A Tie Says "Did it. Did it. Did it."

Peter Segal: All the characters in your book, as they go through this disappearance, this crime, and the investigation are saying, "Oh, this is just like on TV." The characters start thinking about how they are going to play the role that they know they're going to play in the drama that they've seen before.

Gillian Flynn: Exactly, it's like how does the accused husband act in this? At a certain point he's trying to figure out what to wear. You know, what do you wear, when you're a grieving husband, to the press conference? You do that, you'd have to do that, right?

PS: If I am unjustly accused of a crime, how should I behave? Just in case it happens. Just in case Ira [Glass] DOES die soon...which I would have nothing to do with....

GF: I saw the wink again...

PS: But how should you behave?

GF: Well, I think like a short-sleeve button-down, would be the proper thing to wear.

PS: So, go for the dork look right away.

Paula Poundstone: Why?

GF: I just think it's a nice, harmless look. It's sort of like, "I'm casual, I may kill, I may have not killed...but I'm comfortable, I'm comfortable."

PP: Short-sleeve...

Maz Jobrani: Floral pattern, like, "I'm celebrating...I'm partyin' bro!"

PP: Maz, you've got like umbrella drink, I don't think that's where she's going.

GF: Not a Hawaiian shirt, yeah. Like a plaid.

PP: She's going more Pocket Protector, right?

GF: Exactly, exactly. But not with a tie. That's too formal.

PP: Oh, no, NO! A tie says, "Did it. Did it. Did it."


Gillian Flynn plays "Not My Job" on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, aired July 12, 2013.


I like the somewhat inadvertent conflating of "behave" and "wear" here, and obviously that they spent many minutes on this topic! Both seriously and with great comic gravity.

Tell Their Secrets

"When I instruct beginning writers to do a characterization, they produce something like this: 'She was a blue-eyed blonde in a red dress.'

Right at this moment, there are probably 10 million blue-eyed, blond women wearing red dresses. So that tells me absolutely nothing. The only thing in that pitiful characterization of any use at all is the mention of the red dress, simply because we have archetypal (and often incorrect) associations with particular colors (red is the color of evil, sensuality or rage) or items of clothing (a red dress is shorthand for the vivacious or celebratory). Of course these associations deal with stereotypes and perhaps even some gender judgement.

Pete Gamlen illustration that accompanied the online version of this article.

I didn't come to care about Scout or Ponyboy or Celie because of how they looked. I cared about them because I knew what was going on in their minds and hearts. Readers are better informed if we give them what is in a character's brain, not what is on her body.

Yet people continually want to write about a character's clothes, his height, or the color of his hair. These things rarely matter because they don't tell us about the kind of person we're dealing with. Humans are not all that physically different, after all. But all of our hearts and minds are individual, stamped with our own wonderful and terrible secrets.

That's what readers need to know to care about a character." (Review, 12)


House, Silas. "Tell Their Secrets" in the "Draft" section of The Sunday Review, New York Times, July 14, 2013.


This is a week full of Writers on Writing! I don't disagree with House--it is the "hearts and minds" that endear us to characters, not their overalls or pretty dresses or sailor suits. However, I do think that it's a bit unfair to suggest that clothing doesn't affect how we feel about the characters. It might not make us like them more (or it might--on a more superficial level), or identify with them, or learn about ourselves and others. But I think it's a meaningful way of connecting with the characters on a certain level--we all wear clothes!

A grey flannel suit makes us feel differently than a flowery, flowy muumuu (on women or men), and certainly those feelings are socially constructed and subjective. But I don't feel like House has given clothing description a fair rap here: "a red dress" is as stereotypical as it comes, and I don't disagree that that kind of bland (if intended to be fiery) description should be avoided.

I'm biased, but I believe that thoughtful, original descriptions and observations of dress and adornment make a book all the more real and meaningful to me. I want the characters I read about to be real (mostly), and for me, that sometimes includes his or her choice of clothing for a gala or a trip to the DMV--as well as their hopes, struggles, and stories.

The Tackiest Country on Earth

"Hooters Air was started in 2003 by the restaurant chain known for its chicken wings and hyper-mammalian waitresses. Every flight has three attendants who are dressed in traditional airline uniforms and trained in safety procedures, and two Hooters girls, who aren't and aren't.

No caption needed. From Adweek.

...

Number just eleven individuals, we are four more passengers than the seven who disembark. Behind them, the two Hooters Girls, one blonde, one brunette, emerge dressed in body-covering track suits in a sherbet-orange viscose. This is their more modest walking-around-the-airport attire. They look like Olympic athletes representing the tackiest country on earth, which I guess they kind of are.



Rakoff, David. "As it is in Heaven" in Don't Get Too Comfortable. New York: Doubleday, 2005.


I guess they kind of are. I didn't know there were multiple Hooters outfits!

The Tights Had To Be Symbolic.

"Then one day, my 4-year-old was having one of her regularly scheduled Scarlett O'Hara-ish nervous breakdowns. I found myself watching from a writerly distance, dissecting her motives the way I would a fictional character's. What hidden desires and fears fueled this particular tantrum? She wanted to wear woolen tights even though it was 92 degrees out, sure, but what else?

The last time wearing wool stockings in summer was considered logical. "Portrait of a girl and an infant", c.1890s, in the collections at History Colorado.

The tights had to be symbolic. In a story, anyway, they would be. Of course they were. Everything with a 4-year-old is symbolic."


Shearn, Amy. "A Writer's Mommy Guilt" New York Times Sunday, July 7, 2013. Review, 8.


Would the tights be symbolic? A perennial question on this blog: are authors (some, all, any?) conscious of the clothing choices they make for their characters?

Arbitrix Elegantiarum

"I saw Edweena and Henry almost every day. They were engaged to be married as soon as Mr. Wills in far-off London had drunk himself to death on the allowance his wife continued to send him. I loved Edweena and I loved Henry and I'm proud to say they loved me. Never for a moment, in company or alone, did Edweena and I make any reference to having met previously. Even Mrs. Cranston, whom little escaped, had no inkling of it. Edweena had prospered. Her shops, first in New York, then in Newport, were a great success. She had selected and trained assistants and presently handed the management over to the them, because a more satisfying and even more remunerative career opened up for her. No name could be found for it, but she was delighted when (from my fund of 'twelve languages') I offered and explained to her the words arbitrix elegantiarum, 'The woman who dispenses the laws of good taste,' as Petronius Arbiter did at the Emperor Nero's court. She continued to insist that she was a lady's maid, but she turned down all invitations to serve as a maid to any one lady; how far that designation falls short of the role she played in New York and Newport.

One of the first to be called a "stylist," Tobé (née Taube Coller) gives advice in the Delineator, 1937. From here.

No ball, no dinner of great occasion was imaginable without Edweena's presence in the boudoir reserved for the ladies. Many guests brought in their own maid with them, but no guest was completely sure of her presented self until Edweena had approved of it. It was her sternly upheld doctrine of nothing too much that had changed the modes of dress. She proffered counsel only when she was asked for it; many a dame, supremely sure of herself in Chicago or Cleveland or even in New York, would start down the great staircase like a galleon in full sail, only to discover that confidence was ebbing step by step, and would remount the stairs. Insecurity as to how one looks can be a torment, particularly in a time of transition; the baroque was passing into the classic. Edweena had not created the new; she had felt the shifting tide 'in her bones' and rode the wave." (354-355)


Wilder, Thornton. Theophilus North. New York: Perennial, 2003 [1973].


Too bad we only call them "stylists" today. But arbitrix elegantiarum sounds so much more turn-of-the-century anyway. A great description of arbiters, also: not creators, necessarily, but those who know how to "ride the wave."

Flora Deland

"I found the Misses Laughlins' Scottish Tea Room--where Diana Bell and Hilary Jones had done their courting--in the heart of the Ninth City. It was frequented by girls from offices, some schoolteachers of both sexes, some housewives 'downtown shopping'--a subdued company. The food was simple, well-cooked, and cheap. I had noticed a strange apparition there and I hoped to see it again--a tall woman sitting alone, dressed in what I took to be the height of fashion. One day she reappeared. She wore a hat resembling a nest on which an exotic bird was resting, and an elaborate dress of what I think used to be called 'changeable satin,' blues and greens of a peacock's feathers intermingling. Before eating it was necessary that she remove her gloves and raise her veil with gestures of apparently uncalculated grace. Zounds! What was this? As before, when she entered or rose to take her departure the room was filled with the rustle of a hundred petticoats. Not only what was she, but why should she visit our humble board?

"Jolibois" dress, Lanvin, c1922-23. In the Met Museum.

Her face was not strictly beautiful. Norms of feminine beauty change from century to century and sometimes oftener. Her face was long, thin, pale, and bony. You will later hear Henry Simmons describe it as 'horsy.' It can be seen in Flemish and French paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The kindest thing that could be said of it in 1926 that it was 'aristocratic,' a designation more apologetic than kind. What was sensational about her was what we lustful soldiers at Fort Adams used to call her 'build,' her 'altogether,' her 'figger.'

You can imagine my surprise when on leaving she approached me with extended hand and said, "You are Mr. North, I believe. I've long wanted to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Edward Darley.--Might I sit down for a moment?'" (64)


Wilder, Thornton. Theophilus North. New York: Perennial, 2003 [1973].

I like Ted North's delight and incomprehension regarding her elaborate style of dress in a simple restaurant. It all makes sense once he realizes she's a "smearer, a newspaper chatterbox"--what better place to get the gossip of the town? Zounds!

Short Pants and No Socks

"As Ahmed Kathrada led President Obama and his family recently through the prison on Robben Island where Mr. Kathrada had spent much of his life, he explained how the rules of apartheid had granted him, because of his Indian ancestry, long pants and socks. One of his fellow inmates, Nelson Mandela, as a black man, received short pants and no socks." (Front page)

Nelson Mandela, c1937.

Mabry, Marcus. "Where Mandela Kept Hope, Guide Tells Their Shared Saga." New York Times Saturday, July 6, 2013.


What an intro: nothing like clothing to demonstrate, in an accessible and universal manner, the injustices of apartheid. Both meaningful (because we make it so) and completely trivial--how do oppressors make the difference between short pants and long pants so significant?

Robert/Sheepskin

"He was searching, consciously or unconsciously, for himself. He was in a fresh state of transformation. He had shed the skin of his ROTC uniform, and in its wake his scholarship, his commercial path, and his father's expectations of him. At seventeen he had been infatuated with the prestige of the Pershing Rifles, their brass buttons, highly polished boots, braids and ribbons. It was the uniform that attracted him, just as the robes of an altar boy had drawn him to the altar. But his wervice was to art, not to church or country. His beads, dungarees, and sheepskin vest represented not a costume but an expression of freedom." (47-48)

Robert Mapplethorpe: necklaces, open shirt, sailor hat. From here.

"My table manners apalled Robert. I could see it in the cast of his eyes, the turn of his head. When I ate with my hands, he thought it drew too much attention, even while he'd be sitting in the booth bare-chested, wearing several beaded necklaces and an embroidered sheepskin vest. Our nitpicking usually evolved into laughter, especially when I'd point out such discrepancies. We continued these diner arguments throughout our long friendship. My manners never got any better but his attire went through some extremely flamboyant changes." (64)



Smith, Patti. Just Kids. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

The wardrobe of an artist, c. 1960s (and beyond). I especially admire the first quote, which describes the evolution not only of this one man, but of many young people in the 1960s (and today): away from what one's parents prefer toward a more genuine you. It's a different uniform, but maybe with the same fascination.

Aggressive, Flexible.

"The men that Aomame and Ayumi had chosen the last time were in their late thirties or forties. Both had full heads of hair, but Aomame was willing to compromise on that point. They said they were with a company that dealt in real estate, but judging from their Hugo Boss suits and Missoni Uomo neckties, they were not just ordinary employees of giant conglomerates like Mitsubishi or Mitsui, whose employees were bound by finicky rules, tradition, and endless meetings, but rather they worked for a more aggressive, flexible company with a cool, foreign-sounding name, a place that looked for individual talent and richly rewarded success. One of the men carried keys to a brand-new Alfa Romeo. Tokyo was short on office space, they said." (360-361)

Murakami, Haruki. Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, trans. 1Q84. New York: Vintage International, 2011.



A Hugo Boss suit speaks volumes. Or was it the Uomo tie? Does Western High Fashion signal singularity, aggressiveness, and flexibility, or is it specific brands? I want very badly to know what the Conglomorate Dress Code (in Japan c.1984) comprises, in Murakami's narrative opinion.

Photo credit: Hugo Boss ad from the late 1980s, from here.

Frank Sinatra Style

"There was never any question that Robert would take the portrait for the cover of Horses, my aural sword sheathed with Robert's image. I had no sense of how it would look, just that it should be true. The only thing I promised Robert was that I would wear a clean shirt with no stains on it.

The ultra-iconic photo/album cover for Patti Smith's Horses, 1975. From here.

I went to the Salvation Army on the Bowery and bought a stack of white shirts. Some were too big for me, but the one I really liked was neatly pressed with a monogram below the breast pocket. It reminded me of a Brassaï shot of Jean Genet wearing a white monogrammed shirt with rolled-up sleeves. There was an RV stitched on my shirt. I imagined it belonged to Roger Vadim, who had directed Barbarella. I cut the cuffs off the sleeves to wear under my black jacket adorned with the horse pin that Allen Lanier had given me.

Robert wanted to shoot it at Sam Wagstaff's, since his One Fifth Avenue penthouse was bathed in natural light. The corner window cast a shadow creating a triangle of light, and Robert wanted to use it in the photograph.

...

Robert came to fetch me. He was worried because it was very overcast. I finished getting dressed: black pegged pants, white lisle socks, black Capezios. I added my favorite ribbon, and Robert brushed the crumbs off my black jacket.

We hit the street.

...

Sam's apartment was small and spartan, all white and nearly empty, with a tall avocado tree by the window overlooking Fifth Avenue. There was a massive prism that refracted the light, breaking it into rainbows cascading on the wall across from a white radiator. Robert placed me by the triangle. His hands trembled slightly as he readied to shoot. I stood.

The clouds kept moving back and forth. Something happened with his light meter and he became slightly agitated. He took a few shots. He abandoned the light meter. A cloud went by and the triangle disappeared. He said, "You know, I really like the whiteness of the shirt. Can you take the jacket off?"

I flung my jacket over my shoulder, Frank Sinatra style. I was full of references. He was full of light and shadow." (249-251)

Smith, Patti. Just Kids. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.




So many things here, but mainly I appreciate the behind-the-scenes experience of the shooting of that iconic photo. So lovely to hear how she chose what to wear--or rather, she knew exactly what she was going to wear, as always (check back for more quotations from this book). I always thought that ribbon was some sort of suspenders...not that it makes a difference. And I obviously am glad to know what socks she was wearing. Interesting that she chose to include that, especially since the photo focuses on the top half of her body.

I know everyone else in the world has already read this, but pick it up if you haven't. Her writing style is fine but not refined (in a good way) and if you need any suggestions for your burgeoning 1970s lookbook...

I Thought You Were a Waiter!

"Funny clothes and no food--this will be quite an evening."

Embarrassingly black-tie. From here.

A bit of tongue-in-cheek from Mrs. Martha Levinson on the second episode of the third season of Downtown Abbey. We're way behind and like it that way. So many etiquette issues and plot twists that rely on clothing and British identity in this episode. Class, inheritance, new love...so many endangered species.

I imagine most of the audience couldn't tell the difference anyways, so they lay it on a little thick, but the extreme similarity of white and black tie dress in the modern viewer's perception is part of the joke as well as the tension. Who is proper, and who decides what that means at any given point and in every situation? How important is it to know the answer to those questions?

South Manchurian Railway

"Aomame pulled in her chin, kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, her back straight, and her pace steady. Her chestnut-colored Charles Jourdan heels clicked against the road's surface, and skirts of her coat waved in the breeze. April had begun, but there was still a chill in the air and a hint of roughness to come. Aomame wore a beige spring coat over her green light wool Junko Shimada suit. A black leather bag hung over her shoulder, and her shoulder-length hair was impeccably trimmed and shaped. She wore no accessories of any kind. Five foot six inches tall, she carried not an ounce of excess fat. Every muscle in her body was well toned, but her coat kept that fact hidden. (12)

...

"Aomame figured that a woman drinking alone in a hotel bar could not be mistaken for a high-class hooker on the prowl if she was wearing a business suit, had a big shoulder bag parked next to her, and sat there absorbed in a book about the South Manchurian Railway (a hardcover, no less). In fact, Aomame had no idea what kind of idea what kind of outfit a real high-class hooker would wear. If she herself were a prostitute looking for wealthy businessmen, she would probably try her best not to look like a prostitute so as to avoid either making potential clients nervous or having herself ejected from the bar. One way to accomplish that might be to wear a Junko Shimada business suit and white blouse, keep her makeup to a minimum, carry a big, practical shoulder bag, and have a book on the South Manchurian Railway open in front of her. Come to think of it, what she was doing now was not substantially different from a prostitute on the prowl." (68)


Murakami, Haruki. [Rubin, Jay and Philip Gabriel, trans.]. 1Q84. New York: Vintage International, 2011.

I'm not sure how I feel about this translation, or maybe (dare I say it?) just the writing itself. Lots of repetition and obvious observation. But I like that this suit returns quite a few times. What does it mean to Japanese readers? I guess Shimada had just opened in Paris in 1984, I suppose that must have signaled that Aomame participated in high fashion (which he later clarifies). What does Junko Shimada mean to you? Do you think it's the right choice for practical Aomame? Is it about wearing a Japanese label, or is it precisely Shimada that

Original

Oscar Bluth: I just came back to get, uh...get some....suits. You know, so I can look like the uptight, dishonest, cheating boob that I am.

Michael Bluth: Well, I never said boob. Although you are in the wrong Lucille's apartment, so...unless you're looking for a Bob Mackie Original, could be some truth in the cheating part.

OB: Yeah, well I was in the desert, and I've lost my sense of direction.



From Season 4, Episode 4 of Arrested Development.

I had to do it for Liza.

Someone Who's Been Pampered

"ANYWAY, let's make him someone who works in an office, someone who's been pampered--what could he say that lets us see this? Let's dress him carefully because we may have to humiliate him in a minute. For instance, we can see by the precision of the knot in his tie that his wife tied it this morning. His clothes and ring and shoes are all going to talk, and they are going to help us fnd out who he is, but more importantly he is going to say things to his secretary and to his callers and to the people with whom he works, and these people are going to say things back to him, and we want to hear both sides of these conversations." (70)

A man of many conversations but just one tie. Dilbert, as drawn by Scott Adams. From here.

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

What is more important, the clothes or the conversation? Of course, they work together, but which do you rely on to understand a character? There is almost always more conversation; should there be more clothing description? Conversations about clothing?

Peas on a Knife

"In 1848, Thackeray's Book of Snobs used that disgusting pea practice as a paradigm: 'Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.' If I were to eat my peas with my knife, I would be 'insulting society' just as much as if I were to go to a tea party in a dressing gown and slippers. Homer Simpson eats his peas with a knife, and that says it all." (68)

Pegnoir, c. 1900, in the Goldstein Museum at UMN. From a great post on their blog here.

Shapin, Steve. "The Tines They are A-Changin': A history of table technology" [review]. Harper's Magazine January 2013.


Here, dress codes are considered the most applicable comparison of rude behavior. I like this.

It's Pretty Jive

"For instance, say you have a guy walking down the street, and it's cold, and you've always wanted a leather topcoat, so you give him one. Then you follow him down the street. Describe what you see, and listen carefully.

Trench coat, $119. Photo: Greg Peterson/San Francisco Chronicle, 1971. From here.

Say this boy meets a girl. The boy in the leather overcoat meets the beautiful girl with the harelip and the Gucci bag, on the street, and he can't just say, Hey, let's get married! Things need to happen. They need to get to know each other, even if just a little. They will talk to each other, and they will talk about each other to friends. Get this all down. After you've spent a while with them, they will start to sound more like themselves--because you are really getting to know them--and you may see that you'd better get rid of that topcoat, it's pretty jive, and that you need to go back and redo the early dialogue." (68)

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

How the wardrobes of your characters will change over time, mostly due to jiveness.

Determined Ladylike

"The current issue of Vogue features a portrait of the mayoral contender Christine C. Quinn standing on the steps of the New York Public Library with a wind-swept lift to her pageboy, wearing beige stilettos and a cobalt blue sheath designed by Carolina Herrera.

New York Mayoral hopeful Christine C. Quinn, in her so-called "Determined Ladylike" persona. Photo: Mikael Jansson for Vogue, 2013.

The look says Determined Ladylike, and what follows to fortify the message is an excerpt from her coming memoir 'With Patience and Fortitude,' in which she intersperses the story of the vote to legalize gay marriage in New York State with anecdotes about fierce budget negotiations she was simultaneously conducting on the City Council, all of which preceded her search for a wedding dress." (23)


Bellafante, Gina. "A Cloudy Revelation From a Mayoral Candidate" New York Times May 19, 2013.


Much of this article centers around the continuing issues women politicians have finding the balance between being political and being ladylike (or being seen as both/either); it's a shame that those are still seen as mutually exclusive. In this lead-in and many paragraphs after, it's all about "the costume changes [that] have been varied enough that it has been easy to regard the City Council speaker as the Cindy Sherman of our political class," presumably citing that artist's use of clothing, masks, makeup, and other aesthetic modifiers to comment on gender roles. Would you call the look above "Determined Ladylike"? Why not just determined (why do we still say "women politicians")?

First Book Review for Worn Through!

I've recently taken over the Book Review section of Worn Through, and am excited to announce my first review: Vintage Swimwear: Historical Patterns and Techniques, by Jill Salen.

Check it out on Worn Through, and let me know what you think!

These Pants Were Just Pants

"As I was lying in the tub with my new gray Levi's shrink-to-fit pants on, my natural feelings of desperation and stupidity were mixed with another emotion: Hope. My life had narrowed in this moment to one small, attainable purpose, the pursuit of perfect jeans, and I felt excited. I also felt empty. Was this what my life had become?

Marc Maron in jeans. Photo: Columbus Underground.

Didn't I have better things to do? I was a 48-year-old man in a bathtub wearing pants, thinking I would be a better person for owning a pair of highly personalized jeans. It was in that moment that it hit me: these pants were just pants. They weren't going to do anything special." (74)


Maron, Marc. "Pantsed!" for the Lives Column, New York Times Magazine May 5, 2013.


Are they, Marc? Do we invest too much in certain items of clothing, or do they deserve it?

Never Nike

"The 46 presentations that followed were dominated by the language of Silicon Valley, a hybrid of tech slang and insipid sales patter. Common terms included 'disruption,' 'scale' (verb), 'game changer,' 'thought leaders,' 'ecosystem,' 'pivot' and 'verticals.' 'We've 10 X'd,' one founder said, using a Grahamism to describe his company's growth.

Signature tee from Mark by Mark Zuckerberg line of clothing.

Most of the founders wore T-shirts and sneakers--Asics mostly, never Nike--and spoke in a manner that might be best described as Zuckerbergian: pauses imposed after every four words, delivered in an insistent, cheerful tone, with a painted-on smile." (70)


Rich, Nathaniel. "Eat. Sleep. Pitch." New York Times Magazine, May 5, 2013.


Why do you think everyone was in Asics (the conformity is not in question, but the brand)? Why "never Nike"? Are there small-business or entrepreneurial reasons? Are Asics especially hip in Silicon Valley? That comment feels like more than simple observation.