This is a man wearing chinos and a polo shirt. He is a catalog model for Eddie Bauer. Eddie Bauer is where I buy most of my clothes. The other significant and smaller portions come from Target on the low end and Johnston and Murphy on the high end. But I almost never wear chinos or polo shirts. The combination is almost unthinkable.
My casual is an evolution of California casual, which for me is a combination of beach, backpack, tactical and boho. It won't help if I explain it. Suffice it to say that this dude is wearing duds that are entirely too Connecticut for me, despite the fact that my father's side family is from Connecticut.
However when it comes to the kind of gear I wear to work, Eddie Bauer has got me nailed. There is no other catalog that works as well, and I'm something of a clotheshorse. EB is right where I am now, although in the past I have done Jos A. Bank, Nordstrom, and a host of others.. whatever. My point is that I don't just throw on clothes. I think about them and I want them to say something about me.
I'm old enough to remember when Suzette Charles became the first black model for the JC Penney catalog. It's a rather odd sort of thing to think about and I'm not exactly sure how to think about it. On the one hand, I could call myself petty and self-absorbed to consider that such a thing as having a black Miss America working for JC Penney to be a significant milestone in the socialization of African America. It is generally what I do to people carrying the torch of black political partisanship. Or I could wonder about the sort of society that is so racially sick and twisted that it took X years to finally put a black woman in its pages.
There's a third option. That is to consider what it is that Miss Suzette Charles had going for her that nobody previously had. That maybe in her small way she *was* exceptional enough to merit her achievement. After all, she was Miss America, you know, after the 'right stuff' chick defaulted. But then you have to consider that Charles jumped the shark and that Vanessa Williams really did have the right stuff.
So, what of homeboy? He's a model. What are we to make of a model of color working for Eddie Bauer? Are there hermeneutics worthy of pursuing?
Well, according to my worldview there are. Because I'm hedging my bets on the prospects of modernity in Western Civ. Which is to say that I perceive Europe to be in a state of cultural implosion and since we've elected Obama, it's catching. So to the extent that this Western Oriental Gentleman is supposed to represent something, he may actually represent nothing worth defending in the eyes of the next generation, should the Obama genre become more ascendant than Clinton. Now I know this isn't the sort of perfect symbolism. It is not, after all, LL Bean and this guy is two tones lighter than I, but at least it's personal. So those who are attracted to this sort of Uncle Tom flogging can have their opportunity to bash.
Surely there are NUDnicks around still.
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