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Sartorial Notes On a Man I Knew
Once Upon a Time May He Rest
in Peace
In 1949, he wore World War II Officer pants, tailored to sleek fit, no pleats,
of a material close to gabardine, but heavier, of light brown. Above the pants,
in cool weather, a turtleneck of soft cotton, usually navy blue, tucked into
the pants.
In warm weather, white Oxford button-down collar shirts, tucked in, long sleeves
turned up at the cuff, and over the shirt for classroom duty, a weathered Harris tweed sport jacket. All of his Oxford shirts were tailored to
fit, with two tucks radiating from shoulder to below the waist. Socks, knit by
his ex-wife, had to be washed by hand in gentle soap. The pants could not be
washed. He was constantly taking them to the dry-cleaners or picking them up.
The shirts had to be ironed perfectly and hung in the closet. He wore white
boxer shorts and those had to be ironed as well.
He owned only one warm coat. This coat, he said, had been given to him by Henry
Miller during a hopeful year-long residence in Big Sur when he was trying to write a novel. The coat was medium gray wool, decorated with moth
feeding tracks, and so huge two people could fit inside it. The collar was
large, folding back over the shoulders. From the generous yoke in back flowed
yards of material down to his ankles. From center back, the gray belt of same material went forth in opposite directions, arrived in front, and after the coat
was wrapped around him, could be casually tied. Except for the material, the
coat looked like a bathrobe. We both were unrestrained in our admiration of
this garment. It smelled of mothballs and tobacco.
He had, for rainy weather, a beige Burberry with no belt. He liked to carry with
him a black umbrella which he often left wherever he’d just been, and had to go back to claim it. He used it like a cane and opened
it only to protect his briefcase or books.
This was in California.
In 1950, on a humid, 100-degree afternoon, he attended the first gathering of
new Princeton Ph.D. candidates, held outdoors in a garden. Drinks were served,
wives were there in pastel sundresses, there were sandwiches cut in the shape
of the Princeton triangle, visited by mosquitoes and flies.
Everyone glistened with sweat. He wore, with his Officer pants and Oxford shirt,
a vivid red-maroon light wool jacket, with gold buttons down the front (three
on each side) and two gold buttons on each cuff. All the other men were either
without jackets or wearing seersucker, gray and white. From the comments made,
he learned that no one had worn red or maroon at Princeton in living memory.
Everyone congratulated him on his bravado, his specificity, and mentioned his
jacket first, then talked academic shop and ate and drank.
For Christmas, that first Princeton winter, his mother on the west coast sent
him a suit she had had made from a length of material she herself had lovingly constructed on a loom. Construct is the right word because the material was stiff, thick, and refused to accept a crease. Jacket, pants
(officer style) and vest. The interwoven colors were navy blue, maroon and
beige. He wore it in cold weather but complained that the wool itched his legs
and his crotch (his “balls”) and it was much too warm as soon as he entered a building. He soon took to
leaving the vest and pants carefully hanging on a special hanger in the closet and wearing the jacket occasionally although he complained
that the itch went right through his shirt to his shoulders and neck.
The second Princeton summer, he invested in a seersucker jacket, several beige
chambray cotton pants, and four expensive white Chinese cotton short- sleeved
shirts. At home, he solved the heat problem by taking all garments off, or
never putting anything on from early morning until he had to leave the house.
His California sandals had rotted away the previous summer and he bought mesh
sandals to wear outside. Inside our house, he went barefoot, and claimed that
his toes were fungused. He would have liked to wear Bermuda shorts on campus
(he had several pair) but no one wore shorts to class or to the library, except
students, who sometimes took off their shirts and poured water or beer onto
their hairy chests.
The third Princeton summer he lived naked in an overstuffed chair which oozed
his sweat. He read all summer, day and night, and passed his exams in cotton
pants and shirt, in brown hard leather shoes—for the occasion.
In early fall, having garnered funds from selling all of our possessions, except
clothes, he bought a charcoal gray wool suit (no vest), the uniform, he had
been told, of American scholars in Munich, where he was headed on a Fulbright
grant. Also two white drip-dry nylon shirts which turned more gray with each
washing.
In 1953, in Munich, he wore 4711 cologne, the favorite of Germans, and Arrid
deodorant, used only by Americans, available at convenient PX stores.
In an elevator, in our newly built apartment, he faced another American who was
wearing an identical charcoal gray suit, and each man was clutching a copy of
David Riesman’s “Individualism Reconsidered.”
During two Munich winters, he could be seen in his Henry Miller bathrobe-coat,
on his bicycle, the excess cloth billowing out to the rear, a ski-mask of navy
blue hugging his neck and ears. His mother’s wool suit was again worn and no longer itched, perhaps because it was cold
outdoors, and inside the underground library bunkers.
On a visit to Paris, he acquired a brown beret which he wore at sidewalk cafés and was often mistaken for a Frenchman, which pleased him.
When we traveled by train to Athens and Rome, we packed and wore only black
outer garments that we purchased or borrowed on the theory that black wouldn’t show dirt and we were traveling cheap. Our clothes got so dirty that simply
wearing them turned our skin gray, dotted the pores black.
Back in the United States, with wife and two children and minimal academic wage, he wore the above garments, or in hot weather, nothing if indoors at home.
He did not, ever, wear jeans.
Sometime between 1955 and 1962 he added tennis clothes: white, white everything,
shorts, T-shirt, Keds, socks. He retired his bathrobe coat which was a tee-pee
shape and bought a heavy dark gray rectangle coat with enormous padded
shoulders.
In divorce court in 1953, he wore smooth brown gabardine, Italian polished
pointy-toe loafers, a white shirt with French cuffs and a Countess Mara tie the
color of cherry juice streaked with cobalt-blue lightning.
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