Well, do I feel vindicated by The New York Times. For years, I have believed with a fervor that clothes with signs of wear, if not tear, are cool. Now, apparently, it’s the more distressed the better. A Bedford-Stuyvesant boutique is selling a thrashed miner’s coat with traces of minerals worked into the fabric for $1,000 and will rent you a tattered hoodie for $125 for three days. Patched-up jeans also bring a premium price. Immediately, I thought of what’s in my own closet and drawers, but not necessarily to cash in.
If there was ever a trashed-clothes style icon around East Hampton, it would have to be my great-uncle Morris Spivack, who lived in the Star attic for a time. Famous Little Edie Beale, draped in snoods and scarves scented with eau de raccoon, is a close second, in my opinion.
Those who were around in the 1980s, when Uncle Morris was here, might recall a tiny man with a feathery white beard walking along Main Street in an Icelandic sweater slowly becoming unknitted from the waist up. Morris would snip off the yarn as it became bothersome. The result was that the sweater retreated upward toward its collar, becoming something of a jaunty crop-top atop Morris’s child-size flannel shirts.
Old clothes are good clothes. Among my treasures is a monochromatic rugby shirt my friend Matthew gave me a good 30 years ago, only now becoming a little frayed at the cuffs. I have a paint and epoxy-spattered college sweatshirt I borrowed in 1984 and never gave back.
One of the good things about being about the same weight as I was decades ago is that my, uh, beefier friends sometimes pass on items that no longer fit. One such prize is an East Hampton Fire Department engine company T-shirt in medium from Geoff, an old pal who needs at least a large.
Sure, it’s nostalgia and maybe grunge chic on my part that I should have grown out of long ago, but there is no denying how well made ordinary off-the-rack clothes once were. And when you put some oldies on, it’s like walking around in your own fashion museum, looked at with a certain squinted point of view.
I remember once being at a reception in the Double RL store in East Hampton Village, probably in the early 2000s, when I was introduced to the man himself. Ralph Lauren, by way of saying hello, took the collar of my faded shirt between two fingers and rubbed. “This is one of ours,” he said. He was right, though, in truth, I had to check the label later to find out. I don’t think he noticed the holes at each elbow.