The Three of Them

"The three of them started for the door, and I watched them go. They were good-looking young fellows, wore good clothes; none of them wore hats, and they looked like they had plenty of money. They talked plenty of money, anyway, and they spoke the kind of English Cubans with money speak." (9)

"Old Havana Housefronts" by Walker Evans, 1933. From here.

"Old Havana Housefronts" by Walker Evans, 1933. From here.

Hemingway, Ernest. To Have and Have Not. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1966 [1937].

 

Ernest, what does not wearing hats have anything to do with it? I think it's the semi-colon that gets me.

Authenticity and Glamour

"The very air, untroubled and unchanged, was familiar and the high school and grammar school with their sober facades. He felt in a way superior to it all and at the same time beholden.

Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy, Jr. in Navy cap and leisurewear. From the JFK Library Archives.

Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy, Jr. in Navy cap and leisurewear. From the JFK Library Archives.

His uniform hung in the closet and his cap was on the shelf above. He had worn them when he was Mr. Bowman, a junior officer but respected and even admired. Long after the uniform had lost its authenticity and glamour, the cap, strangely, would still have its power." (14)

 

Salter, James. All That Is. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

 

What is it about the cap? A soldier at home after The War.

September 3

"(September 3)

Having just turned 40 have resolved to embark on grand project of writing every day in this new black book just got at OfficeMax. Exciting to think how in one year, at rate of one page/day, will have written 365 pages, and what a picture of life and times then available for kids & grandkids, even greatgrandkids, whoever, all are welcome (!) to see how life really was/is now. Because what do we know of other times really? How clothes smelled and carriages sounded?" (109)

 

Saunders, George. From "Semplica Girl Diaries" in Tenth of December. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

 

How does Saunders do it? It's so delicately apropos: this guy is sitting there, thinking that writing about these things will really give future peoples the sense of "other times." What do you think about diaries (even fictional) as material culture, as a source for "history" (or the past)? No picture today--pretend like you're reading.

Imitation-lisle.

"The book-review editors were like kings (or queens), she always fancied, holding levees, surrounded by their courtiers, while petitioners waited eagerly in the anteroom and footmen (that is, office boys) trotted back and forth. And, like kings, they had the power of life and death in their hands.

1930s woman.jpeg

She had got to know the other reviewers or 'clients,' as the Romans would have called them, quite well by sight--middle-aged bohemian women with glasses or too much rouge and dangly earrings and worn briefcases or satchels; pimply young men in suits that looked as if they were made of paper. And their shoes! Half-soled and with broken laces tied in frayed knots; it broke Libby's heart to study their shoes and the red, raw ankles emerging from cheap imitation-lisle socks." (246-247)

McCarthy, Mary. The Company She Keeps. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002 [1942].

Can you imagine--imitation lisle! The nerve. Think of the products that were available in the 1930s and their social implications that may not mean anything today.

How would these down-at-the-heels reviewers be dressed today? Interesting in light of the previous post on ACM citing the New Yorker's conversation about officewear.

**PS: speaking of reviewing books, check out my newest review on Worn Through here!

I Make Clothes for People To Wear

Sasha Weiss: So there's a lot more freedom today when it comes to clothing than it was in the 80s, surely, but I wonder now that things are less coded and less formal, at least for people working in a creative setting, it's kind of harder to dress for work, and I wonder how women who are entering the work force learn the norms, because it is harder to draw the line now.

Cartoon by William Hamilton, 1980s (?), found here.

Cartoon by William Hamilton, 1980s (?), found here.

Susan Morrison: That's interesting. Emma Allen, a young Talk of the Town writer here [and I] were talking about this yesterday, that when she graduated from Yale in 2010, every student was given this thing called "Life After Yale," a little publication produced by the Career Services people called a Survival Guide for the Class of 2010. And for women there's a long section about what to wear, and here I'll read a little bit of it:

If wearing a skirt, you need to wear nylons. Sheer is best. Don't forget to keep an extra pair of nylons in your desk in case of runs.

Now, I can't even remember the last time time I owned or put on a pair of sheer nylons. When I first saw this book I thought, "This is preposterous," but then I was thinking about my own teenage daughters, who I think just because they're younger and they don't feel as confident about knowing the ways of the world tend to have more conservative ideas than I do often about what's an appropriate thing to wear.

 

From The New Yorker's Out Loud podcast, September 13, 2013. Sasha Weiss discussed "Work Clothes" with Rebecca Mead and Susan Morrison.

 

Are the "rules" of (work) fashion generational? How do you dress for work? Susan Morrison thinks the only no-no is "being inappropriately revealing." But that's relative too, isn't it? Up to a certain point, I guess. Oh, and no flip-flops. Agreed.

This piece has some worthwhile contemporary observation of work dress and dress codes in literary and creative offices.

Yellow Laces

"Jag virade halsduken om halsen och knäppte den blå lotsjackan som jag köpte på rea förra våren på Paul Smith i Stockholm, drog på mig mössan från samma ställe, böjde mig ner över högen av skodon i hörnet, hittade mina, ett par svarta Wranglerskor med gula snören som jag hade köpt i Köpenhamn när jag var på bokmässan där, och aldrig hade gillat, inte ens när jag köpte dem, och som nu dessutom hade fått en missfärgning av tanken på hur katastrofalt dåligt det hade gått för mig där, helt oförmögen att svara intelligent på en enda av all frågor som den entusiastiska och insiktsfulla intervjuaren ställde till mig på scenen. Att jag inte för länge sedan hade slängt dem berodde uteslutande på att vi hade så ont om pengar. Och så gula snören!" (92)

I wrapped the scarf around my neck and buttoned the blue peacoat I bought on sale last spring at Paul Smith in Stockholm, pulled on the hat from the same, bent over the pile of shoes in the corner, found mine, a pair of black Wrangler shoes with yellow laces that I had bought in Copenhagen when I was at the book fair there, and had never liked, not even when I bought them, and which furthermore had been colored by the thought of how catastrophically badly it went for me there, totally unprepared to answer intelligently even one of the questions the enthusiastic and insightful interviewers asked on stage. That I hadn't thrown them away ages ago depended completely on how short we were on money. And those yellow laces!°

 

Knausgaard, Karl Ove. Min kamp 2. Stockholm: Pocketförlag/excess*, 2009.

 

A shoelace is never just a shoelace. Or is it?

 

°my translation of the Swedish translation from the Norwegian. See another here.

Outfits

"Sometimes I'm tempted to become a street person, cut off from society. But then I wouldn't get to wear my outfits."

Calista Flockhart as Ally McBeal.

Calista Flockhart as Ally McBeal.

 

McBeal, Ally, in episode 5, season 1. 1997.

 

Street people don't look good in Calvin Klein, everybody knows that. Though this show isn't a well of philosophical insight, this line seemed out-of-character shallow. Maybe because they have made such a big deal of the issues surrounding looks and career for women and were perhaps careful not to make them clothes-obsessed?

Try Out Some Different Looks

"'I know I’m going to catch hell for saying this, but it looks kind of dumb,' he said. “'Besides, you expect me to believe God really cares if I wear a big pointy hat or not? Come on.'"

Photo copyright Alberto Pizzolo/AFP/Getty

Photo copyright Alberto Pizzolo/AFP/Getty

Borowitz, Andy. "Pope Thinking of Losing HatNew Yorker blog, December 9, 2013.

 

What's a few hundred years of tradition, anyway? Or perhaps more appropriately...what does so much finery and inheritance mean in 2013, anyway?

And now, a word from our sponsors!

Great news!

I get to join the lovely ladies at Vintagefabriken for their Ecofriendly Christmas Market next Sunday, selling vintage textiles, sewing supplies, and clothing alongside many other great vintage boutiques, aesthetes, and healthy bakers. The theme of the market is, of course, reuse-reuse-recycle, organic food and treats, etc etc etc. Hosted by Vintagefabriken and Stockholms Stadsmission, all proceeds from seller's fees and the purchase of glögg and pepparkakor go to help the homeless, and there will also be a collection of jackets, blankets, and other warming items for Stockholm's most needy. So many good causes in one little market!

Copyright Vintagefabriken.

Copyright Vintagefabriken.

So excited to be a part of this! Want to steal the hashtag from another beautiful shop that will be selling on Sunday, Lyckliga Gatan:

#åretsjulklappäråtervunnen, the best Christmas present is secondhand!

Come visit next Sunday, December 15, from 11-17 in Midsommarkransen. Bring your gently used warm coats and blankets...and your wallet! Support small businesses that are eco-friendly and working for a more sustainable--and aesthetically pleasing--world.

 

Socks are his Vice

"'This is the only thing my son is into,' she said. 'If socks are his vice, I can live with that.'

Nike Elite Socks. Photo copyright Nike.

Nike Elite Socks. Photo copyright Nike.

...Added Jake Lefferts, 13, a basketball player from Maplewood, NJ, whose team won its suburban-league championship two years ago: 'All the good basketball teams have the cool socks. It's like we know who's good, but the socks reinforce that they are.'" (14-15)

 

Rubin, Courtney. "Athletic Socks that Give a Foot Bragging Rights" New York Times, Sunday, September 29, 2013.

 

A forgotten gem, noted that day on a hidden page. The lowly sock! Creating meaning beyond Hanes' grandest expectations...

Fashion suffers.

"Fashion suffers by being very much more interesting than those who follow it." (ix)

 

McDowell, Colin. The Literary Companion to Fashion. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995.

 

I knew this exists, but I never picked it up--this is the 1995/analog version of this website! But better organized. So maybe this is, instead, an extension? If I may be so bold? Really looking forward to reviewing his new book on Worn Through in two weeks...

A most unheard-of steale!

"Now as it happened, in the din and the tumulte, a good and freely-thinking Aborigine did stand in his breechclouts and inquire with great clarity the reasone for such monster savings, as well as why they should expire with the sun’s setting, which seemed rather arbitrary when one thought aboute it.

Pilgrim Monroe, 1950s. From here.

Pilgrim Monroe, 1950s. From here.

But these wordes did fall on ears deafened by rumours of two-for-one buckles, which could be affix’d to one’s shoe or belt, or sportingly to the front of one’s hat—a most unheard-of steale!"

 

Clegg, River. "The First Black Friday, By William Bradford." From McSweeney's.

The deepe questions.

The Peoples of the World

The sculptures of the tympanum were equally beautiful but not so disturbing as those of the newer church. Here again, the tympanum was dominated by an enthroned Christ; but at his sides, in various poses and with various objects in their hands, were the twelve apostles, who had received from him the mission to go forth and preach among all peoples. Over Christ's head, in an arc divided into twelve panels, and under Christ's feet, in an unbroken procession of figures, the peoples of the world were portrayed, destined to receive the Word.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, a Cappadocian father. From a fresco at Kariye Camii, Istanbul.

From their dress I could recognize the Hebrews, the Cappadocians, the Arabs, the Indians, the Phrygians, the Byzantines, the Armenians, the Scythians, the Romans. But, along with them, in thirty round frames that made an arc above the arc of twelve panels, were the inhabitants of the unknown worlds, of whom only the Physiologus and the vague reports of travelers speak slightly. (336)

 

Eco, UmbertoThe Name of the Rose. London: Picador, 1984 [Italy, 1980].

 

Peoples of the world recognizable from their outfits. What screams Scythian, or is so Cappadocian? Are we so distinct now? Or, on the other hand, how accurate was the dress reported, if travelers' accounts of fantastical creatures was so off the mark?

Minnets mekanismer

Rapporter Ulla Strängberg: Jag är lite nervös inför mötet med Doris Lessing. Som många har sagt att hon är lite kärv och svår intervjuad. ...alltså är jag förberedd till tänderna när jag står där lite för tidigt utanför hennes hus i ett av raderna av likadana i West Hampstead inom västra London. Jag hade tänkt mig att det här programmet skulle handla om minnets mekanismer. En 84-åriga författare som skrivit i 70 år med ett 20-tal romaner bakom sig och minst lika mycket annat. Som skrivit så mycket om sitt liv och även i fiktiv form gestaltat minnena från uppväxten i Afrika. Var ska man börja, då?

Portrait of Doris Lessing by Ida Karr, late 1950s. In the National Portrait Gallery, London. Does she have a run in her stocking? I would love that.

Portrait of Doris Lessing by Ida Karr, late 1950s. In the National Portrait Gallery, London. Does she have a run in her stocking? I would love that.

'En scen: jag har på mig en aftonklänning av svart sammet som jag hade sytt på eftermiddagen. Det var bomullssammet. Inom ett år skulle jag fingra på den och förkasta den. Den var skuren i den tidens klassiska modell: ryggen bar ner till midjan, med nackband och djup u-ringning framtill, sned runt höfterna och med mjuk vidd nertill. En man som är mycket äldre än pojkarna på sportklubben sitter på armstödet till den fåtölj och studera mig med ett leende som jag är för ung för att tolka som ett sorgsätt leende från en åldrande kvinnoälskare. Dansmusiken dunkar från balrummet och jag är rastlös och redan halvt börjat dansa, längtar efter att ge mig hänge. Han säger,

-Vem är din kavaljé ikväll? 

-Den och den, säger jag.

-Den där klänningen är bortslösad på en pojke som han, säger han med ett bittert leende. Han snurrar mig runt med manlig auktoritet, och förvandlas med ett andetag till en annan människa.

-Har du behå? 

-Nej.

-Trosor?

-Ja, det är klart, säger jag indignerat. 

-Du har en perfekt figur, förkunnar han. Men det är synd att ditt högre bröst hänger en halvcentimeter längre ner än den andra.

-Det överlever jag nog. 

-Säkerligen.

Det här lilla minnet skulle kunna jämföras med de fotografier av sitt unga jag, som kvinnor placerar där alla kan ser dom. Det de säger med det är "inbilla inte för en sekund att jag är den gamla haggan som du ser sitter här i den här fåtöljen, för det är jag inte alls. Det där är mitt verkliga jag.' [same Under My Skin excerpt in English here]

Doris Lessing in 2006. Photo: Martin Cleaver, AP. From here.

Doris Lessing in 2006. Photo: Martin Cleaver, AP. From here.

...

US: Do you remember your black velvet dress?

DL: Yes. 

US: Must have been beautiful.

DL: It was, and I made it! I used to make my evening dresses. 

US: Your mother had a sewing machine.

DL: Yes, I used to...make sure I had a sewing machine. Um, I put this into my...I've just finished four short novels, which...and I put the making of evening dresses, much changed, into that. Because, you see, we used to make our clothes, because it isn't like now where there's so much...there's so many cheap clothes around. So it was, um, well it was enjoyable making clothes. Very! I don't do it now, of course.

Doris Lessing minns mycket väl sin svarta sammetsklänning som hon hade på balerna i Salisbury, i dåvarande Syd Rhodesia, där familjen hade slagit sig ner. Om det livet har hon berättat i sin självbiografi, Efter utbrottet från farmen, när hon bara var femton år. Familjen hade flyttat till Syd Rhodesia från Persian för att söka lyckan som majsfarmare. Men Doris bröt sig loss, och gick som alltid sin egen väg. Klänningen är ett slags symbol för frigörelsen, som är lustigt nog återvänt till igen i den kommande bok med fyra lång noveller. 

 

Doris Lessing, maker/consumer. From a great Swedish public radio piece on memory in remembrance of Lessing, who died November 17, 2013. Haven't read any of her work (!), but just happened to pick up the Penguin edition of "Five" (1960) in a thrift store in Uppsala a few weeks ago. Maybe the next English-language book on the pile?

This memorial to Lessing caught my ear when Strängberg asks herself, Lessing has written so much about memory, so "where do I begin?"...and promptly quotes a passage about a dress. Clothing and memory! Inextricable. Youth and age, memory, attraction...all in a piece of cotton velvet. I almost don't believe that Lessing made a velvet dress in one afternoon...but it fits the tone of the passage. Have a listen!

Gazing Everywhere

"Find a little yellow side street house. Put an older woman in it. Dress her in that tatty favorite robe, pull her slippers up before the sink, have her doing dishes, gazing nowhere--at her own backyard. Gazing everywhere.

From Life Magazine.

From Life Magazine.

Something falls outside, and loud. One damp thwunk into new grass. A meteor? She herself (retired from selling formal clothes at Wanamaker's, she herself a widow and the mother of three scattered sons, she herself alone at home a lot these days), goes onto tiptoe, leans across a sinkful of suds, sees out near her picnic table--something nude, white, overly long. It keeps shivering. Both wings seem damaged." (36)

Gurganus, Allan. "It Had Wings" Harper's Magazine, February 1986. Originally published in the Paris Review, Winter 1985. Also found here.

 

Her current self: a robe, former self: formal clothes. Contrast! Also, parentheses.

Handsome and Great

"In the pages to follow I shall not indulge in descriptions of persons--except when a facial expression, or a gesture, appears as a sign of a mute but eloquent language--because, as Boethius says, nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn; and what would be the point of saying today that the abbot Abo had a stern eye and pale cheeks, when by now he and those around him are dust and their bodies have the mortal grayness of dust (only their souls, God grant, shining with a light that will never be extinguished)?

St. Andrew   , c. 1326. Simone Martini. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

St. Andrew   , c. 1326. Simone Martini. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

But I would like to describe WIlliam at least once, because his singular features struck me, and it is characteristic of the young to become bound to an older and wiser man not only by the spell of his words and the sharpness of his mind, but also by the superficial form of his body, which proves very dear, like the figure of a father, whose gestures we study and whose frowns, whose smile we observe--without a shadow of lust to pollute this form (perhaps the only that is truly pure) of corporal love.

In the past, men were handsome and great (now they are children and dwarfs), but this is merely one of the many facts that demonstrate the disaster of an aging world." (14-15) 

 

Eco, Umberto. The Name of the Rose. London: Picador, 1984 [Italy, 1980].

 

Why not describe people in words when it is so common to capture them in paintings, photographs, etc? Even if the nature is fleeting, the author/artist's subjective perspective will only be one of many understandings of the physical person. I like here how he spells it out for the reader...and then makes an immediate exception. 

The Early Days of Dude

"'For some reason,' Metcalf says, 'early in 1883, this inspired someone to call foppish young men of New York City "doods," with the alternate spelling "dudes" soon becoming the norm.'

 "What, is this my Son Tom" from 1774. Kids these days! From here.

 "What, is this my Son Tom" from 1774. Kids these days! From here.

 Some of the early mocking descriptions of these dudes seem awfully familiar today: 'A weak mustache, a cigarette, a thirteen button vest/A curled rim hat — a minaret — two watch chains cross the breast.'"

 

Okrent, Arika. "Mystery Solved: The Etymology of Dude" on Slate .

 

Writers online can't seem to avoid the h-word, and Okrent won't let this just be interesting on its own. But I love that it would be thirteen  buttons. What did everyone else have, three? Ten? Where do we draw the line at excess, how weak was his mustache? These are the small distinctions that make fashion history so interesting!

Now you know, dude.