Saturday, June 06, 2009
Supernova of Cassini: A Parable in Indigo
It was just a little more than one year ago that I was gearing up to travel cross-country to attend a blogger meet-up in my old college town of Philadelphia. I’d been to a similar function the year before but it had been a very different set-up - I’d gone because it was in Portland OR, a short trip for me to the city where my mom and sister lived. The meet-up had been more like an add-on to a brief family reunion, than a stand-alone centerpiece experience. But I’d had a very nice time and had been favorably impressed with many of the people I’d met, and then I’d continued to follow several of their blogs over the course of the ensuing year. So when the next event was announced and it was in one of my all-time favorite cities, where I had local friends and many great memories, I was happy to cash in my hard-won free ticket on Cheapskate Airlines and take a long weekend in the birthplace of democracy, if you don’t count Athens, Runnymeade, or Freeballot ME.
I was eager to make a good impression, or at least, not to make an unnecessarily bad impression, because nothing is more precious to me than the opinion of an undetermined number of total strangers who get together once a year to drink too much. Quickly rejecting the options of plastic surgery, behavioral therapy, a crash fitness course, or hiring out an escort from MENSA Hotties, I settled upon new clothes as the most efficacious means by which to improve my first impression upon my upcoming partners in boiterie. And, as is my niggardly wont, I gave myself half an hour one lunchtime to visit a nearby discount clothier for my instant low-cost makeover. I wasn’t going to need much - just enough for one night’s carousing. A shirt and some pants. would fill the bill, and bless my soul that’s what I got: a lightweight cotton shirt the color of wet sand, and a pair of somewhat nicer-than-my-usual jeans.
The Philly meet-up went over hitchlessly. I fleetingly renewed a few casual acquaintances, and superficially initiated a few more. I drank three or four beers and took a taxi home. I didn’t oss my cookies or lose my camera. And most significantly, I was not derided for any sartorial mis-step - not to my face, anyway. My shirt-n-pants combo had done its job.
The shirt was nothing remarkable, by design, and didn’t last too long after the great event - it shrank, then faded, and finally I laundered it by mistake together with a leaky pen and it came out all mottled and unsightly and I discarded it with barely a thought. But the jeans were a bit more special. They were blue, as is typical, and dually-legged, and I have no idea if they were flattering but at least they stayed up when I put them on. However, on each rear pocket was a line of “fancy-pants” decorative stitching, and the label over the right buttcheek read “Oleg Cassini.” Oleg Cassini! A veritable Euro-design icon! Whereas I’d grown used to the haberdash stylings of Levi Strauss, Bruno Dickey, and Aldus Navy, here was a garment with a real fashion pedigree. I mean, I couldn’t personally tell the difference, but obviously they were different. Oleg Cassini: jeansmaker to the blogging elite. Wearing them, I felt nearly six feet tall.
As I mentioned, the shirt soon fell prey to the frailties to which all textiles are heir. The Olegs, though, continued their stalwart service to my nether half. They were a key component in my trouser rotation, as it were, for a solid year. But then, something happened. I think it was “daylight.” I noticed, one bright morning, that their rich indigo coloring had grown perceptibly penurious. Theretofore flat hems had begun to purse and fray. While the pants still looked okay right out of the washer, by the end of the day they looked more tired than denim ought. Despite their esteemed designer status, the Olegs were on their last legs - and my legs, I finally admitted, deserved better.
I couldn’t bear to discard them before I had a replacement in hand, but then I found a great deal on unusually comfortable Levi’s at a huge discount. (Turns out that my 501 days are behind me - if they ever did anything for me, they no longer do. My new bargain warehouse bluejeans are numbered “569.” I’ve decided to take this as both a good sign and a bad joke.) This started me on a modest spree of throwing away old shoddy clothes and replacing them with new and improved versions. My closet remains today no fuller than it’s been for years, but much of what hangs there is notably nicer than it would have been two or three months ago. I replaced my superannuated oxford cloth, my antediluvian undershirts. I disposed of shirts besmirched by unflattering stains. I rehabilitated a pair of jeans that I’d bought three years previously, worn twice, and then ripped open at the knee in a graceless tumble over a bench at the zoo. I even refreshed my stock of collarstays. And once I’d done all this, the Oleg Cassini jeans, despite all we’d shared, hit the refuse bin with nary a regret.
There’s a lesson in all of this for me - maybe more than one. But the message that is presently foremost in my mind is not for me at all - it’s for Oleg. I suspect he’ll never hear it, I’m sure he doesn’t care, but it’s important to me to articulate it anyway. Oleg, you and I had some damn good times together - but that was then, and this is now. I’ve moved on and you couldn’t keep up. Old denim, like old soldiers, fades away. So so long, Oleg. Don’t let the door hit you in the decorative stitching on your way out.