Saturday 6Dec14 Richard's Wear

Dear World,

I expect each day to put what I am wearing here.   Why?   That will be visually self evident.   

46 years ago I was on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan seeking one decent white men's dress shirt to use at Coopers & Lybrand Consultants where I set up AI Circles for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other vampire vultures.  I was naive and visited, over a 2 year period, 166 men's tailor shops, never finding a single piece of white cloth there that was not unbelievably UGLY.   

In despair I asked a senior managing director at C&Lyrand where rich people like he bought their shirts--he gave me the phone number of a shop starting at US$600 a shirt, requiring a 3 month visit-prior reservation, where the likes of Robert Redford and Ronald Reagan bought shirts--only one customer at a time allowed in the shop.   I waited my 3 months and appeared, served by barely clothed young things, champagne, as one UGLY piece of cloth (over-priced--what the rich mistake as quality) after another was brought before me.  After an hour of my lousy body language the shorty old owner confronted me "YOU, Mr. Greene, are NOT famous and NOT rich and I never heard of you--how dare you disdain the offerings of my shop".    I was sorry and told him so, sorry that his shop dressed up with clever cuts and fittings the UGLIEST imaginable white cloths from around the world.  Nothing in his shop was fit to wipe my feet on much less wear.   We agreed to never see each other again, and I lost all respect for Robert Redford's fashion sense.  

I went home and lamented to my Broadway dancer girlfriend at the time who laughed and proclaimed "Richard you are such a single minded testesteronicly narrow-minded fool, no thinking being buys material at tailors shops, they buy ......come here, let's go and I will show you".  We threw on coats and she led me to a furniture store, the drapery section, and THERE was NON-UGLY cloth by the tens of meters, 1/6th the per meter price of any tailor shop and HUGELY more beautiful--though about half the items were too scratchy or hard to clean for practical wear (leaving a few hundred other choices, every single one of which was gorgeous, handsome, elegant, with subtle patterns and refinements missing entirely from the 166+snobby1 tailor shops I had visited.   

THE END OF YUK

For winter, thereafter, I bought sofa material and had it fashioned into shirts.  For summer, I bought fine linens and cotton mixes, and laces.   The reaction of clients and bosses at C&Lybrand was immediate---my shirt was dominating rooms and meetings in ways I had never with my mind been able to achieve before.   People are shallow and a gorgeous unique white men's shirt is better (more visible, more elegant, less in need of constant TV ad supports than Rolexes) than a watch or dark, hard to see from a distance, Italian overly made men's suit.   I played this shirt game to the hilt, escalating secretly with collars, cloths, designs, cuffs, 1700s style sleeves, tux front panelling, etc.   When someone higher in rank improved, the next hour, I went home and came back with a vast improvement of my own--crushing the spirit of my opponents and competitors.   It got so bad that people two and three ranks above me asked my fashion advice (I always gave them the name of that over-priced by-appointment-only shop with the nearly-undressed champagne servers.   

AND NOW, TODAY?

Well enough ancient history.  I will soon post photos--inexpert, of my what I am wearing today.   It is self evident---words cannot capture or enhance it.   It either speaks to you or disgusts you.   However, male readers need to beware, because ALL the beautiful women in Tokyo approach me and introduce themselves upon site of these things.   I am not totally clear why--I design entirely to please ME.   That that results in pleasing others is irrelevant and sometimes an annoyance.  I dress the way I do to escape Calvin black, gray, and navy and the conformist lives ensconced inside those drapings.   I dress the way I do because I am NOT YET DEAD.  

 Two greenish obis were combined in a large scale weave design into this rather WARM jacket.  The wide half sleeves are there because they allow fast bold big movements and do not weigh down the arms.   The jacket is designed to be over a suit jacket as shown below.   

This is also two obis combined as large patches on stretch black velvet material--super comfortable.   The sleeves are zip fastened turning the jacket into a vest in summer.  Black velvet is rare in summer as people consider it hot to wear, but in a vest arrangement it is fine in summer.  

Black velvet absorbs light better than any other material making for BLACKER BLACKS that really appeal to women apparently.   Men in black suits no longer are in black suits when I enter the room--a fun phenomenon for certain ego-challenged monkeys.  

   The back of the green jacket above shows clearly the NAGARE flow inter-weaving of two entirely different obis.    This attracts Japanese as they have no fashions of their own that mix obi patterns in this way.   It is a brain thing--the weave attracts because it is complex in a way that the mind CAN soon simplify by spotting the NAGARE flow aspect and the nature of the two obi patterns combined.   

This is the back of the black suit.   It is asymmetric because I personally hate the homes of Louis the 14th of France---a 12 year old's idea of gorgeous, gold sparkle, gold, sparkle--YUK.   The gardens in France also oppress with their mindless endless eye-less symmetries--can French mind think of nothing good enough to fill differently TWO sides of a garden, room, ceiling than repeats of the other side?????

The shapes of the patches are NOT designed.  Research by my students found that truly randomly generated shapes appealed to eyes more than intuited random-ish shapes by a designer.   

 

This is a simple kimono turned into a shirt.  The collar is enlarged as are the cuffs, and the sleeves are enlarged at elbow length.  There are collar covers on the collar so I can wash just the collar not the whole shirt, because collars collect dirt the fastest.  The front is zip front because I hate the bother of buttons and modern zippers are plenty flexible enough.  

The necktie is hated by the Chicago Bulls of the Michael Jordan era---I will explain that in a later posting.   The belt--invisible here---is shining and will be explained in later postings.