It was a singular pleasure for this gentleman to assemble the items and accessories to be worn for the day. Assuring himself that each item was in excellent repair and of the current fashion, he pictured himself in the events of the day, checking both weather reports and online crime reports for the specific locations he would visit before deciding on level of luxe. It was all well and good to entertain idea's of the new frugality but standards must be kept and appropriate levels of attire for the season and city were simply not negotiable. In fact negotiating on level of dress was never a passing thought. Frugality may have entered the cultural lexicon but that translated to one new suit added to his well developed wardrobe rather than three. Standards for grooming with attendant cost were exempted from the wise new regime of thrift. The guiding maxim remained wear what fit, was flattering and appropriate for season, weather, time, place and always under dress if not certain.
Fashion for him wasn't a matter of striving, he had always dressed above what his peers would have thought prudent and he had long ago embraced a singular style so that what would be held as pretentious on others was natural for him.. It was simply a matter of sense and fun and as it was far from being an obsession it was deemed a most healthy thing to do. The gentleman liked clothes. It was fun to pair pocket square to shirt and tie, cuff links to suit, socks to play off pants and cut. Layers were always a delightful idea, as were hats, gloves and bags. The gentleman delighted in dressing for a late fall crisp bright day in San Francisco as it often offered him the chance to wear topcoat, scarf, gloves and sunglasses. Black was avoided save for a cashmere topcoat and an Irish dinner jacket. He held black as being far from chic and in fact found that color to be mournful looking on all men. The gentleman did own a black suit but it had last seen the light of day at a funeral. It was no longer a fashionable cut but he kept it as he felt it somehow respectful to wear an out of fashion black suit to a funeral. That idea most likely a result of his years spent at an all boy's Roman Catholic College Preparatory conducted by Religious Brothers who wore contemporary black suits as Habit and reinforced by the sensible and proper tones of his membership in the Episcopal church.
This particular day he dressed in a very casual manner. The attire dictated by a date to luncheon in an area that had long ago deemed it mandatory that professionals should dress casually. A dictum of casual fashion didn't require frumpy or dour and it seemed a good idea to pair a red cashmere crewneck cableknit sweater over a black polo shirt, worn under a black Burberry downvest with novacheck lining. An absurdly expensive pair of jeans worn with a rugged cowhide belt from Barney's and zippered black half boots completed the look. It was a habit of his to mentally add up the cost of the items and the closer he got to $2,000.00 and still not being in anything he'd wear to his own office made him feel much like what he felt a supporter of Louis XIV did as he dressed to dine with sans-culotte. Adding a Swiss watch, signet ring, French wallet and as it was a rainy day, a British umbrella and grabbing a briefcase and portfolio he found the tally to be just under $4,000.00. Armed with this knowledge he bravely set forth into a world which for millions had been made grim by year's of unremitting bad financial news.
The gentleman's own situation was more or less like a good deal of other middle class Americans, one thought twice about purchases and planned vacations instead of indulging in madcap last minute flights but a small private income, a car bought and paid for and a charming house located in a solid neighborhood, one without a mortgage and remodeled during the years of the boom, softened the screaming headlines of ruin, destitution and political incompetence. In fact, when he desired, his days could be spent in his small gardens or reading in his tiny library enveloped in the world of Graham Greene and the Mitford sisters. The gentleman felt himself fortunate but did keenly miss those the economic tide had swept far away. It was a paradox that as much as he loved fashion and luxury the lack of ownership of items of splendor by friends or lovers was never a bar to intimate friendship and acceptance. Associates with gracious manners acquired were held on equal footing with those to the Manor born. It was all simply a way of getting through life pleasantly and the crassness of the times had made the kind heart a dearer than usual thing. The gentleman felt keenly not the lose of value on investments so much as the theft of friends by hard times and the passage of time.
Business was at hand and business was to be conducted. The journey south a pleasant drive through scenery unchanged by the passing years of suburban sprawl. The destination, a former agricultural town, a ,place now filled with headquarters of companies that have revolutionized communication, entertainment, research, news, literature, university education, employment, shopping, government, music, in fact the whole interchange of commerce and the private lives of people throughout the world. The capitalization of these companies is, he knew, the envy of the business world and billions are possessed by hundreds and millions by thousands of the employees in this small peninsula town situated between the bay and the Santa Clara Mountains. It wasn't the wealth of the place that struck the gentleman from San Francisco, no that was long established and expected, it was the ever present feel of there being several economic divides in the town. Each unique and uninterested in the other. Uninterested chiefly because of years long habit of the one being disinterested in the other and nothing, not the end of agriculture nor te demise of mainline suburban dreams would change that. They were, he thought, much like jugglers rings, each holding in common being metal spheres tossed in the air but nothing else, as they never interlocked or met. The old line suburban town with one or two reminders of the agricultural past went about its affairs along side a work a day poor immigrant Asian community that manifested its business presence in shockingly ghetto stores and horrid ethnic themed cafes. Both were shadowed by the unfathomable power and wealth of the tech corridor by the bay.
The unifying theme, he soon was made aware of, was that to a man the populace was poorly dressed. It wasn't that they were dirty but at some point someone or everyone decided that frump was the mode of the day. The gentleman decided that like a rigid English Puritan the new religion of tech. held fashion to be suspect. This was grimiest Boston in golden California, the fashion ethos being of those who were educated in a studied ignore of New York chic. 40 somethings in t- shirt and sneakers, 20 somethings in polo shirts and cargo shorts, old women in soiled slacks and hideous windbreakers all reminded the gentleman of the pictures he had seen of the Chinese cultural revolution. Even those remembered images did not compare to the shock the gentleman from San Francisco felt in seeing men of a certain age, clearly by bearing all men of education, property, travel, full of life experience and holding deep responsibility in business firms of note dressed as if they were set to clean bathrooms. The gentleman thought the esteem which the wide world held the Lions of Capital was greatly reduced when said Lion dressed like a rag a muffin or refugee from Cuba! The gentleman thought, well this is a fine thing "all well and good you may have millions but if that is how you dress and present yourself. well than really what's the point and frankly it makes you uninteresting and rather suspect. If the man in venture capital or angel funding is this sort and that sort is a full on slacker unable to buck the tide of the socially challenged, why should I deal with him? Than the idea occurred to him that these sorts were the upper middle class, a class that always wished to look like the truly rich and profoundly powerful. Those sought after leaders of the worlds new age were the sorts sometimes spied by the bayside but mostly not as they all worked in sealed off self contained worlds and little needed the downtown. It than occurred to the gentleman that they, the residents, were long accustomed to posing as if being members of, if not actually being leaders of society and they merely were continuing the habit by following the dress of the truly ruling class. They, the powerful, no longer wore bespoke suits, no that was for Communists in Shanghai, here the gentleman from San Francisco observed, the rich or more precisely described, men that are merely millionaires who are to a man made miserable by the knowledge that they are not billionaires, dress as janitors, They are held in contempt by the billionaires as being a stupid sort of fellow. Stupid in that rather than hold true to their own idea's of class and dress they ape the manners of under 40 billionaires who all dress like undergraduates.
The absurdity of discussing business with a fat sixty year old grey haired male lawyer clad in jeans and a shirt with tails out is not for the faint of heart or at least not to conducted over lunch. It also, thought our friend, showed they had no backbone, for they willingly sacrificed attractive dress for that of a fool. What else, thought the gentleman from San Francisco could an ancient 60 something professional of either sex dressed in ragged jeans be called? The fools attire, demodee classe inferieure de la mode, is all the rage. The gentleman cancelled his lunch plans and sitting down to dine alone thought it well that he had learned long before never to believe that clothes made the wearer your friend. It did however more than ever make it the mark and measure of the man.
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