Brooks and as I ponder their proximity to the mother church, I kinda think of that other room in the back of the magazine shop in my hometown. Standard fare up front, more esoteric, edgy and erotic stuff around the corner on 44^th.

And there was a guy who worked there back in the mid-80’s when I started going there and he was still there on that stifling hot Saturday afternoon when I walked in with Ms. Cocktail dress. He was big. Unhealthily so and seemed to be larger very time I visited the store. He had a booming theatrical voice and round tortoise shell glasses—long before the rest of us started wearing them. He sold us a bowtie that afternoon.

My summer Saturday outfit furthered the incongruence. I felt dowdy in my navy blazer, rep tie and seersucker trousers compared to my chic date. “I want you to buy this bow tie and put it on now.” I kid you not; I’d a bought and donned a monkey-suit if she’d asked. And so I did—buy the bow tie. I never had to suit up in any costumes. But I woulda.

I still have the tie. Silk shantung might not a been my first choice but then again, I wasn’t driving the decision bus that afternoon. I was merely a passenger—mightily proud to be along for the ride. I donned the tie and we met up with my friends for dinner. The next day we spent it poolside back in Montclair and my Syracuse Stunner avec bikini was everything my best friend’s wife wasn’t—avec a celibacy inducing one-piece…replete with modesty skirt. The next evening as we packed for the airport, my friend’s wife, in her best Junior League single stranded pearl smile pulled me aside and whispered…“Don’t ever bring that woman back to my house again.”

I can’t quite remember the exact circumstances leading up to the demise of my Syracuse love fest. I no longer had to cover western New York and there was plenty to keep me smitten in D.C. Then one night a year or so later I’m reveling at the Casablanca Ball which was always a blast. I used to go with a gaggle of black tied, evening dressed friends and the marble columned National Building Museum venue made the fun soirée even—funner. “Hello Mr. G.” Yep. It was my Syracuse Stunner…stunning…in sequins. What are the chances? She’d moved to Annapolis a few weeks earlier. News to me.  An hour later we extricated ourselves from the Building Museum for less crowded digs.

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

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

Onward.

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

> -----Original Message-----

From:  _____

Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2012 2:30 PM

To: D G

Subject: Twenty-one years ago this week...

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

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

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

Trad-Ivy Tuesday: Nuanced Authenticity

I’m amazed that with the attention span of a gnat, I developed early-on an eye for nuance. Nuanced Authenticity…yep…I think that’s what I’m gonna try to speak to in this story. Nuanced authenticity defined as operationalizing a set of standards but not necessarily being so rule-bound that the dogma ain’t flexible.

Flexibility within the standard allows I suppose; a degree of Trad-WASP sprezzatura. Not that the Trad-WASP tribe would ever seek sprezzatura on purpose. If ever there was a club that would, if you could even get them to admit it, argue that insouciance is an outcome, not an objective, it would be the stereotypical Trad-WASP gang who drank cheap Scotch, drove beat up cars from Detroit and wore their clothes to death. Sprezzatura says prosciutto and melon when you stop by. Trad-Wasp insouciance says a box of Triscuits and some kinda cheese spread. 

And I did have at eighteen years old an eye for nuance and authenticity or at least what I thought it to be. Nuanced authenticity is perhaps true in other genres too. As I type this, suddenly I’m convinced of it. Authentic horse-farm people…you know; the ones you see at the Safeway in Middleburg with hay and shit on their muck boots can spot a poseur a mile away. I reckon the working cowboys out west can suss-out the drug store cowpoke faker in a heartbeat too.

Singleton’s, the Trad mother church where I became fully addicted to all of whatever this Trad-Classic-Ivy stuff is, opened its doors in 1927 and it was through those same doors that I strode with my father when I was old enough to go places without soiling myself. Men of his generation didn’t change diapers. By the time I began working there, the store’s patina was legendary. At least it was in my mind. The shelving and cases had been updated in 1947 when the owner, Harold Creel bought the place from Clyde Singleton after he returned for the War. And I kept those shelves and cases spic-and-span. If you’ve ever been in J.Press Cambridge then you’ve entered Singleton’s. Of all the rag joints I’ve been in here and in England, it’s the closest thing to my mind’s eye recollection of my hometown store—if you reduce the square footage by half.

I wish that I could find some photos of Singleton’s but they are just not, yet at least, to be found. The best I could do, given that even I no longer own one stitch of anything with a Singleton’s label, was to beg my buddy Marvin Woodrow to check his dad’s closet back home to see if there was any Singleton’s signage therein. And he came up with two private label neckties and photographed them for me. I immediately knew the maker of the ties. It was a, shall we say, a maker of the more popularly priced goods and the salesman was the son of the owner. I’ll leave it there for now because it’s an entire story with legs all its own.

I lived a happy and provincial life in Florence and by the time I was old enough to get clothes crazy and large enough to buy mens sizes, Singleton’s was all that anyone my age would need. Especially if one’s provincial existence to-date precluded ever setting foot in New York, Boston or other cities that could have broadened my awareness of the proverbial next level of Trad kit.

Keep in mind that when I was eighteen years old, Brooks Brothers didn’t exist in malls. They remained exclusively in about a half dozen cities in the States. It would be another two years when I attended a Kappa Alpha national conference in Atlanta that my maiden walk through the doors of the Brethren would manifest courtesy of the old Peachtree Street store. My stomach was turning when I walked in the door. The Peachtree Road Brethren Patina made my Singleton’s 1947 shelving veneer seem twee and chrome and Blue Light Special-ish. And it would be two more years before I’d make it to New York to experience Brethren Mecca at 346 and its Trad-ier counterpart around the corner, the old J.Press location.

 I regret very little in life but I do lament missing Chipp, who was across the street from the old J.Press store. Something tells me that of all these shrines, Chipp mighta been my go-to store.

So with innocently limited context that kept my aperture narrow, Singleton’s offered me everything I needed to develop my lens and filters for Trad Authenticity. The Singleton’s line-up included Gant, Pendleton, McGregor, Allen Solly, Corbin, Haspel, Hart-Schaffner and Marx, Berle, Sero, the old Haas Tailoring company in Baltimore for made-to-measure. Singleton’s sold private label stuff from various makers including that hot bed of lower end makers down in Bremen Georgia where for years, Murray’s Toggery had their Nantucket Brick Reds cut and sewn. When you are eighteen years old and have never been anywhere, the aforementioned baseline for becoming a natural fibered soft shouldered devotee was a gracious plenty.

But then I began to notice little things. Differences. Things that didn’t shout or even whisper. They didn’t have to. They just were. Different. Florence had a gaggle of lawyers and doctors and another smattering of professionals who all shopped at Singleton’s and I delivered, usually within walking distance, new clothes and altered older clothes to every law office and county courthouse chambers we had. And I can still name the only few at that time, lawyers who went to either an Ivy undergrad or an Ivy law school. And I bet I can name the half dozen kids, either my age or slightly older who went to prep schools…mostly Woodberry Forest. And it was from this little subset, as well as one other customer, LLH, a finance company executive who looked like he was going to die of a freaking stroke any minute, that I noticed two nuances especially, that told me there was another...a subtly different sartorial level…another Trad realm.

I noticed these particular two nuances either in situ on these customers or in the clothes they would bring by for some little alteration…a seam repair, take-in or let-out or in some cases with the tightest of penny pinchers, a hail mary final go at piecing together clothing that shoulda been given to Goodwill. It became obvious to me that even though these customers bought a good portion of their clothes at Singleton’s, they also shopped elsewhere. Their custom included places that in my mind were probably even more authentic than Singleton’s. And I wanted some of it. If I’d seen the old style Brooks Brothers artist illustrated catalogues, I’d have been on the way to sorting it all out but I hadn’t and the other thing I began to suspect  was that there was another level of Trad WASP-dom to which I did not belong.

I noticed Dr. Ed Mc_ _ _ one day in the store with a shirt pocket like the one above. My radar immediately told me that it wasn’t Gant. My line-up of all cotton button down oxford cloth standards were one-hundred percent Gant and the pockets weren't rounded like that. But Gant at twenty bucks a go and at half of that to me, courtesy of Mr. Creel’s benevolence, I was just fine. Until I saw that pocket. These people drank from other sartorial oases  from time to time. And I wanted a sip.

The squared-angled shape of my Gant shirt pockets said Florence and public schools and family travel exclusive of airplanes. It said our old wood framed un-airconditioned second row beach house at Ocean Drive instead of the coat and tie dining rooms at Sea Island, Jekyll or Ponte Vedra…places I wouldn’t frequent till I was thirty years old.

But the one that really got me was this. An olive gabardine suit and a tan poplin one that lawyer Boone A_ _ _ _, III would wear as he jauntily cut through the store, tattered manila portfolio in hand, headed to the courthouse. What was it with those seams? And that quirky, hooked vent? Our Haspel goods, probably the most authentic Trad product in our shop, didn’t have this additional level of what looked to me to be the needle and thread equivalent to industrial strength riveting. All I knew is that I wanted something like that and I didn't even know what the hell it was or why I wanted it. Was it flinging upon me a craving for strange ? It wasn’t that I was inauthentic and absent any and all nuanced personal style. I had some game. But I was again reminded that these people, even though they were for the most part, my people; really weren’t. These two little nuances…these mild provocations that inched open my world view only slightly more, told me to feel that way.

Onward. Hooked. But mostly double vented.

ADG II