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If you're out to make a splash, cherie, do know your haberdashery
My grandparents used to get J. Peterman catalogues. From middle school up into early high school, I read them voraciously. I was mostly indifferent to the clothes depicted in elegant watercolor—although I did covet the duster, and the collarless Irish shirts, and a sort of swashbuckling, piratical shirt that laced up at the throat—but the ad copy captivated me. It was like haberdashery flash fiction. Five hundred words or less, in which both the garment and its particular character figured, and marvelously up-front about what image you were being tempted to buy. A little tweak of humor, a wink to the audience: look, we both know this blouse won't make you Lauren Bacall, but you've never wanted to feel like her for just a day . . . ? They drew you into a vanished world, a cinematic world, full of literary figures and artists' models and poetic, oblique encounters in small French towns and Italian streets half-slanted with shadow in the hot afternoon. These weren't just clothes, these were costumes you could wear every day. They were full of stories.
And then J. Peterman went out of business, and L.L. Bean catalogues weren't half as slyly literate, and thus ended my brief flirtation with the world of fashion.
Tonight I discovered that J. Peterman is not only back in business, but their basic catalogue is online. Watercolors, vignettes, and all. And much profitable time was wasted in contemplation of the shamelessly seductive ad copy of J. Peterman. (Also, furniture? Nobody told me they sold furniture. Whoa.) Some favorites:
The Freudian Shirt
Freud knew we all have a deep-seated desire to do what we please, without caring what anyone else thinks. Some shave their heads and fly off to Nepal. Others start smaller. They take tango lessons. Or collect Flintstone lunchboxes. You can start by wearing a shirt like this. The bold stripes are just different enough (from the usual) to softly signal that you are different (from the usual). Those who miss the signal may not be worth signaling. Most women find a little sartorial blip on a man's part rather encouraging. It suggests that there may be more interesting Freudian material below the surface, waiting to be touched.
(Cut for more interesting Freudian material. Also, lots of clothes porn.)
Gatsby Shirt
Gatsby was amazing. He even managed to see to it that the book about him was regarded as a novel, fiction, as though he didn't exist. Even Fitzgerald, by the time he was through writing it, believed he'd made the whole thing up. There were those who knew the truth all along, of course; knew everything except where all that money came from. (Even by today's standards, when millions mean nothing, only billions matter, Gatsby was incomprehensibly rich.) Gatsby walked into rooms wearing a shirt with no collar. Even a little thing like that made people talk. And probably will still make them talk. The Gatsby shirt, of course, has no collar. Only a simple collar band. The placket is simpler also: narrower. (Gatsby had them made in France, originally.) The cotton we have used in our uncompromising replica of Gatsby’s shirt is so luminous, in and of itself, that even a person who notices nothing will notice something. Gatsby, of course, could afford stacks of these shirts; rooms of them. Never mind. All that matters is that you have one, just one. A piece of how things were.
1903 Vintage Cologne
I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye. It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles . . . One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903. Inside the bottle, there was still the faint, intriguing aroma of a gentleman's cologne. A "prescription" cologne, custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago. Curiosity was eating at me. I bought the case (the price was shocking) and sent the bottle to a laboratory for analysis. They broke down the residue by gas chromatography. Identified its fingerprint through spectro-photometry. The report said: an "old woody fougère." Clean citrus notes, bergamot, "green notes." The middle notes: clary sage . . . cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum . . . elemi, tabac, frankincense. The detective work was impressive. So is the thing itself. Women like the way it smells on a man. Like a symphony that begins loudly, then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them. Or so I've been told.
Irish Pub Shirt
It's Friday night at the Hog & Fool, a 200-year-old pub off O'Connell Street in Dublin. World headquarters for conversation. Dark mahogany walls. Lean-faced men. Ruddy-faced women. The bursts of laughter aren’t polite, but real, approaching the edge of uncontrol. The stories being told are new, freshly minted, just for you, my dear. There is no higher honor. The room roar is high (but still, not as bad as in certain New York restaurants where you can't make out what it is you just said). These Irishmen, in collarless Irish shirts, under dark herringbone vests and tweed caps, have managed to keep their mouths shut all week, saving up the good stuff for now, for Friday night, for this very place, for this very moment . . . How could one single city possibly give birth to Yeats, Shaw, Joyce, Wilde, Beckett . . . and all those here tonight as well? Working-class Irish Pub Shirt (No. 1039), for men and women. Made of soft rough cotton sheeting, well-suited for both the intoxication of talk and the difficult art of listening. Not bad for just hanging out, either. Or, when absolutely necessary, for looking interesting.
Broken-Stripe Linen Shirt
Ideas, especially worthwhile ones, need a champion. Rumpledness is an example. Only quantum physics is more often misunderstood. For the record: rumpledness does not mean sloppy. On the contrary, it goes beyond casualness. It suggests sophistication. Rumpledness is subtle, self-assured, a little rakish. A studio mogul I met once on the red-eye from L.A. looked me square in the eye and swore that 46 percent of all movie revenue can be linked in some way to rumpledness. I believe her.
Dominica Bay Rum
The Small Island of Dominica. Columbus discovered it, named it, and left it alone. It's north of Martinique. And it is the home, since 1907, of a very good West Indian Bay Rum manufactured under the Dominica brand-name. Bay Rum has a fairly quiet scent, less strong than anything called perfume, less strong than anything called aftershave, but not so quiet as to be boring. It is, in fact, quite sexy. It is sexy the way skin begins to smell from strong sun, salt water, steel drums, breaking waves, moving palm branches and giggling coming from somewhere. Men liked Bay Rum long before 1907, when the Dominica brand started. Men have liked Bay Rum since Spanish Main days. They like it for the least complicated reason in the world: it smells good.
Sarong Tie Dress
You just stand there, hip cocked, swaying gently in a breeze stirred up by the pink and violet sunset. An image to haunt young naval lieutenants. Wear this dress and it won't matter if there is, in fact, no actual ocean within 1,000 miles. Copied from a vintage Hawaiian-made original. Authentic 1940s style, to bring out your inner Nellie Forbush. Smart. Sharp. Sexy. Funny. And yes, romantic.
Tie-Front Dress
The real-life equivalent of Mr. Bond's spy-chief "M" once advised female agents to avoid "Mata-Hari methods." Scanty dress and easy acquiescence are unproductive and hazardous, he warned. On the other hand, "a clever woman who can use her personal attractions wisely has in her armory a very formidable weapon." I suspect the man from MI5 had this alluring number in mind. It goes as far as is needed, without causing the drummer to break into a "bada-bing, bada-boom." Sheer, fluttery silk georgette, discreetly lined. Intriguing crossover bodice culminating in tie front. Armholes and V-neckline piped in posh satin. Attachés will trip over themselves to reveal state secrets at your next embassy party.
Bias-Cut Linen Skirt
While the French did not invent flattery, even they might agree that they've elevated it to an art. For proof, consider this linen skirt. It's your basic linen skirt, approx. 1 gazillion uses, but altogether more flattering, more forgiving. Why? Bias cut is why. The haute-couture technique (introduced by Madeleine Vionnet) of cutting fabric on a diagonal across the weave, so it stretches and flows almost magically. And if you haven't lost that 10 pounds yet, it won’t tell a soul . . . Drapes and moves beautifully, with a flip of the hem as you proceed down the catwalk.
1940's Sleeveless Blouse
Nobody had ever said the kind of things that she said up there on the screen. Certainly not the way she said them. Low, thrilling voice. Direct eyes. And at the same time, startling freshness. She enslaved us just by walking through a room, wearing this blouse. A clean, candid thing. Lengthens a person's arms and neck, addresses the matter of those curves underneath frankly, without heavy breathing. Our all-time best-seller. Time to bring it back . . . Good with every below-the-waist thing you own. Good summer, spring, fall. Good walking through a room.
Simplicitas Dress
"Everything should be made as simple as possible," Albert Einstein said, "but not simpler." His eye for beauty extended to more than shapely equations. So I think we can feel confident that he would appreciate the sight of you in this dress. A beautifully understated, uncluttered thing. No unnecessary details. What remains—the stripped-down sailor collar, notably—is of the essence. That, plus the fact that it's made of pure, cool linen, will help you to move imperturbably through the warmer months ahead. Mies van der Rohe ("Less is more") and Lao-tzu ("Embrace simplicity") are nodding their approval, too.
Glamour Pants
Men's trousers from 1940, adapted to a woman’s body. Fluid, sensual, elegant silk twill. (It drapes beautifully, moves one millisecond later than you move, then continues moving one millisecond after you’ve stopped.) As every man who isn't dead yet has noticed, women who dress this way could never be confused with a man.
Kinsale Sark
The village of Kinsale is small (1,754 inhabitants), it is ancient, and it is out of the way. Driving along the south coast of Ireland from Cork to Skibbereen, you could miss it entirely. Which in some respects might be a good thing. Kinsale could get under your skin, slowing you down; next you forget where it was you were in such a hurry to get to; back home, Kinsale can begin to nag at you, the way a song in a minor key or a haunting face sometimes does. (The last sweet glance of land by 1,513 doomed passengers aboard the Titanic was off Kinsale; the torpedoed Luisitania sank off Kinsale three years later. There it rests.) Invaded by Romans, by Spaniards, by the English, Kinsale and its enticing crooked streets remain still in firm possession of the Irish. Today's invasion is by sea; dreadfully expensive yachts from Deauville, Cuxhaven, Ostend, Morocco, Rhodes, and Tunis are drawn to Kinsale's perfect harbor. The second night in port, this browsing international crowd can be identified positively at 300 yards. They are the ones pretending to be rugged Irish fishermen, wearing brand-new denim Kinsale sarks. There are ways of telling which is which. People sitting for hours mending fishing nets are genuine fishermen. Or method actors.
And of course:
Harriet and Lord Peter Jacket and Pleated Skirt
They met in her cell in the Old Bailey. Had she fed arsenic to her lover? Had she? He proved her innocent. Met again in Oxford. (She wore this outfit.) He courted her; punting on the Cherwell, quail's eggs, wit, an antique ivory chess set. Proposed in Latin: "Placetne?" Oh, yes. It pleased her.
Heh.
And then J. Peterman went out of business, and L.L. Bean catalogues weren't half as slyly literate, and thus ended my brief flirtation with the world of fashion.
Tonight I discovered that J. Peterman is not only back in business, but their basic catalogue is online. Watercolors, vignettes, and all. And much profitable time was wasted in contemplation of the shamelessly seductive ad copy of J. Peterman. (Also, furniture? Nobody told me they sold furniture. Whoa.) Some favorites:
The Freudian Shirt
Freud knew we all have a deep-seated desire to do what we please, without caring what anyone else thinks. Some shave their heads and fly off to Nepal. Others start smaller. They take tango lessons. Or collect Flintstone lunchboxes. You can start by wearing a shirt like this. The bold stripes are just different enough (from the usual) to softly signal that you are different (from the usual). Those who miss the signal may not be worth signaling. Most women find a little sartorial blip on a man's part rather encouraging. It suggests that there may be more interesting Freudian material below the surface, waiting to be touched.
(Cut for more interesting Freudian material. Also, lots of clothes porn.)
Gatsby Shirt
Gatsby was amazing. He even managed to see to it that the book about him was regarded as a novel, fiction, as though he didn't exist. Even Fitzgerald, by the time he was through writing it, believed he'd made the whole thing up. There were those who knew the truth all along, of course; knew everything except where all that money came from. (Even by today's standards, when millions mean nothing, only billions matter, Gatsby was incomprehensibly rich.) Gatsby walked into rooms wearing a shirt with no collar. Even a little thing like that made people talk. And probably will still make them talk. The Gatsby shirt, of course, has no collar. Only a simple collar band. The placket is simpler also: narrower. (Gatsby had them made in France, originally.) The cotton we have used in our uncompromising replica of Gatsby’s shirt is so luminous, in and of itself, that even a person who notices nothing will notice something. Gatsby, of course, could afford stacks of these shirts; rooms of them. Never mind. All that matters is that you have one, just one. A piece of how things were.
1903 Vintage Cologne
I was browsing in a Paris antique shop one winter afternoon when a fitted leather train case caught my eye. It contained silver-handled brushes, boot hooks, a straight razor, several silver-stoppered glass bottles . . . One bottle was different. Encased in yew-wood, with a handwritten date: 1903. Inside the bottle, there was still the faint, intriguing aroma of a gentleman's cologne. A "prescription" cologne, custom-made for a rich traveler a century ago. Curiosity was eating at me. I bought the case (the price was shocking) and sent the bottle to a laboratory for analysis. They broke down the residue by gas chromatography. Identified its fingerprint through spectro-photometry. The report said: an "old woody fougère." Clean citrus notes, bergamot, "green notes." The middle notes: clary sage . . . cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum . . . elemi, tabac, frankincense. The detective work was impressive. So is the thing itself. Women like the way it smells on a man. Like a symphony that begins loudly, then soon slides into subtle, entangling developments that grow on them. Or so I've been told.
Irish Pub Shirt
It's Friday night at the Hog & Fool, a 200-year-old pub off O'Connell Street in Dublin. World headquarters for conversation. Dark mahogany walls. Lean-faced men. Ruddy-faced women. The bursts of laughter aren’t polite, but real, approaching the edge of uncontrol. The stories being told are new, freshly minted, just for you, my dear. There is no higher honor. The room roar is high (but still, not as bad as in certain New York restaurants where you can't make out what it is you just said). These Irishmen, in collarless Irish shirts, under dark herringbone vests and tweed caps, have managed to keep their mouths shut all week, saving up the good stuff for now, for Friday night, for this very place, for this very moment . . . How could one single city possibly give birth to Yeats, Shaw, Joyce, Wilde, Beckett . . . and all those here tonight as well? Working-class Irish Pub Shirt (No. 1039), for men and women. Made of soft rough cotton sheeting, well-suited for both the intoxication of talk and the difficult art of listening. Not bad for just hanging out, either. Or, when absolutely necessary, for looking interesting.
Broken-Stripe Linen Shirt
Ideas, especially worthwhile ones, need a champion. Rumpledness is an example. Only quantum physics is more often misunderstood. For the record: rumpledness does not mean sloppy. On the contrary, it goes beyond casualness. It suggests sophistication. Rumpledness is subtle, self-assured, a little rakish. A studio mogul I met once on the red-eye from L.A. looked me square in the eye and swore that 46 percent of all movie revenue can be linked in some way to rumpledness. I believe her.
Dominica Bay Rum
The Small Island of Dominica. Columbus discovered it, named it, and left it alone. It's north of Martinique. And it is the home, since 1907, of a very good West Indian Bay Rum manufactured under the Dominica brand-name. Bay Rum has a fairly quiet scent, less strong than anything called perfume, less strong than anything called aftershave, but not so quiet as to be boring. It is, in fact, quite sexy. It is sexy the way skin begins to smell from strong sun, salt water, steel drums, breaking waves, moving palm branches and giggling coming from somewhere. Men liked Bay Rum long before 1907, when the Dominica brand started. Men have liked Bay Rum since Spanish Main days. They like it for the least complicated reason in the world: it smells good.
Sarong Tie Dress
You just stand there, hip cocked, swaying gently in a breeze stirred up by the pink and violet sunset. An image to haunt young naval lieutenants. Wear this dress and it won't matter if there is, in fact, no actual ocean within 1,000 miles. Copied from a vintage Hawaiian-made original. Authentic 1940s style, to bring out your inner Nellie Forbush. Smart. Sharp. Sexy. Funny. And yes, romantic.
Tie-Front Dress
The real-life equivalent of Mr. Bond's spy-chief "M" once advised female agents to avoid "Mata-Hari methods." Scanty dress and easy acquiescence are unproductive and hazardous, he warned. On the other hand, "a clever woman who can use her personal attractions wisely has in her armory a very formidable weapon." I suspect the man from MI5 had this alluring number in mind. It goes as far as is needed, without causing the drummer to break into a "bada-bing, bada-boom." Sheer, fluttery silk georgette, discreetly lined. Intriguing crossover bodice culminating in tie front. Armholes and V-neckline piped in posh satin. Attachés will trip over themselves to reveal state secrets at your next embassy party.
Bias-Cut Linen Skirt
While the French did not invent flattery, even they might agree that they've elevated it to an art. For proof, consider this linen skirt. It's your basic linen skirt, approx. 1 gazillion uses, but altogether more flattering, more forgiving. Why? Bias cut is why. The haute-couture technique (introduced by Madeleine Vionnet) of cutting fabric on a diagonal across the weave, so it stretches and flows almost magically. And if you haven't lost that 10 pounds yet, it won’t tell a soul . . . Drapes and moves beautifully, with a flip of the hem as you proceed down the catwalk.
1940's Sleeveless Blouse
Nobody had ever said the kind of things that she said up there on the screen. Certainly not the way she said them. Low, thrilling voice. Direct eyes. And at the same time, startling freshness. She enslaved us just by walking through a room, wearing this blouse. A clean, candid thing. Lengthens a person's arms and neck, addresses the matter of those curves underneath frankly, without heavy breathing. Our all-time best-seller. Time to bring it back . . . Good with every below-the-waist thing you own. Good summer, spring, fall. Good walking through a room.
Simplicitas Dress
"Everything should be made as simple as possible," Albert Einstein said, "but not simpler." His eye for beauty extended to more than shapely equations. So I think we can feel confident that he would appreciate the sight of you in this dress. A beautifully understated, uncluttered thing. No unnecessary details. What remains—the stripped-down sailor collar, notably—is of the essence. That, plus the fact that it's made of pure, cool linen, will help you to move imperturbably through the warmer months ahead. Mies van der Rohe ("Less is more") and Lao-tzu ("Embrace simplicity") are nodding their approval, too.
Glamour Pants
Men's trousers from 1940, adapted to a woman’s body. Fluid, sensual, elegant silk twill. (It drapes beautifully, moves one millisecond later than you move, then continues moving one millisecond after you’ve stopped.) As every man who isn't dead yet has noticed, women who dress this way could never be confused with a man.
Kinsale Sark
The village of Kinsale is small (1,754 inhabitants), it is ancient, and it is out of the way. Driving along the south coast of Ireland from Cork to Skibbereen, you could miss it entirely. Which in some respects might be a good thing. Kinsale could get under your skin, slowing you down; next you forget where it was you were in such a hurry to get to; back home, Kinsale can begin to nag at you, the way a song in a minor key or a haunting face sometimes does. (The last sweet glance of land by 1,513 doomed passengers aboard the Titanic was off Kinsale; the torpedoed Luisitania sank off Kinsale three years later. There it rests.) Invaded by Romans, by Spaniards, by the English, Kinsale and its enticing crooked streets remain still in firm possession of the Irish. Today's invasion is by sea; dreadfully expensive yachts from Deauville, Cuxhaven, Ostend, Morocco, Rhodes, and Tunis are drawn to Kinsale's perfect harbor. The second night in port, this browsing international crowd can be identified positively at 300 yards. They are the ones pretending to be rugged Irish fishermen, wearing brand-new denim Kinsale sarks. There are ways of telling which is which. People sitting for hours mending fishing nets are genuine fishermen. Or method actors.
And of course:
Harriet and Lord Peter Jacket and Pleated Skirt
They met in her cell in the Old Bailey. Had she fed arsenic to her lover? Had she? He proved her innocent. Met again in Oxford. (She wore this outfit.) He courted her; punting on the Cherwell, quail's eggs, wit, an antique ivory chess set. Proposed in Latin: "Placetne?" Oh, yes. It pleased her.
Heh.
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Heh.
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Apparently, the writer puts a lot of hard study into his work: "What interested me most about Lolita was the prose style."
*snerk*
I'm reminded of the infamous Burma Shave advertizements. Something about the tone, and the lit. references...
"HENRY THE EIGHTH / SURE HAD / TROUBLE / SHORT TERM WIVES / LONG TERM STUBBLE?"
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Is never let in
Because of the hair
On his
Chinny-chin-chin
Burma-Shave
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SLOW DOWN PA
SAKES ALIVE
MA MISSED SIGNS
FOUR AND FIVE
Heh! Meta-Burma Shave ads, that's awesome!
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only this would be the Shirt of Gatsby
*snerk*
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Good lord. It's catalogue slash.
Nine
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Otherwise, you would have been spoiled. By a catalogue.
Gah. That is just so... neat.
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THESE SIGNS / WE GLADLY / DEDICATE / TO MEN WHO'VE HAD / NO DATE OF LATE / BURMA-SHAVE
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Within this vale
Of toil and sin
Your head grows bald
But not your chin
Burma Shave
Nine
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Bada bing, bada boom
I so totally have, even if it does have polka dots. Have I mentioned my
secretdesire to be a lounge singer in the 30s and 40s era nightclubs lately?This Could Be It Dress
I’ve observed you rooting around in the back of your closet looking for something that isn’t there.
I’ve seen you doing the same thing in stores, too. And it wasn’t there either.
Could this be it?
It very well could be.