Logo-heavy clothes make winter tomatoes

348 and Maine street: When layering for cold weather, denim doesn't work

Why do we feel the need to dress as if we might be called upon at any moment to lay railroad tracks or build a pyramid? There is a reason that workwear is worn by those who work in manufacturing or construction or whatever it is they do in the Midwest that is the backbone of America. Workwear is practical. It’s protective and sturdy and reliable. But guess what else? Workwear is ugly.

348 and Maine street: Fashioning a NESCAC feud on the golf course: Mills vs. Klingenstein

Here’s something that never goes out of style: a good, old-fashioned celebrity feud.
Unfortunately, the tried and true competitors in the catfights of recent memory have devoted their attentions elsewhere. Lindsay Lohan is busy with her regimen of probation hearings and collagen injections. We can’t count on Kim Kardashian, what with her parasitic child—and the baby they’re having, too. Poor Amanda Bynes is lost in a world where cheek piercings are acceptable. They are all too busy to pay any attention to foul fracases and catty conflicts.
But fret not, feud fiends, we don’t need the snarky starlets or plucky personalities of the tabloids to give us our daily brawl; in this idyllic corner of Maine, we have our own acclaimed altercation! With all the flinging and flailing, it has the styling of the best (and by that I mean the worst) feuds of those paparazzi-chased and pampered partiers—only this pickle is more patrician (had enough alliteration yet?) and peppers the pages of Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal rather than TMZ and the National Enquirer.

348 and Maine street

Logo-heavy clothes make winter tomatoes

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Evan Horwitz

Columnist

February 22, 2013

Some things are hard to find these days.
Because I am not a farmer, nor pretend to be a farmer, nor own anything close to almanac, I am not talking about things that are hard to find in the winter season—like blueberries that taste like anything.

Despite my aversion to agriculture (which is really just a dislike of dirt), I must admit that a winter tomato is pathetic on the palate.

By “these days” I rather mean “the modern day.”

You grimace, thinking I’m about to be more crotchety than usual and nostalgic for those good old days before everyone got so whiney, insisting that they needed things like tomatoes in winter, electricity and running water. On that first accusation you’d be right: it’s about to get crotchety up in here and you’re going to like it.

As for your second charge—don’t be ridiculous. Although I’ve occasionally entertained relocating to an austere monastery in Siberia or North Korea or doing a reverse rumspringa to Amish country (who hasn’t?), I’m no fan of Thoreauvian asceticism. If you know me, you know I’m more inclined toward Wildean aestheticism.

If I’m being a little literary for your tastes, forgive me: I declared my English major this week. But right now, it’s time for some distinctly un-intellectual Joan Rivers-ean grumpiness.
Without further ado, here are the things that are hard to find these days: Monica Lewinsky (but do we really want to find her?); a good man (at least according to Flannery O’Connor); print editions of books, magazines and newspapers (where’d you go, Newsweek?); Tupac; and most of all, manners.

Of course, I could go on about manners for quite some time, but that would be impolite. Suffice it to say that we have forgotten our public manners, and that even if your childhood did not include severe etiquette training at the dinner table between wine and whiskey, you should know that most food is not finger food and silverware exists for a reason.

For the record, I loved those etiquette sessions, which involved my grandfather calling himself Miss Manners, the awarding of ribbons for sitting properly, and the beginning of my unhealthy and lifelong obsession with decorative napkin folding.

And yet there are some things that are not hard to find these days: Winter tomatoes (I must be craving some good summertime heirloom tomatoes), the Kardashians (their orange spray tans and prolific badonks make them easier to spot), melting glaciers (too soon for global warming jokes? Or too late?), and Beyoncé (and yet we still can’t get enough of her).

Add to that list—because this is a style column, afterall—clothes with logos. Yes, clothes that advertise themselves are my least favorite thing, and I consider them the precise opposite of good manners.

If I can see where your clothes are from without taking them off and inspecting the tag, you are not stylish and you are spoiling my fun. If you were really well dressed, you wouldn’t need a heinous billboard or an egregious lump of embroidery on your chest or arm or butt to tell me so.

Wearing a certain brand does not make you well dressed. A brand may make good clothes, but a brand does not good clothes make.

Besides—your clothes should keep their origins a mystery, just as winter tomatoes do. Your wardrobe should be mysterious and unexpected, hard to imitate, and impossible to mock. So the next time someone asks where you got that fabulous macramé coat (talk about hard to find), you should think twice about telling. A lady never tells, a magician never reveals his secrets, a journalist never discloses her confidential sources (at least if her name is Judith Miller). So it is for the sartorialist: Never let anyone see your tags but your dry cleaner.

Still, if Joan Rivers or I ask who or what you’re wearing, you’d better spill: She might make fun of you on E!, and I might write about you here.

Keep your logos hidden and your manners obvious. I just don’t care where your boring pea coat is from and I really don’t care to see into your open trap as you chomp on chicken you shoveled in with your ketchup sodden fingers. Don’t be a winter tomato: no flavor and no class, just a brand name.

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