One of the things I love most about the Vintage Fashion Guild is how discussions there often give me a bracing philosophical workout, thanks to the incredibly diverse expertise and talent (and passionate commitment to vintage fashion) of its members. Some questions I’m still mulling over after being a fly on the wall during debates there are:

When a scissored 70s maxi flaunts the upper thighs of a pigeon-toed eBay model, is that an example of reconstructed vintage? A contemporary riff on “Make do and Mend”?

When the pigeon-toed model hikes a skirt up to her shoulders and renames it a strapless dress, is she deconstructing vintage? Channeling Little Edie?

When fashion designers send their employees to comb vintage shows, shops, and websites for garments and accessories to incorporate (sometimes tweaked, sometimes not) in their current lines, where precisely does one draw the line between retro-inspiration and unredeemed plagiarism?

When the 85 employees of New Jersey’s Trans Americas Trading Company sort 70,000 pounds of used clothing daily (including 50% of what has been donated to Goodwill) into 300 different grades (including “Premium/Crème”, when items are near-perfect or retain their store tags) and then sell it to the Third World, is that landfill-bypassing “green” commerce or the inevitable result of cheap mass production run amok?

When a blotto supermodel goes clubbing in a vintage satin wedding gown and, after its train gets wrecked by a sloshed, Sasquatch-footed grunge rocker’s widow, rips yards of fabric off and knots the ragged hem thigh high, is she more contemptible, or less, than an online vendor of chopped 70s maxis? How does the age and value of the dress she’s trashed factor in? How about the fact that she hawks a line of “vintage-inspired” clothes herself (with her design approach tending toward the unredeemed end of the spectrum)?

Fortunately, the nauseous headache I get pondering such questions can always be remedied with a little shopping therapy at the selling venues of the VFG membership.

…which brings me to the second topic this post will be addressing:

A new label, eCouture by Jenkins & Evans, that resolves the ethical quandaries raised above, as well as the ones you may regularly face re getting dressed in the morning–from how to indulge your taste for stylish one-of-a-kind fashions without going into debt, to how to stock your closets without ultimately helping stock the nation’s landfills, to whether vintage clothing ought to be enjoyed through actual use or carefully preserved for posterity. Upcycled from natural fiber modern clothing, and styled with an effort to preserve (as the site puts it) “the best and most labor intensive construction features of the existing garment whenever possible”, eCouture’s creations honor the spirit of vintage fashion without stripmining irreplaceable examples of it for their raw material.

Here’s where I get to brag about the eCouture lovely now hanging in my closet, which I received last week, and which was that rarest of online sales phenomena—the purchase that arrives on your doorstep miraculously looking (and feeling!) even better than it did in the pictures on your laptop.

Not only did the cool, silky fabric; sophisticated overdress styling; and ultra-comfy-yet-flattering smocked bodice reduce me instantly to admiring but incoherent oohs and ahs, the quality of the finishing was so expert, and the coordinating border and underskirt prints so artistically paired, that I immediately sent off a rapturous email to Hollis Jenkin-Evans, the creatrix of this brilliant garment, and was rewarded for my gushiness with some fascinating info about its origins. Turns out the ingredients had been a 90s plus size rayon skirt (the black underskirt), a smocked top (the bodice), and a floor length wrap skirt (the skirt of the dress). Somehow Hollis had snipped and sewn and gotten all the proportions to work just so, and then finished it off with a black ribbon from another project, and a mother-of-pearl buckle gotten courtesy of a “giveaway” (I like the sound of that!) at her local opera.

And she didn’t stop there—she used the excess bodice and skirt fabric to make a blouse, currently available at her store.

NOTE: For more great recycled/reconstructed fashion made ethically by VFG sellers, check out sugarlids and listitcafe.

Also, my MIL has reported back on the mystery (see previous post) of what she was costumed as at that party on her first cruise: She was a jewelry box!

Usually style icons are a bit like the late day sun—blinding and larger-than-life as they invade the horizon, casting impossibly long shadows which tangle with every step you take. Even if you’re the furthest thing from a fashionista, you can’t escape their influence, and if you’re the teensiest bit susceptible to trend-fever, you’ll risk melanoma to bask in their glow. They tend to be celebrities, with the minutae of their clothing, hair, and accessory choices obsessively tracked by the media, and with the contents of their wardrobes prone to showing up in museum exhibits and at elite auction houses. They organize the collective unconscious and fine-tune its menu of persona options as arbitrarily as Mr. Blackwell’s lists, and when, intentionally or not, you channel a style icon as you get dressed in the morning, chances are a sizeable number of people (not necessarily in your age, ethnicity, or gender bracket) are doing the very same thing.

Of course, if you’re very, very lucky, you’ll be well-acquainted enough with a style icon to regularly enjoy Maxwell House-scripted seders, the world’s best Thanksgiving split pea soup, December 25th Broadway shows, and rambunctious annual multi-generational gatherings (like this weekend’s) with one—not because the events alluded to above were paparazzi-stalked, society column fare, but because you happened to have married said style icon’s son.

Yup, Mom, all this has been a staggeringly terse preamble to your official 80th birthday tribute, a celebration of your unfailing, one-in-a-million, impeccable-but-never-predictable sense of style, which I began taking copious notes on long before you stopped scaring the living daylights out of me. (Guess it’s high time I ‘fessed up: The reason you had so much trouble prying conversation out of me as a newlywed was that I’d never met someone as tall, elegant, and bold as you, and quite simply, every time we were alone together in the same room, I would panic and go mentally blank.)

It took me almost a decade to grasp the extent of your kindness, intelligence, and commitment to your family, and a couple more beyond that to recognize the incredible variety of ways in which you’ve been my role model, in matters ranging from how to choreograph a world-class simcha to how to approach aging with 1) an intrepid Bronx accent and 2) mind-boggling grace.

Your uncanny failure to age the way people are supposed to (which led a friend who met you during our New Mexico years to ask whether you were Jordan’s sister or his mother) is the natural starting point for this photo essay, since no one has figured out yet whether it’s the result of your hitting the ultimate genetic jackpot or your principled, lifelong opposition to exercise. Here you are with Dad in the early 90s, surrounded by your kids and their families at your surprise 40th anniversary party. Note that, while the rest of us are blotches of nondescript, shadowy color topped by a slightly more defined face, you are the indisputable focal point of the composition in your crisp black and white tunic and amazing frosted hairdo.

Just in case you—or anyone else—thinks your exuberant smile, your regal carriage, or your ability to inject a shot of drop-dead color into the drabbest snapshot has fluctuated over the years, here you are at 15 years old, in 1944:

Even this totally black-and-white photo from the following year shows your knack for high-impact color contrasts—a winter white jacket with dark box purse, shoes, and long gloves:
And here you are, four years later, the sophisticated shorter length to your hair a perfect complement to your glamorous attire (voluminous-sleeved fur chubby, hat the size of a holiday platter, trumpet hemmed skirt, and what appear to be ankle-strap shoes):

I love the way the train of your wedding dress is pooled around you and Dad, the ivory satin folds and frothy spills of lace lapping at your legs, which are hidden somewhere underneath all that lustrous fabric. (I know you gave me this dress to sell in my shop, but I’ve decided to hang onto it till your granddaughters are married, just in case, and admire the dozens of buttons climbing the sleeves and back in the meantime…):
Here you are on your honeymoon in Florida in ’51, in a crisp white shirt, wide trousers, and leather cummerbund with dramatic buckle that makes the “statement” belts of the 80s look like wannabes in comparison (and, BTW, Hepburn’s got nothin’ on ya):
Another shot from the honeymoon, showing how effortlessly you carried off the New Look silhouette, again setting off your white or cream-colored dress with sheer, dark wrist-length gloves (let me digress here to gape at Dad’s gorgeous tie, and wonder if you bought if for him…?):
What a terrific coiffure you whipped up (pun intended!) to work in Dr Ginsburg’s office:
And it’s hard for me to accept that this was shot not on the French Riviera but in Far Rockaway…
Another gravity-defying feat you somehow pulled off was managing to sail through pregnancy without much visible effect and then, after giving birth, immediately reverting to your former size: 

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, after a family chowdown at her favorite Korean/sushi restaurant, I took my daughter to the opera to celebrate her 22nd birthday. I’ve been taking her to “birthday ballets” since she was 9 or so, but this was her first opera (and, as a new subscriber to the Boston Lyric Opera, only my third!). She was a picture of loveliness in her DVF wrap dress and stiletto-heeled boots (if you’re wondering how she maneuvered the cobblestones to and from the parking garage in them, all I can aphorize is that youthful ankles work in mysterious ways…)

As for me, I threw together an outfit—mostly vintage–in the last 10 minutes before rushing out, mostly by pulling out some of my favorite pieces and trusting that the common denominator of their 50s silhouette (and the fact that I really, really love them) would result in a outfit that looked like I’d actually put some thought into it. I wore this:

with a cropped cream turtleneck sweater and (non-stiletto) black leather boots. Accessories included this chunky glass mabe pearl choker:

along with a Trifari hinged bangle and baby blue leather gloves, all of it wrapped together under my sinfully soft Harilela’s Hong Kong black cashmere coat (which has the original owner’s monogram as well as a matching pencil skirt I rarely wear since I’m not built like a pencil and appreciate the freedom to exhale now and then). And to keep license, keys, and opera tickets safe, I took this black wool Triangle purse out for its second test drive (it was “new old stock”–aka unworn virgin vintage–when I bought it a couple of years ago):

All in all, a pretty spiffy ensemble for a chronically discombobulated phase of my life, and I escorted my daughter along, gratified and a little surprised that everything was running quite so smoothly. Then, however, I got confused about the location of the theater, parked on the topmost floor of a labyrinthine garage in Timbuktu, and, emerging flustered and flubber-fingered, dropped my purse on the elevator floor, whereupon it sustained simultaneous splits to the satin lining and bottom exterior seam and began effusing anthrax-scary clouds of gritty orange powder. Both my brief flirtation with composure and my lovely purse were, as they say, toast.

Apparently, even without a single visible sign of wear, the purse had been aging steadily through the years. The bright goldtone frame, unfaded wool body, and immaculate satin lining belied the disintegration of the cardboard that shaped and structured the purse, as well as of the thread that stitched it together. I spent the duration of the evening holding the oversized (12” x 16”) purse as though it were a clutch, trying to keep its innards from spilling out while performing stunts like milling around at intermission with a bottle of water in the other hand or buttoning my coat up when it was time to go. (My daughter wasn’t carrying a purse herself, so aforementioned essentials like car keys and license, not to mention a crisp bill for the parking garage, still stood their best chance of survival inside my exploded handbag). My fingertips were dusted in iron oxide, my wallet was coated in Shake and Bake, and my brush, if used, might have simulated a badly-done henna glaze.

Fortunately, the opera (“Rusalka”) was great fun: Gorgeous singing, impressive staging (rather than props or elaborate sets, wizardry with lighting and projected images created the enchanted realm underwater), and, most endearingly of all, amusement on my daughter’s part to find herself watching a highbrow version of “The Little Mermaid”. (She did speak contemptuously of the plot, which subordinated a magical female being’s destiny to that of a “jerky” Prince, and observed that opera fans are an incredibly opinionated bunch).

I’m still not happy my purse met its demise in a haze of devil dust, but I humbly accept the reminder that vintage requires very, very gentle (and sometimes limited) usage because, in addition to being a fascinating, often very well made, “green” antidote to mall fashion—it’s OLD.

At last, my blog has regained consciousness! I won’t bore you with a detailed explanation of how it wound up in a persistent vegetative state; suffice it to say that a server crash last year did have something to do with why the old posts here are still incompletely restored, and also that I myself never went “offline”. Au contraire, I’ve been continuously hunting down, researching, and purveying vintage goodies with gusto, as well as bubbling over nonstop with things I’m dying to blog about. One of them is this purse, which I just listed in my shop last week:

I spied it on an HMS Insomnia cruise of eBay purse listings, poorly photographed and described with great exactitude as a “really retro purse”.  (I really can’t account for why, when I’m massively stressed out, sleep deprived, and just this side of brain dead, my skills at detecting a vintage purse’s fabulosity in a crummy ¾” x ½” gallery thumbnail are at their peak; all I can do is be grateful for my strange gift, I suppose…)

A couple of days later, when I proudly posted a pic of the purse for the delectation of my colleagues at the Vintage Fashion Guild, my description of it was only marginally better than the eBay seller’s (in my inventory spreadsheet, I had it tagged as “circus theme purse”), but I had already begun obsessing over the print on it, the imagery of which seemed awfully familiar somehow. Finally, on an investigative lark soon after, I submitted an evolving string of terms to the Google search engine, including various combinations of the words “trapeze artists” and “le cirque” (don’t ask me why, I don’t speak French, my snooty introductory clause in the first paragraph to this entry notwithstanding) and eventually stumbled on a link to a poster of a Fernand Leger lithograph.

Bingo! Now I knew why the line drawings of the dangling (and floating) trapeze artists with Amazonian torsos and curiously sausage-like bent limbs had such a nagging familiarity to it—it reminded me of Fernand Leger, who I’d gobbled up a few art books about in my twenties and not thought all that much about since. Since the poster I’d found was clearly but inexactly related to my purse, I fed not a timid run of quarters but a cocky whole dollar (the phrase “les trapezistes”, which you’ll never catch me mangling out loud, in public) into Google’s mysterious slot machine. And, lo and behold, I found myself looking at Leger’s oil on canvas work “Les Trapezistes”, which currently hangs in the National Gallery of Australia (and which must be displayed on a pretty darn good-sized wall, as it’s approximately 12 feet square). Between the superimposed color blocks and stripes; the at-right-angles position of the “trapezistes”; and the half-“Tubist” (as a punning early Leger critic put it), half-crime-scene-silhouette quality to the figures, I knew I’d found the artistic source of the print on my purse:

A puzzle remained, though, which was keeping me from dating the purse with confidence: According to the blurb on the NGA site, “Les Trapezistes” had been commissioned by art collector/historian Douglas Cooper for his restored French chateau, completed by Leger in 1954, and esconced in the “Chateau de Castille” till Cooper sold it in 1976. That meant that it hadn’t entered the public’s visual lexicon till the mid-70s and couldn’t have inspired my purse over twenty years earlier, which is when the purse’s shape and style dated it to. So I emailed a query to the NGA’s curator, Christine Dixon, about whether Leger’s painting had perhaps spawned a line of spinoff merchandise (beyond the “limited edition” tapestries mentioned in the blurb). Amazingly enough, she replied!

Prior to appearing in the Cooper-commissioned painting, Ms. Dixon informed me, the trapeze artists on my purse had made their debut in a book (or, more accurately, a portfolio) of lithographs by Leger published in 1951 and titled “Cirque”; she attached a fuzzy jpeg of the relevant plate, and after Googling for another week (I kid you not) I found a crisp online version of “Cirque” in its entirety at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s site. If you’ve got time, you should by all means browse the whole book; if not, just check out the image below (which appear on pages 52 & 53). The cheerfully colored, lickety-split patent; exaggerated oblong shape; and ladylike clasp beneath a boldly arched horseshoe of a handle all said my purse was chic early 50s. The scribbly, atomic era print on it had been cribbed from a famous artist’s early 50s artwork. The purse was early 50s: Case very, very satisfyingly closed.

Having stretched this trio of meditations on my father’s taste in menswear over a time frame unprecedented in the blogosphere, I suppose it’s only fair I get around to explaining my highfalutin title. Why, you may have wondered, did I opt for something evocative of the oxygen-starved, jargon-giddy seminar on critical theory I ran screaming from in graduate school? Quite simply, because it captures the simple truth that my father’s personal style signaled flashes of who he was (or wanted to be), even if he himself kept fairly mum on the topic.Here are two more photos of him which offer sartorial clues to his well-concealed identity:

In this first one, he compensates for the lack of a splashy floral print on his buttondown sport shirt by wearing it untucked and accessorized with a lei. Taken on a “parents-only” trip to Hawaii in 1970 (I was in sleepaway camp, and my middle half-sister had recently moved out on her own), the photo is notable both for the expression of nirvana-level delight on my father’s face, and the fact that he seems to have responded to Oahu’s breezes by channelling the spirit of the Aloha shirts he’d grown up seeing on everyone from Bing Crosby and Harry Truman to Montgomery Clift and Johnny Weissmuller (aka Tarzan). I don’t know that he ever actually owned a Hawaiian shirt, come to think of it, though I do remember adding this shirt to my high school wardrobe, where it formed an ensemble with much-patched jeans and tooled buffalo hide sandals. By then, it had mellowed, its plaid not so bright, its worn fabric silky and coarse as a pair of snagged nylons

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I remember the delicious irony of a fashion mag feature–back in the early 80s, I believe–which offered insider tips to its trend-tracking millions of readers on the creation of “individual” style. Two or three real-life clever women who had learned to outwit the mass market’s grip on their image served as models, with their signature transformative sleight-of-hand codified into handy gimmicks (the only “how to” I remember more or less clearly is the one that advised pinning a cheap contemporary brooch to a black velvet ribbon around one’s throat for nostalgic effect—I think the prairie look was “in” at the time…).

Equally bemusing were the ubiquitous candid shots of Kate Moss in the late 90s/early aughties, trolling flea markets in flip-flops and sunglasses above a caption trumpeting her genius at mixing the haute with the (well-seasoned) humble. Before too long, a whole slew of models and actresses had hopped a boxcar on the quirky/eclectic/vintage train, not to mention the designers who made them look good and the mere mortals who, without benefit of stylist or personal shopper at some new, big-bucks vintage salon in LA, still managed to look like themselves (and look GOOD) by ransacking smaller vintage shops as well as the virtual vintage market for cookie-cutter-defying treasures they could actually afford.

Since I’ve been absorbing vintage and thrift store finds into my wardrobe since high school (inspired in equal parts by the fun of the hunt, the sentient aura of cast-offs, and my anemic wallet), the notion of vintage as a lucrative mass trend is a bit unsettling to me: The feminist in me certainly can’t fault any woman who tunes out messages telling her what she should look like and spend her money on, but when the more authentic persona she’s encouraged to get creative and develop itself becomes a pre-packaged consumer phenomenon, I start to feel a little confused (plus I dread the ultimate aftermath to the trend, when wearing vintage gets relegated to the “totally passe” lifestyle rack).

Which brings me to my ecstasy-inducing visit, early in May, to see “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel” at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. (That the exhibit closed before Memorial Day, unfortunately, cements my place as slowest blogger this side of the Pecos, but it’s still worth a visit to the stretch of Dixie Highway the museum’s on, which is studded with antique stores and a terrific boutique, Glam Vintage, where among other goodies I scored the coolest travel-themed 60s charm bracelet).

Composed of 4 or 5 galleries of mannequins posed in tableaux and decked out in gorgeous, jaw-droppingly original, “exactly as she wore them” ensembles from the octogenarian style icon’s vast, omnivorous wardrobe (fed by everything from open-air souks to Loehmann’s Back Room, and enriched when necessary by designs of her own), the exhibit was a sensory feast as well as pure paradise for aficionados of vintage.

It was also proof that art happens not just on a designer’s sketch pad or in his/her atelier, but when a creative, talented woman, having put together a wardrobe that is also a world class collection, then approaches getting dressed as a matter of pooh-poohing stuffy fashion dictates and celebrating her own (slightly eccentric but thoroughly compelling) aesthetic preferences, design principles, and sheer joie de vivre.

Seeing Iris Apfel’s “collection” (much of which is apparently promised to the Metropolitan Museum of NY’s Costume Institute, where it was exhibited in late 2005) was so exhilarating an experience it even made me stop fretting that “market saturation” and “vintage” are terms destined for intonation in the same grim, oxymoronic sentence. After all, if a woman with hundreds of sumptuous designer garments (and a gazillion pieces of outsized jewelry, sigh…) can transcend her exquisite wrappings to look anything but “packaged”, then those of us with smaller budgets and less museum-worthy closets can surely also whip our wardrobes into self-expressive shape.

Here are some of my favorites from the exhibit (scanned from the catalog, which begins with a wonderful essay/memoir by Apfel):

A pink-sugared orange ’59 mohair cape by Norman Norell, with fabulous domed buttons the catalog describes as “orange crochet floss”, worn with a contemporary orange wool turtleneck and substantial tortoiseshell-colored bangles (lucite, perhaps?):

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I may be well-acquainted with the woman who saw in a once-sumptuous 25-year-old fur coat an industrial-strength parka waiting to be born, but I know far less about the elegant creature pictured here, who funneled every penny she earned (operating elevators in Littman’s department store, or ringing up sales on Macy’s 34th Street) into a steady stream of beyond-her-meager-means clothing splurges: I am amazed by this photo—taken in Prospect Park, Brooklyn on November 25, 1945–for several reasons: 1) The sophisticate posing for it, turned out in accessories I would kill to have for my store or myself (Those peep-toed shoes! That clutch! The fur clip on her coat collar!) is only seventeen years old; 2) she’s bare-legged and in peep toes in late November (never mind her gloves and scarf-tucked neck); and 3) that ruby-lipped pin-up gal is my MOTHER!

The photo reveals nothing of my mother’s terribly difficult childhood (toddlerhood through kindergarten in foster care, following her mother’s death from pneumonia, and Depression-era privations for years afterward, in her remarried father’s home). What it does show is the stubborn buoyance of her spirit, which if submerged from time to time has invariably resurfaced, more than a match for the seemingly chronic hardship in her life.

Here she is, back at Prospect Park the following September, just a few months after V-E day had ended the horrors of the Holocaust once and for all:

I doubt my mother, looking folkloric and summery in sandals and ruffly peasant blouse with lace-trimmed full skirt (quite the vogue at the time), knew the fad had been spawned by Nazi Germany, where the Third Reich’s half-farcical/half-sinister attempt to supplant Paris as the world’s fashion directrice included promoting the Bavarian milkmaid look to Germany’s frauen (who much preferred “decadent” Paris styles, thank you very much…) Irene Guenther’s fascinating “Nazi Chic: Fashioning Women in the Third Reich” has examples of propaganda photos featuring blonde-braided women dressed just like my mother in this slightly out-of-focus photo, with its eerie, almost painterly quality…

I love the exaggerated quality to my mother’s pale coat and trousers in this spring 1947 photo:

The lapels are huge, the buttons are huge, and the drape of the trouser bottoms suggests they’re not exactly cigarette pants! She was nineteen and a Hunter College freshman in the photo; in the next shot, taken the following May in Central Park, she looks quite a bit more collegiate in her wool skirt-and-sweater combo. (I haven’t verified my hunch with her, but something about her expression as she grips the swing and grins jubilantly suggests that the photographer was her first husband, who she’d be marrying in a few weeks’ time).

My 78-year old mother (yup, that’s her in 1955) leaves in five days for her second round-the-world cruise, and my feelings about her imminent departure are an equal mix of admiration for her wanderlust, unquenchable in spite of her many health issues, and a sadness bordering on dread of the unknown (the earth could still be flat, you know…), which equates to her being out of touch for three and a half months. And yes, Mom, I know you’ll send postcards from the exotic yonder, which may even reach me before your ship gets home, but being unable to email you daily political spam or phone you for a quick cooking tip is going to be very tough on me!

After she’d read my little profile of my father as stylish gent, I raised the prospect of doing one about her—her inimitable, paradoxical fashion personality and its influence on me. At first, she balked a little, but once I reassured her that my objective was to write not Mommie Dearest but a tribute to her, she warmed enough to the idea to send me some great photos of her in her teens and 20s, captioned, dated, and ready for my nostalgia-drenched, probing and wildly unscientific analysis.

In the interest of time, I’m going to pull off what for me will be a first: I’m going to wrap up this photo essay by tomorrow! (But I reserve the right to tinker with it—and even broadly revisit the topic–while she’s off sailing the seven seas…)

Our tale begins with this fur coat: Mahogany velvet, it bears up nobly under the burden of its elasticized cuffs and taupe metal zipper, which runs from mid-thigh to nose-tip, meshing teeth ominous and clunky as the track of a giant roller coaster. Whittled in the early 80s from the mid-50s “Matara” (or dyed brown) Alaskan seal swing coat pictured at the start of this post, all it preserves of the elegant original is the high neck and impossibly silken fur, panne-blinding in strong light, erstwhile insulation for seals swimming the Eames-era Bering Sea.

Its rather fusty, car-coat sensibility reflects the fact that, by then, my mother’s days as a fashion plate were pretty much behind her. But it also happens to embody her central style tenets: Aim high (but be sensible!), get your money’s worth, and outclass rather than submit to trends.

In the 3 months since I left my father standing quietly in the visual roar of a locomotive-like chain of brownstones, “life” has been happening, frequently. Nonetheless, understanding the arc of his evolving identity–from swank hipster to suspendered grandpa—has remained a cherished obsession, which reasserts itself every time I inspect a mid-century tie (did he ever own one like this? Would he have found it too flashy? Too conservative?), or handle a pair of vintage cufflinks I can imagine him wearing to his job as a Coca Cola bottling plant manager, or to a popular restaurant with my mother.Likewise, the 2 dozen or so black and white photos I’ve got which chart the early stages of that evolution have continued to haunt my daydreams, with their phantasmagoric residue clinging primarily to his direct heir in the here and now, a.k.a my thirteen-year-old son. (I am particularly susceptible to their eerie beauty today, since it is my father’s yartzheit: the anniversary of his death, as calculated on the Jewish calendar).

You see, just as his grandfather was, back in the day, my son is darkhaired, slender, taciturn, affectionate, and acutely sensitive. Looking at this photo of my father and his young bride with a group of friends, for instance, I can’t help but (after sighing longingly at the fabulous painted eagle on his buddy’s flight jacket, of course) see my son’s profile in his, and recognize they are both cursed with the same oxymoronic personality–both born partiers who happen to be very shy.

My father’s persona was part rascally lapsed Catholic (think Dean Martin’s shtick), part manly stoic (think John Wayne jogging crouched past German bombs), and part soulful, sleepy-eyed cynic (think Robert Mitchum as an aging Philip Marlowe). Now, if as a child/teen/young adult I always knew where my mother stood on clothing and fashion (trend-followers were beneath contempt; wearing classics revealed one’s superior intellect; hand-me-downs were acceptable from relatives but otherwise revolting), I never really understood my father’s wardrobe inclinations. To be honest, at the time of his death a few years ago I still took him for a laissez faire sort of dresser at his very core, who threw on whatever my mother had stocked the closet with, continued wearing it till she threw it out, and didn’t have much use for a subtle palette (put bluntly, the man seems to have gone colorblind). Standard garb for Florida: Cranberry-and-white Bermuda short sets with tan socks and golf shoes. For visits up North: Poly slacks and faded disco-style shirts with a pilled grey woolen vest. When he took to wearing suspenders (his own father’s signature look; see photo below) the year before he turned 80, I interpreted it approvingly, as a sign he was attempting to refine his image.

Since then, however, my efforts to learn who my father was in a way I didn’t need to while he was alive (typical, no?) have led me to rethink my assumptions completely. Some months after the funeral, my oldest half-sister shared with me a photo album from my father’s failed marriage to her mother. Poring over the tiny, film-noirish shots of him, teenaged and then with his first wife, I did a doubletake not only at how handsome he was, but also at the unmistakeable echos of 30s and 40s pop culture icons in his hairstyle, his clothing, his posture. He had been young and proud of it, and had cared very much how he looked.