Patterns, Prints, And General Pickiness

What kind of prints do High WASPs wear? Prints, mind you. We aren't talking seersucker, madras, gingham, or plaids, which should be woven into the fabric.

Funny you should ask. I thought about this for a long time. For the most part, prints make us nervous. By definition, prints have something going on. Which might lead inexorably to attracting attention. Which might cause terrible shame at having Put Oneself Forward. But let's assume that psychoanalytic tradition has inspired the modern High WASP to break out. Get a little bit wild.

Extensive analysis reveals that we dress in shirts that look like men's ties. However, the answer to why this should be so is less apparent. I can only offer the facts.

Grandes Dames will wear paisley.

Or a foulard. In silk satin, or cotton voile. Bien sur. Prints make us want to speak French. I don't know why.

A Sturdy Gal loves your pin dot.

While the Artsy Cousin infinitely prefers prints from other countries. Africa, for example. But no one wears batik anymore. The 70's killed it.

And everyone will don the occasional cheerful floral, within limits. Liberty of London is a favorite. (They make little bitty suitcases, oh my god). Liberty patterns are now available, of course, on a few Target items. For clothing, judicious mix of proportion and color is required. This below might be pushing the boundaries but I just couldn't resist. It's spring, after all.

Finally, when on vacation and feeling quite giddy with sun and extra alcohol, we might wear Lilly Pulitzer. I'd love a pair of these pants, to wear with a too-tight white tank, some large sunglasses, and a hangover. Did you know that her "Pulitzer" comes from the same family that endowed the eponymous literary prize?

Or possibly, for men, a Hawaiian-patterned bathing suit.

By the way, it turns out that fabric sites are a great way to amuse oneself. All those colors. All those shapes. Highly recommended for procrastination, if you're in the market.

Images:
Paisley, Layout Sparks
Foulard, McTextiles
Pindot, Warehouse Fabrics
Floral, Purl Soho
African, Unique Spool
Lilly Pulitzer, as herself
Hawaiian, Aloha Outlet

*With thanks to DocP for the suggestion to post on this topic.
** With thanks to Lauren, I had put up an ikat print for the Artsy Cousin, and it's not a print, it's woven. Here's the link anyway. Ikat is gorgeous. Ikat, Marla Mallet

LPC On Christmas Presents for Les Dernier Moments at A Femme D'Un Certain Age

Good morning everyone. Today I am at A Femme D'Un Certain Age, along with Deja Pseu and Lily Lemontree. Exalted company, to be sure. We give you our thoughts on last minute presents for Christmas. Please join us there. S'il vous plait. I'm attempting to dredge up my vanishing French because A Femme lives in France. I know! How way cool is that! Read on when you arrive, because some of her posts feature illustrations of clothing she and a friend wear. Like this. Maybe even cooler than living in France.


Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. If you celebrate Christmas, and if you aren't done shopping, don't worry. I'm always last minute too. I believe there's a place in this world for all of us, even the procrastinators. Joyeux Noel et Bonnes Vacances!

Do You Fit High WASP Male Style Archetypes?

If High WASP women have Grandes Dames, Sturdy Gals, and Artsy Cousins as style archetypes, who then are their male counterparts? Let me pull these from unconscious memory, dinner the other night, and the works of Tom Wolfe, Richard Ford, and John Updike. Not a rational process.

First, and most commonly understood, is the Master Of The Universe. He channels our forefathers early urge to make it big. Doesn't care how much money was made then. Focused on now. He doesn't think much about style, in truth. Has a uniform. A uniform of dominance. Square jaw, intellect so sharp you bleed at its touch, attention span short. In fact, however, he is rare, among actual High WASPs. The required level of aggression hasn't, for the most part, survived years of genetic and social evolution. Or perhaps, with that level of intelligence, if you sit still for too long, questions crowd in like shrill goblins in a cave. Doubt is the enemy, a gray suit his friend.

Master Of The Universe by High WASP on Polyvore.com

Second, High WASP men have Artsy Cousins too. My brother somewhat among them. (Crossed with Master of the Universe in his case, but I digress.) And, having interviewed him on his clothes choices, it appears that Artsy Cousins, of the male variety, buy their clothes from Italian vendors who don't make women's clothes.* Who knew? Artsy Cousins fish, they show up at Burning Man with Art Bicycles, they open themselves to answers. Have hobbies. Involving nature, or something obscure, requiring gear. They play chess. And pretend it's not important.

Artsy Cousin, The Male Version by High WASP featuring Calypso

Finally, The Professor. In reality. This is my father, seated. With signet ring. (esb, it took me forever, but here you go. A signet ring that doesn't bring Mickey Rourke to mind.) The Professor is known by his words - "as it were," "one might say," - his erudition, his slippers, the shapelessness of his sweaters. By his love for family, expressed or not. Oh, and his dog. Do not forget his dog.


Let me say now, disclaiming, I am no expert on men's style. Not modern, I leave that to secret forts. Not "trad," I leave that to Maxminimus, The Trad, and Toad. Wonderful writers all. I hope they might comment, or perhaps set me to rights. I write this because we like to be fair in my family. The boys should have their turn.

Men are mysterious beings. One day they are little boys with baby flesh and the next the Incredible Hulk bursts out of their being leaving mothers with shards of boy childhood outright breaking their hearts.

*Unless of course this is a West Coast mutation only.

What Do High WASPs Really Think About Mr. Ralph Lauren?

Ralph Lauren + High WASPs by High WASP featuring Ralph Lauren

So how DO High WASPs feel about Ralph Lauren, anyway? Lisa was good enough to write me and ask my opinion.

Do you feel that Ralph has cheapened things for you? Things that were inalienable rights that are now marketed to the masses that haven't a clue as to their origins but fork over the big bucks for a sense of 'belonging'?

Yes, well, Ralph was bound to come up. He's inescapable. Let's cut to that ever desirable chase. We admire the man, loathe the brand, and buy the clothes on occasion.

Is that a surprise? Maybe not. Let me expound. Ralph Lauren whacked the American dream out of the ballpark. Through the goalposts. A hole in one. You know Don Draper? Mad Men? What Ralph did Don would have killed for. See an emotional need, a longing of the imagination, attach it to stuff that not only wears out but has a half life of 18 months, and find a way to manufacture low, sell high. Ta da!

My father's family made cheese. Then found their way to Wall Street. Financed a railroad or three. My mother's family preached in Western Massachusetts. Then built a pipe and valve company. We like enterprise. You go Ralph.

The brand? The sheer mention causes my father to shudder. Literally. Close his eyes. My mother would most likely dismiss the idea with a shake of her head. As she straightened some books on the counter.

You see, Ralph is good at what he does. Repellently good. Take any of those ads where a family sits on a lawn. Some kind of gathering. A mansion implied or visible in the background. A BIG lawn. In any one of those ads, probably 35% of the message, the visuals, the models, hits home. While the other 65% makes us want to run screaming from the room.

Yes, the family is generally slender. Hair is generally healthy. Khakis are apt to make an appearance, along with something navy blue. Something else will be monogrammed, most likely something silver. The lawn is, in fact, large. Or the deck, which overlooks the pond, the bay, the ocean.

But our children are just as dirty as anyone else's. There is just as much chocolate in the corners of our mouths. Someone is divorced. Someone has failed dreams. Someone else sold liquid nitrogen to semiconductor companies. That family fortune does run out if you do too much lounging around on lawns in blazers. Most importantly on the sartorial front, the only crest you are going to see is intaglio, on a ring, around the patriarch's finger. And he will readily admit that it's specious, having been invented in the 18th century. Was not forged for a Celtic warrior from the fens. Or glens. Or whatever. We really don't put crests on our clothing anymore.

Everyone else should feel free to wear what they will. I don't feel something that was mine has been appropriated. Only that something real has been made into a cartoon. These things happen.

We High WASPs are not alone in the ravaging path of capitalism and its camp follower, Miss Brand. Other cultures suffer their private stuff to be used in the sale of foodstuffs and dry goods. I remember commercials for some spaghetti sauce or other, presided over by a stereotypical Italian mother. Aunt Jemima was even more egregious. And let us not forget Irish Spring.

High WASP food, until we discovered cooking, has never been worth selling to anyone. What were they going to use, images of little tow-headed children smiling at their Libby's Corned Beef Hash on cook's night out? High WASP great-aunts doling out overcooked frozen peas? And since we can hardly even say the word "smell", much less admit that we might, I don't think deodorant soap was a good promotional niche for our type.

I guess we got off easy. And, that said, some of what Ralph puts out, I like.

Most likely not these...

But this...

However, I never have worn and nor ever will wear a polo shirt with a little guy on a horse prominently featured over the breast. My apologies, but my family played polo. Lot of horsy stuff.

I know, this is really for events. But it could have been polo.

Only recently did my father sell his horse after decades of dressage. Under these circumstances, wearing that polo player feels wrong, wrong, wrong as an emblem of anything. Even when those old horsey trophies in the cupboard are now surrounded by 5 cheap identical vases, originally sent full of Ecuadoran roses via 1-800-Flowers.

*BTW, none of this applies to his house goods. Which Tickled Pink And Green shows us how to honor:).

The Beauty of Feckless Prep School Youth. A High WASP Style Archetype.

High WASP Feckless Prep School Youth by High WASP featuring Ted Baker accessories

Feckless is a Scottish word. Many meanings. One of them is irresponsible. That's what I'm after. Irresponsible as only those who don't yet know how fortunate they are can be. The prep school boy is perhaps the best known of all High WASP style archetypes. He throws his clothes on, always in a hurry, in a hurry to lounge somewhere, not a care in the world, or to lope casually across a campus, lanky, endearingly clumsy with a shy sort of gait, apparently graced with all the world has to offer. It's all an accident, of birth and fortune.

His clothes are almost always too big. Or too small. His arms too long for his shirt sleeves, hair on his wrist catches the light. Unbuttoned cuffs expose his father's old watch. His mom bought the blue blazer and guileless tie last year for the junior prom. Before he grew another 3 inches. He has pulled open the knot of the tie. Wears his older brother's baggy khakis. A pair of white squash shoes, because, you see, he was in fact playing squash just an hour ago. Before he felt compelled to sit, just there, in the afternoon sun, face turned to the sky, lashes on his cheek.

Before he felt compelled to sit, just there, on the bench at the train station, waiting to go back to school. Cheeks flushed. Skin a little chapped. He's an object of desire.


Many different sub-groups revisit this archetype. Below, from the New York Magazine Home Design section, via WASP 101, and again on Monograms and Manicures, a boy who has known all his life he want to be an interior designer. His style of choice? Feckless Prep School Youth. But studied. Mannered.

We must know that the real version is apt to cover his walls in irreverent pictures of one sort or another. Strew shin guards and socks across the floor.

For those attempting to recreate the Feckless Youth in traditional adulthood, there is, of course, the Mogul of Feckless. Ralph Lauren, born - as we all know - Ralph Lifshitz. More power to him. No dummy he. He understood that the young man in the sunlight captured the American imagination like no other. Except perhaps the cowboy on a horse. Lauren has made a fortune from his understanding.

Modern classicists have a more subversive evolution of the style. secret forts, one of my absolute favorite blogs for men's style, highlights a collection from Apolis and ties from C. Chauchat.

These ties are anything but guileless. However, they refer, in a sort of post-modern way, to the ties you find in the bottom of your backpack, and throw on as you leave in a rush after some indeterminate athletic pursuit. Which most likely involved sunlight, slashing golden across fields.

The thing is, the real boy doesn't try. He doesn't know the effect he has on everyone. His anxieties are elsewhere, waiting to make him write A Separate Peace. The minute you try to dress like the Feckless Prep School Youth, he's lost. He's mythologized. But that's OK. We are a country of myths, after all. Go ahead. Dress like him. Recreate that object of desire. Focus on looking like you didn't try, even if you did. You will get close enough for your purposes.

You might ask, with good cause, does the Youth exist? This I know. He did in 1977. I saw him once. (I have told this story before, I am sure, but give me the consideration you give an older relative who has begun to repeat themselves. If you would be so kind.)

In the fall of 1977 I turned 21. My two best friends at Princeton kidnapped me, and drove me to New York City in a BMW 2002tii. Remember those? I didn't know where we were going. It would turn out to be the Plaza Hotel for a night. But as we crossed town, waiting at a stop sign on the East Side, we saw a boy on the sidewalk. He was wearing khakis, a blue blazer, a tie. Carried a large bouquet of flowers. Hair just so, short on the sides, longer and tousled on top. The wind of late September blowing. We said to each other, my friend and I, "Oh look at that boy. How adorable." We thought perhaps his flowers were for his mother.

In the middle of the crosswalk, he turned, and walked around our car to where I sat in the passenger seat. "Hello," he said, politely. Handed the flowers through the window. "Here. They were for my girlfriend, but she's not there. Since you are so pretty, they are for you." And off he sauntered.

So. He existed. Whether he is still out there anywhere as a boy, rather than a retailing construct, I don't know. But he existed. Loosened tie and all. Made my damn day, even then.

Images
Collage: Polyvore
Boys on bench, boy in dorm, WASP 101
Ralph Lauren; shirt, tie
secret forts