Dapper Dad

 

Do you know what these are?

Most men today hardly ever dress up, but those who do can likely identify these as... cuff-links!  They're jewelry used instead of buttons to fasten the ends of sleeves on French cuff shirts.  They link both sides of a sleeve cuff, hence their name.  

In style they can range from the simple to the ornate.  These are not even gold-plate; they are gold-tone metal with plastic jewel-like end tips.  But they are monogrammed - with "S.L.", my late father's initials!

My father came from a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.  For an incredible 13 years in the 1950's and 1960's, he put himself through night school at Brooklyn's prestigious Pratt Institute while working days at a company called Richmond Screw Anchor, when its headquarters were also in Brooklyn.  They designed and fabricated various steel components used in industrial concrete construction - things like bridges, dams, and airports.

Dad was fond of joking that around his 12th year at Pratt, as he was rushing up a flight of stairs on his way to class one evening, a professor he'd had years earlier saw him and greeted him with, "Ah, Laitinen!  You teach here now?"

In mid-climb, Dad breathlessly replied, "No, I'm still trying to get out!"

At any rate, he did have a day job, which explains why college took so long.  His day job paid for all his schooling and a hobby that he enjoyed for years - dressing well.

Back then, everyone dressed-up for all sorts of occasions.  They dressed-up for work, of course.  They dressed-up to attend sporting events, of all things!  That meant wardrobes needed to stay stocked with dress clothes.  And to hear Dad himself tell it, he was more than happy to comply.  He enjoyed nice clothes because they helped give him a broader identity than being just another guy from Brooklyn.

On occasion, he'd joke that his penchant for clothes ended when he got married - and had to spend his money on other things!  Maybe by default, being married and having a family gave him the broader identity clothing never could.  After he had kids, his wardrobe truly became unremarkable, and frankly, I was surprised when years later, I learned of his former fixation on fashion.  Nevertheless, while he was single, Dad apparently helped make one particular New York City clothing store quite profitable:  the legendary Barney's.

After a stunning run from discounter to bespoke destination retailer, an over-leveraged Barney's closed in 2020.  They had begun in 1923 with low-priced menswear, and for a while billed themselves as the seller of more suits than any other store in the world.  They employed nearly 150 tailors, a stunning number for any clothier.  Expansion eventually added 21 stores to their portfolio, including several in Japan.  

Twice they tried sustaining a store at Northpark Mall in fashion-crazy Dallas, but surprisingly those attempts both flopped.  Maybe partly because Dad, although by then also in Texas, no longer spent his money on clothing.

Shucks, Barney's had already enjoyed a good run with Dad as a customer anyway.  He'd begun patronizing their Manhattan store in the 1950's, when Barney's transformation from discount to designer was under way.  My Dad couldn't afford the highest of their new price points, but he managed to contribute mightily to their bottom line anyway.  Virtually his entire wardrobe came from Barney's.

Since I never knew Dad as a fashion plate, and I never saw him wearing French cuffs, I never saw these cuff-links until I was cleaning out his bureau after he'd died.  And he died of dementia, which rendered his memory unreliable at best, and literally empty on the worst days.  So I'm not completely certain he purchased these cuff-links at Barney's.  But even his sister said he never bought clothing anywhere else back then, so it stands to reason that these were theirs.

Throughout his life, though, he did wear a lot of neckties.  Since they were part of the corporate American office uniform up until his retirement years, one didn't need to be a fashion plate to need neckties.  Fortunately, Dad genuinely enjoyed getting new ties for Christmas and birthdays, which made shopping for him easy!

And I can say that going deep into his dementia journey, although his neckties hadn't been from Barney's for decades, he could still remember how to tie them.  Even his bow ties, which Mom ordered from a company in New England specializing in non-trendy accessories.  Since I could never master the art of tying a bow tie, the fact that Dad could remember how, years after his diagnosis, seemed remarkable to me - and a testament to how some things we learn at an early age can stick with us no matter what happens to our brain.  When I finally had to begin pre-tying his neckties, and then helping him put them on for Sunday church, the process itself took me back... Not just to my teenage years as Dad was teaching me how to tie my ties, but further back, to days I never knew, when in my imagination he was himself learning how to master the art.

A good necktie knot isn't as easy to craft as one might think.  And the conventional process by which a person learns how to do it usually involves a surprising amount of interpersonal proximity, as the tutor necessarily comes close to their pupil's neck.

When I worked at an upscale clothing retailer during my college years, helping another man tie his own tie was one of the most awkward parts of my job.  Actually, now that I think about it, back when tailored clothing was fashionable, much of the process required to achieve that tailored aesthetic involved distinct levels of personal-space-invasion.

Which brings us back to Barney's.  Dad had a wonderful tale about a day when he was in their store, purchasing a new suit, and having it fitted by one of their fabled tailors.  As Dad stood in a three-sided mirror, dressed in his new suit, a tailor busily marked necessary alterations to its drape.  

Suddenly, an elderly man darted into the fitting room, and intentionally strode up to Dad and the tailor.  He authoritatively reached out and pulled at the fabric, gauging the material's nap.  He leaned in to scrutinize several markings the tailor had made.  With barely an expression of any kind on his face, or even in his voice, he finally pronounced judgment:  "Good fit." 

And at that, he turned, and strode out of the fitting room as purposefully as he'd entered it.

The tailor kept marking and measuring, silently.  As if nothing unusual had just happened.  But Dad was unsettled by such a bizarre interruption from such a tactile stranger.

"Who was THAT?"  Dad incredulously asked the tailor.

Without missing a step or looking up, the tailor mumbled, "Oh, that was Old Man Barney."

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