Café Notes I, The Centre Does Not Hold, Fit as Interior Dialogue, Passionate Intensity

I am at my worst when filled with passionate intensity.  Aren't we all?  The world is afire, it burns---literally.  And what of all the other ways we can imagine? I say keep this cool, it's hot enough out here.  But then I can't help myself.

This past weekend a rather proper woman whom I barely know asked me about my children. She said, "You have two daughters, is that right?" To which I replied, "Two. That I know of." While she considered my impertinence I cast eyes downward to take note of the fine Goodyear welt on my boots and enjoy, as any malapert would, her mild discomfort.

***

For me a fit is a story I'm telling myself, it's not a certain look I'm trying to achieve.  I'm not often thinking about what other people will think of my appearance 'cause I'm blessed that way---I rarely need to follow attire-appropriate imperatives.  But I notice that some guys have a look or look to be aiming for their style. It's as if their style is how they tell their story---am I projecting that?  But how guys find their lines seems to me to be the core story.  For me it's not about the clothes or my style, as much as I like my stuff, choose, and land on pieces that suit the given day.  I'm much more sentimental, self-possessed (not in a good way), so I need to have a story in mind to create a day's fit.  I don't aim for the fit so much as the state of mind, the memory, the story that is taking me forward.  Some of those stories are sweet, others bitter.  But I dress the story that's churning inside and the clothes are part of that interior dialogue.  

***

Being asocial is not the same as being anti-social.  I'm privileged to live by my own dress codes.  For me it’s a matter of personal dignity and mental health; getting dressed is a feature of telling myself a story that let's me live with myself.  Nota Bene: When living with yourself is admittedly challenging you're likely being honest.  Getting dressed---especially pulling on my boots--- is a kind of personal freedom,  I think about what might happen should I reach an age when I can't do that any longer and what that means.  Should I just be grateful to have lived so long?  Maybe it would better not to relinquish personal sovereignty and cash out.  The story we want to tell isn't always as clear as a good day pulling on your boots.

***

I grew up with gangsters, the old school kind.  My father was an architect and he did plenty of legit business with corrupt politicians spending public money and honorable mobsters spending their vice-gotten gains.  These guys always wore good shoes.  The see-through gauzy socks are another story.  But I think this is the first time I noticed cordovan: shiny, impeccable, unmistakeable.  One guy was a mayor of a Hudson County, New Jersey town with a Ferrari.  His car was just as cool as his shoes.  I asked my pops how this guy who is just the mayor could afford a Ferrari.  He replied, "The mayor always gets a deal."  Then I wondered where he got his shoes.

***

Richard Press writes about his family business J.Press with pride and an unbridled a sense of sartorial authority.  He's earned that.  When JPress was still in Boston---well on Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge--- I wouldn't walk in until I had saved enough to buy an OCBD.  It felt wrong, even embarrassing to just window shop the Press.  But I had to have the flap-pocketed OCBD and my favorite professor wore them with bow ties and made that look cool.  Granted, that was a long time ago and before the bow tie was permanently ruined by Fox News commentators.  Nothing is worse than a sartorial authoritarian.  But I'm conflicted over Ivy Style and it's only the connection to Japanese Amecaji that rescues the look for me.  It doesn't matter where I went to school, I wasn't ever admitted into their clubs.  But JPress was kind to this twenty-something graduate student with just enough to buy a proper Oxford shirt and just maybe the right knit tie to match.  Bow ties were for professors.

***

I was asked the other day how I choose a day's fit.  I'm a professional archivist (largely books in dead and irrelevant languages) but my wife thinks me closer to hoarder.   I've manage to take care of my things over the years, maybe because I remember when all I had were my pop's very cool handmedown shirts and a Schott Perfecto I stole from my brother.

But to the point:

I start the day by picking that one thing  that somehow is associated with the interior story.  I usually have a particular story or memory that's torturing me .  I'm less interested in the look as such and I have no style directives.  I grew up a rocker, a hippy, a thug, an Ivy educated academic, a kid on the streets of lower Manhattan looking for jazz (never punk), Little Italy, and a late night stop in Chinatown just before dawn.    I wore handmedowns but I thought they were cool: my father's 40's style and my brother's draft-dodger specials.  Nowadays I say to myself, I want to wear these boots, those jeans, that jacket because it reminds me of...  And go from there.  It's all personal history, girls and cars and music, and by the time I reach for the day's fit, the memory, usually a torment or culpable pleasure, sets the tone.  When I can clearly see the "event" then the piece makes itself known.   I dress consciously because it conjures ideas, people, things that matter and might only matter to me.  There's no signature to secure the look but a process to stewards what is left of memory.  

***

I'm averse to any "signature piece" that will draw too much attention to itself in a given fit.  I don't want a stand out.  A proper fit is a collaboration.  It's like playing in a band that makes you love every player without having to pick favorites.  I might have started the day with a favorite Beatle (mine is George) but by the end of the song I can't make up my mind 'cause I love them all.  So too the boots may have started today's story

The idea is not that first choice is making a statement as a signature.  The idea is toput it in a kind of ensemble where it being the first choice leads to others but that no one piece sets itself apart.  The look is entire, and the day’s first choice piece just sets the rest in motion.  I need to feel whole and I never really do.  There is no wholeness to being human, not in my experience.  We are shards, fragments, extra, missing, and broken pieces that need to hold together because

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.