One morning, I reached into the top drawer of one of my dressers and selected a black pair of extended leg boxer briefs; in the drawer below it, I picked out a gray t-shirt, which I paired with a gray Henley. I stood for a moment with the Henley and the tee, then decided that I needed more contrast. I chose a pumpkin colored tee to layer beneath the Henley, and thought, “I’m putting too much brain into the basic process of getting dressed. I need an intervention.”
A young friend once laughed with me, saying that another friend of ours “always tucks his shirt into his pants.” I almost dislocated my shoulders trying to surreptitiously pull my shirttails out of my pants with my elbows. I confess that I pay attention to fashion trends, a tendency that may have resulted from my more than 40 years in the art and fashion industry, starting with my work in display advertising at Gimbel’s Department Store in 1968 and continuing through my stints as an art director at L.S. Ayres and assistant creative director for Famous-Barr/Macy’s. At Ayres, I followed the lead of my advertising department coworkers, (many of whom had graduated from Herron School of Art) and shopped for designer clothing that had been marked down and sent to Ayres’ famous basement.
One of my responsibilities as a designer and art director of fashion catalogs was to attend meetings where the buyers from the departments whose goods were to be featured in the book presented their selections to be photographed, either as a “still,” or on the model. At one of these meetings, the senior vice-president, who had ascended into his position through stints as a buyer for menswear, grew impatient with the merchandise selected by the buyers for men’s clothing for inclusion into the catalog.
“Look at CJ,” he barked at the assembled merchants, startling me into a greater level of wakefulness. “Look at his tie! Look at his shirt!” I went on full alert, unsure where this was going. “You don’t think that you have ONE customer who will wear the shirt CJ has on?” I sent up a silent prayer to the fashion gods that my recent foray into the designer duds in the markdown basement had granted me an ensemble that met the fine fashion taste of the SVP. Unfortunately, that meeting conferred upon me an unearned reputation for knowing what merchandise the SVP would like presented from the men’s apparel area. “Do you think (he) would like this, CJ?” I tried to get them to understand that I had no real insight into what he might like, but they had been barked at, and would not submit selections without consulting with me. I felt much the fraud but counseled as I thought best.
In the early 1990s, there was a black clothing phase in the fashion industry, and I wore black with my brothers and sisters, but when I managed other artists, I adopted dress shirts and ties, few of which I wear in these days of retirement. My two daughters laughingly call me “hipster” because of my current clothing choices; I don’t wear the great ballooning pleated pants that drape other septuagenarians, and my waist is 4 inches smaller than it was ten years ago. But my youngest brought home a pair of “skinny jeans” for my 16-month-old granddaughter, so that the old man and the child can rock the same look. (I did not “psshaw” the idea.) Still: I spend too much time deciding what clothes to wear to chase my granddaughter about.
Help.
cjon3acd@att.net