Ella Fitzgerald Saved My Life

In my early teens I spent a lot of time by myself, alone.

As I have written before, as the youngest of four children I was the only one living at home with my parents during the several years leading up to when I went off to Saint Grottlesex.  We had recently moved to Connecticut from Washington, D.C., and into a beautiful, albeit glacial, modernist house at the end of a winding road on the top of a steep hill, with few nearby neighbors.  My parents' marriage had taken a serious turn for the worse by then, and they were barely on speaking terms.  They were often away, and I spent many evenings and weekends alone in our house.  Even when my parents were present physically, more often than not they were not present emotionally.  They had other things in their minds, I was later to learn.

If you've seen the film Ice Storm you'll have a fairly good idea of what my home life was like at the time.

At thirteen, then, I found myself rudderless in a strange new world where everything had suddenly gone haywire, and I was in a state of shock.  I had been very happy in Washington, where we lived in a rambling house in a neighborhood full of children my own age, and I had loved the country day school I attended there, where I was popular and had a close knit group of friends.  Now I found myself living in a strange modern house with parents who no longer spoke to each other in a strange and remote New England suburb where I knew no one, and I was attending a strange, decidedly mediocre school full of strange people who weren't all that interested in welcoming a newcomer into their ranks.  I felt awkward and alien, as if I'd been dropped there from the sky.  Given the physical isolation of the house where I lived and the fact that neither of my parents were at all inclined (or available) to shuttle me about to promote my social life, it was challenging for me to make any friends.  Besides, it was assumed that I'd be leaving for boarding school in a year or two, so why bother?

Nonetheless, it was a damnably solitary and lonely existence for Reggie, and he didn't care for it one bit.

But that's not the point of this story, Dear Reader.  No, it is the context for it.

Reggie is a resourceful chap, and he isn't one to sit around bemoaning his fate, crying into his lukewarm, curdled milk.  No, when things don't work out for Reggie as he planned, he finds a way to do something about it.  Which is exactly what I did.

I discovered Ella Fitzgerald.

The album that started it all . . .

One evening when I found myself, yet again, alone at home, I opened the door to the cabinet containing my parents' record collection, to see what I could find to amuse myself.  Both my parents were jazz aficionados, and I grew up listening to albums by Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane, and also Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, and Miriam Makeba.  My father was also a fan of Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me era recordings, and he loved Benny Goodman's later, jazz records, too.  Flipping through the albums that evening I came across Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook.  I didn't recall ever listening to it, and so I put it on the turntable of our KLH stereo sound system to give it a try.

It was on a KLH stereo sound system like this one, ca. 1966,
that I played the records that changed my life
Image courtesy of furnishmevintage.com

I've never been the same since.

I instantly fell in love with Miss Fitzgerald's lovely, rich, crystal clear voice, along with Nelson Riddle's lush arrangements, and I was transfixed.  I couldn't get enough of it!  I found half a dozen more of her recordings on the cabinet's shelves, and over the next weeks and months I played them over and over until I knew every word of every song, and I could sing along to Ella's marvelous and impeccable phrasing without missing a beat.

I soon found my way into the bins at record stores searching for more Ella Fitzgerald albums, and I amassed several dozen of them to add to my parents' collection.  I bought many of the other Great American Songbook albums that she recorded, including most of what she made under the Verve label, and also earlier albums she recorded under the Decca label.

While other thirteen year old boys I knew at the time were obsessed with the music of Cream and Jethro Tull, I was swingin' to the musical beat of Miss Fitzgerald, far away in my own little world.  I soon broadened my listening to include her peers, including Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith, Julie London, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, and I also developed an appreciation for the horn-filled Big Band recordings of the great bandleaders of the 1940s.  This was the music that came to define my teenage years and that I continue to enjoy today, along with more contemporary fare.

I consider those few lonely years I spent in Connecticut as a lad as fortunate ones, for it was then that I was introduced to—and took to heart—the sublime music and superb vocal performers of the pre-rock and roll Great American Songbook.  Listening to it transported me away from my solitary existence into a sophisticated, grownup world of swell nightclubs, swinging orchestras, vocal champagne, the shimmer of romance, and the glorious singing of the incomparable Miss Ella Fitzgerald, the most talented popular female vocalist of the twentieth century.

This is my absolute favorite Ella Fitzgerald album.
I play it at least once or twice a month

My love affair with Ella Fitzgerald has been a life-long one, and has continued unabated since I first came across that Cole Porter songbook album more than forty years ago.  I was fortunate to see Miss Fitzgerald in concert three or four times, first as an undergraduate at Yale in the nineteen seventies, when she was still relatively in her prime, and last at Carnegie Hall in the nineteen nineties, when she was a very old and fragile lady.  I will always treasure the memories of those concerts.

Thank you, Miss Ella Fitzgerald, for befriending a young Reggie all those years ago, and for giving him so much pleasure then, and ever since.

Reggie's Reflections on "Ivy Style"

Boy and I spent this past weekend running around New York attending exhibitions and shows, shopping for clothes, and eating out in expensive restaurants.  We had a lovely time, Dear Reader.

The brochure for the "Ivy Style" exhibition
at the Museum at FIT

One of the reasons we decided to stay in the city instead of making our usual trek north to Darlington House was to take in the "Ivy Style" exhibition at the Museum at FIT.  As most of the readers of this blog likely know by now, FIT has mounted an exhibit that chronicles the evolution of a style of men's clothing, originally known as the "Ivy League Look," from its origins on the American campuses of Princeton, Harvard, and Yale (among others) in the first decades of the twentieth century up through the present day.  For those of us who are interested in clothing, style, and social history (and who isn't?) the exhibit is more than worth a visit.

The window at the Museum at FIT
advertising the "Ivy Style" exhibition
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

There has been much written about the "Ivy Style" exhibit in the media and on the men's "trad" clothing blogs, and it takes its name from one of the most popular of those blogs, written by Christian Chensvold.  Mr. Chensvold was involved in mounting the exhibit and is a contributor to the show's entertaining, thought-provoking, and surprisingly academic catalog.  Boy and I were invited to attend the opening of the exhibit by Thomas Cary of the Cary Collection, who lent many of the accessories featured in the exhibit, but we were, to my disappointment, unable to attend.

A brochure published by FIT showing
a Princeton blazer from the "Ivy Style" exhibit

In any event, I very much wanted to see the exhibit, and I am pleased that I did.  I am heartened that the style of men's clothing featured in it is considered worthy of a curated show at FIT and that there is a growing re-appreciation for the classic American Ivy League men's style in today's fashion circles.

One of the window displays at the Museum at FIT
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

Of course Ralph Lauren has been mining this particular vein for decades, but I am hoping this exhibit, along with the chorus of bloggers who have been championing Ivy (or Trad) style in recent years, will prompt yet even more interest among young men in this country in appreciating the integrity of dressing well again.  Hey guys, it's actually cool to wear a jacket and a tie on a weekend!

The Quadrangle section of the "Ivy Style" exhibition
Image courtesy of the Museum at FIT

The exhibit includes a catalog/book of essays by luminaries in the industry that is chock-full of photographs and illustrations from vintage periodicals and sales brochures.  It is a visual delight!

The exhibition's catalog, photographed on
one of Boy's J. Press tweed jackets
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

I've flipped through the catalog/book (published by Yale University Press) a couple of times, mainly focusing on the photographs for now, although I did take the time to read Mr. Chensvold's enjoyable interview of Richard Press, the grandson of the founder of J. Press—the venerable and iconic men's clothing store in New Haven, Connecticut, that did much to popularize the Ivy style.

The University Shop section of the exhibition
Image courtesy of the Museum at FIT

The exhibition is divided into a half a dozen or so themes, ranging from "the Quadrangle," to "the Dormitory," and my personal favorite, "the University Shop," shown in the preceding photograph.

"For God, For Country, and For Yale"
Image courtesy of the Antique Athlete

While I certainly enjoyed attending the exhibit, I had the eerie feeling while doing so that I was spending my time there staring at my own navel.  It was all very familiar to me, and much of the clothing on display could have come from the closets and cupboards of the men in my own family.  My roots in the Ivy League go back a number of generations, mostly at Yale, where my grandfather Darling, my father, and I and my brother were all fortunate to attend as undergraduates.

A postcard of Yale in the 1940s
From the collection of Reggie Darling

It was at Yale that I came to fully understand the true allure and iconographic significance of the Ivy style of dressing.  While my prep school experience at Saint Grottlesex prepared me for Yale (in many ways), it was only upon my arrival in New Haven that I came to truly appreciate the splendor of traditional Ivy League dressing.  I came to Yale as a boy, and I left it as a man.

My father and his freshman classmates in Branford College at Yale,
taken in the fall of 1940.  FD is standing in the second row on the far right
Image courtesy of Frecky Darling

When my father was an undergraduate at Yale in the early 1940s, he was clothing obsessed.  Letters written at the time to his parents in Grosse Pointe (which my grandparents saved and which I read many years later) were full of entreaties from him for yet more funds to purchase the clothing and sartorial accessories he felt were imperative in order to fit in with the smart crowd with which he ran at Yale.

I particularly liked these striped blazers from the 1920s
Image courtesy of Funky President

For my father's Yale 25th reunion, held in June 1969, I remember that all of his returning classmates were given blue-and-white striped blazers similar to the ones shown in the preceding photograph.  However, the blazers handed out were made of paper, like the Andy Warhol soup can paper dresses that were a craze at the time.  What I would give to have one of those blue-and-white striped paper blazers today!

My grandfather Darling's prep school alumni
blazer, ca. 1930, worn by Boy Fenwick
Photograph by Reggie Darling

One of my most treasured possessions is my Grandfather Darling's blazer from the English public school he briefly attended before Yale; I am showing it in the previous photograph.  As the "Ivy Style" exhibit notes, much of the clothing adopted by American Ivy League undergraduates in the early twentieth century had its inspiration in England.  But it became softer, less military, and less buttoned-up when it made its way to this side of the pond.

A vintage J. Press brochure.  I remember poring over these as a college
undergraduate, plotting out my sartorial dreams
Image courtesy of the Ivy League Look

When I enrolled at Yale in the mid-1970s, the Ivy League look was in its death throes.  Even though New Haven still had a number of Ivy style purveyors ringing the campus, almost all of them closed when I was an undergraduate there, with the exception of  J. Press (still going strong) and Barrie Ltd. (long-since closed).

Tweed jackets from J. Press and other purveyors of the type worn
by my father, my brother, and me in the 1970s and 1980s,
as displayed in the "Ivy Style" exhibition
Image courtesy of Vim and Vigor

My father used to let me charge clothes on his account at J. Press from time to time when I was an undergraduate.  Nothing crazy, mind you.  A sport jacket here, a couple of shirts there, some gray flannels, and a Shaggy Dog sweater or two.  Just enough to keep me out of rags, I suppose . . .

A sheaf of my old school ties, mostly bought
at J. Press and Brooks Brothers over the years
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

My roommate and best friend at Yale, William "Willie" Octavius Koenig IV, and I were among the handful of fellows in our class at Yale who appreciated the old Ivy League look from the 1950s and 1960s, and we spent a lot of our free time (and most of our disposable incomes) at J. Press making pests of ourselves.  One of the salesmen there, a fellow named Gabe, used to take us in the back room of the store and let us buy end-of-stock vintage shirts and ties from days gone by.  Gabe used to sell clothes to my father, too, whenever he came to town.  Willie and our friends used to call J. Press "the Squeeze" in those days, a play on its name and a comment on the injury that frequenting it did to our meager undergraduate bank accounts.

My most treasured white bucks, bought for me by my
brother Frecky from Barrie Ltd. for my twenty-first birthday
Photograph by Boy Fenwick

I was something of a throwback when I was an undergraduate at Yale.  Although I was happy that it had gone co-ed by the time I arrived there, and many of my classmates came from backgrounds different from mine—ones that didn't include prep school educations and legacy Yale histories—there was part of me that wished I had been born at a time when I would have attended Yale when it was still all male and more homogeneous and full of people like me, when people still dressed like the undergraduates shown in the following photograph from the 1950s that appears in the catalog from the "Ivy Style" exhibit.

Yale students leaving a university building, 1950s
Image courtesy of Ivy Style

But I didn't, and it wasn't, and they didn't, and that's more than okay with me.

There were still vestiges of that old Yale when I went there, though.  Although official dress codes had been abandoned by the university during the previous decade, undergraduate men during my time at Yale in the 1970s were still expected to wear jackets and ties to university-sponsored events, such as receptions at the president's house or athletic dinners.  And, as a member of one of Yale's undergraduate singing groups (and a highly social person to boot), I routinely found myself donning a jacket and tie at least several nights during the week.  I also owned a tuxedo and a set of tails when I was an undergraduate there, and I had occasion to wear them, too.

Evening wear from the first decades of the 20th
century, as seen in the "Ivy Style" exhibit
Image courtesy of Everything Just So

During my senior year at Yale, when I was a member of the Whiffenpoofs, we spent a week or so traveling with the Yale Glee Club on a Midwestern tour over the Christmas holiday break, visiting places like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Detroit.  At the end of the tour, during the wrap-up dinner, I was given a gag award for being the "Preppiest Guy" on the tour, much to Willie Koenig's irritation (he felt he was gypped out of that recognition).  I wish I still had the certificate—that and a lot of other things from those happy, golden, bygone days . . .

The Library section of the "Ivy Style" exhibition
Image courtesy of the Museum at FIT

After I graduated from Yale and moved to New York to begin my Wall Street career, I pretty much stopped going to J. Press, even though it had an outpost in the city.  I missed Gabe from my undergraduate days, and the more urban, corporate Brooks Brothers seemed to me to be the more appropriate place to outfit myself as a junior banker than my old haunt of tweedy J. Press.

A page from a Brooks Brothers catalog

from the 1980s

Image courtesy of Evolution of a Gentleman

It was not until I was in my forties that I found my way back to the Squeeze again.  I'll never forget the time I walked into the old store on 44th Street, the one around the corner from Brooks, and how I almost started to vibrate when I tried on the same suits and jackets there that I remembered my father wearing.  Here I was, all grown up, slipping my arms into the very same tweed jackets and worsted suits that my father wore when he was the same age as I had become . . .

Getting fitted for a classic J. Press tweed jacket, 1950s
Image courtesy of Life Images

Not surprisingly, I still mostly outfit myself from the likes of J. Press and Brooks Brothers.  I also shop at specialty stores that sell traditional men's clothing and accessories inspired by the Ivy League style, in some cases updated for a more modern sensibility.   I like the look, I feel comfortable in it, and it is one that is appropriate for men of all ages to wear.

Ivy League undergraduates of the 1960s
Image courtesy of Take Ivy

In closing, I very much enjoyed attending the "Ivy Style" exhibition at the Museum at FIT, and I encourage you, Dear Reader, to be sure to see it, too, before it closes in January.

A brochure for an upcoming "Ivy Style" symposium
at the Museum at FIT

For those of my readers who happen to be in New York in early November, FIT will be hosting a two-day symposium on Ivy Style on the 8th and 9th that is sure to be of interest.  My friend and fellow blogger, the highly entertaining and mischievously amusing Maxminimus, is scheduled to appear in the gathering's closing round-table discussion, "Blogging About Ivy," which—I am sure—will be one of the symposium's more memorable gab-fests.

Who knows, you just might even run into Reggie there, too . . .

"Ivy Style" will be on view at the Museum at FIT in New York City through January 5, 2013.

Saint Grottlesex Made Me Who I Am Today

Reggie is a firm believer in the benefits of a college preparatory boarding school education.  He feels most fortunate to have attended boarding school himself, and he believes that the experience of having done so made him the man he is today.  He believes that he is a better person for it, and better off than he would have been had he remained at home during his high school years.

But probably not for the reasons that a number of his readers might assume . . .

One of the buildings at Saint Paul's School
Founded 1856

Reggie grew up in a family where attending boarding school was the expected educational path to college.  Both of his parents had attended such schools, as had their parents before them, and it was understood that he and his siblings would follow in their footsteps.  It was what people of our class and background did.

A view of Saint Mark's School
Founded 1865

Reggie is the youngest of four children.  As a boy he watched with both interest and ambivalence as his older sisters and brother left home before him to attend boarding school.  He found it interesting because they were embarking on a journey that he was expected to someday follow, and he was ambivalent because he (mostly) missed their company when they were gone.  Reggie also found them to be near strangers when they returned home during school breaks, as they were different from how he remembered them.  They had become more worldly.

Over time Reggie looked forward to leaving home to attend boarding school, too.  It seemed like an adventure to him and the opening to a whole new world on the way to adulthood.

An aerial view of Saint George's School
Founded 1896

By the time Reggie reached ninth grade he was the only one of the children in his family left living at home during the school year.  While he had at times as a boy wished that he had been an only child—for the reasons that many children do—he found that when it actually came time for him to be the only one at home with his parents it wasn't the idyllic, cozy experience he had daydreamed about.

For by then ours was a less-than-happy household.  My parents' marriage had sputtered into a loveless stalemate, and when they were around at the same time, which wasn't all that often, they were barely on speaking terms with each other.  They were exhausted in their relationship and self-absorbed in their own lives, and they weren't all that interested anymore in the demands of parenting.  It's not that they were overtly neglectful of me, it's just that they didn't have much time or attention left over for me.  I was pretty much left on my own to fend for myself.

The gothic chapel at Groton School
Founded 1884

It was a solitary and lonely existence for young Reggie, with little structure or direction.  And it was a particularly frustrating one for him, too, because he is, by nature, a social animal, and he loves being around other people and in the thick of things.  Reggie is most definitely not a loner.  He likes being at the party.

When the subject of my applying to boarding schools came up I was stunned to hear my father, FD, say that he didn't think it was necessary for me, and wouldn't I prefer to stay at home?  The prospect of spending the next three years alone at home with my remote and distracted parents and attending the suburban country day school I was going to at the time was appalling to me!  So I mounted a concerted campaign to turn the tide.  I was determined to get the Hell out of Dodge and get on with my life, and I saw going away to boarding school as my ticket for doing so.

A view of a dormitory (or "house") at Middlesex School
Founded 1901

Through incessant cajoling, unbecoming near-tantrums, and never-ending churlish, surly behavior on my part I was able to convince my parents that it would be far better to get me out of the house and that everyone would be happier with me away at boarding school.  While I didn't get into Exeter, which was my first choice and where my brother, Frecky, had gone before me, and I was waitlisted at Hotchkiss, where FD had gone, I was admitted by a number of what my father rather snidely referred to at the time as "the lesser boarding schools," including one of the Saint Grottlesex schools.

I didn't get in to Exeter, much to my regret at the time

For those of my readers who may not be familiar with the term, Saint Grottlesex refers to a group of five college preparatory boarding schools established in New England in the latter half of the nineteenth century, all affiliated with the Episcopal Church.  The schools are Saint Paul's, Saint Mark's, Saint George's, Groton, and Middlesex—collectively known as Saint Grottlesex.  Which one of them I attended doesn't really matter, but what does matter, at least for me, is that when I arrived there I found myself, much to my relief, and then joy, in an environment where I now had boundaries that made sense to me, where there was a definite routine I had to follow—whether I cared to or not—where I was challenged intellectually, academically, athletically, and socially, and where hard work and determination to succeed were actually recognized and rewarded by those in a position of authority.  It also provided me with a religious education and framework grounded in the protestant Episcopal church that has been a sustaining force in my life ever since.  All pretty good stuff, indeed.

I didn't get in to Hotchkiss, either

Another aspect of boarding school that I benefitted from is that it was (at the time, at least) a sink or swim environment where there was no mollycoddling of the students, who were expected to get with the program, and where slacking off was not tolerated.  Saint Grottlesex wasn't exactly a cold-shower-and-fifty-pushups-before-breakfast kind of school, but it was a rigorous enough place where one was expected to learn and abide by the school's social, academic, and athletic codes and hierarchies.  I quickly realized upon my arrival that I had entered a whole new league and that I needed to rapidly acclimate myself to the rhythms of the place or I would find myself sitting on the sidelines, which is where I most decidedly did not want to be.  Fortunately, through a combination of hard work, perseverance, and the helpful mentoring of one or two of the school's admirable schoolmasters (that's what they called the teachers there), I was able to learn and master the skills I needed to successfully navigate Saint Grottlesex's highways and byways.  I emerged from its halls a better disciplined, better adjusted, and far better socialized person than I would have been had I not gone there.

Some of my readers may have assumed at the outset of this post that I was going to write that I most appreciated going to boarding school because it provided me with entrée to an elite and socially advancing world and paved the way for my Ivy League education and a career on Wall Street.  While I will admit that these may, in some cases, be pleasant side benefits of such an education and experience, it is most decidedly not why I am most grateful for having gone to boarding school.  No, it is because attending Saint Grottlesex was a lifeline to me—as it was to many of my schoolmates who also came from less-than-happy homes.  It freed me from a difficult and horizon-limiting situation at home and gave me the framework, support, and tools for managing my life's journey that I was not getting from my parents or at the school I was attending when I lived with them, and that I desperately hungered for at a vulnerable and formative time in my life.

And for that I am most fortunate and grateful.

All vintage postcards, with the exception of the ones of Saint Mark's School and Hotchkiss School, courtesy of CardCow.com; Saint Mark's and Hotchkiss postcards courtesy of USGenWeb Archives

My Lifelong Love Affair with Gucci Loafers

I don't remember when I got my first pair of Gucci loafers.  I know that it was when I was at prep school in the mid-1970s, at Saint Grottlesex, either during my junior or my senior year.  But I can't exactly pinpoint the date.  It's been so long that I just don't remember.

The iconic, classic Gucci loafer

Gucci loafers.  I'm referring to the classic, old-fashioned, pre-Tom-Ford-era ones, with snaffle-bits, favored by slippery-slope investment bankers, louche Euro-trash, and the denizens of Kennedy-era Southampton and Palm Beach and their social and stylistic offspring.  Footwear fashions may come and go, but the classic Gucci loafer remains essentially unchanged for more than half a century, and rightly so, because it is a highly profitable mainstay of the firm's footwear empire.  Leaders at Gucci blessedly know not to kill the golden goose of the House of Gucci.  They might play with it, as they do, by offering variations on it, but they haven't yet killed the original.  And I hope they never do, at least during my lifetime, as I plan on wearing the classic Gucci loafer to my grave . . .

Gucci loafers have been a staple of my footwear wardrobe ever since I first slipped my feet into a pair as a teenager, my fevered heart pounding with anticipation that, yes, my dream of owning a pair was finally coming true.  I had coveted Gucci loafers for long enough that when it came time for me to actually try on a pair to buy I felt like Cinderella confronted with the glass slipper brought 'round after the ball.  I knew they were meant to be mine.

A 1970s preppy hottie, wearing Gucci loafers
Photograph courtesy of Google Images

I had to put up a fight to get them, though.  Neither of my parents wore Gucci loafers when I was growing up, and they disapproved of them.  My parents were far too conservative to wear such shoes, and considered them flashy, shockingly expensive, and downright frivolous, given who wore them—people of suspect morals and spendthrift ways.

People just like me, as it turned out.

I first became aware of Gucci loafers when I went away to boarding school.  It was there, at Saint Grottlesex, that I encountered them on the feet of the fast-living, unnervingly sophisticated, more-than-worldly, Manhattan-raised offspring of families with boldfaced names, limitless resources, and house accounts (remember those?) in stores stocked with expensive European-made goods.  Remember, this was back in the 1970s, long before every major city in America became over-retailed with specialty stores and shopping malls clogged with purveyors of luxury goods, all to be had with just a Visa card and a credit line.  In those days it was hard to find a store in America outside of Manhattan that stocked Gucci loafers.

The flagship Gucci store in Manhattan, before it moved to the Trump Tower
Photograph courtesy of Google Images

My schoolmates at Saint Grottlesex who wore Gucci loafers (a relatively small minority of the school's population, I admit) seemed impossibly glamorous and sophisticated to me, and I wanted to be like them.  And that meant I needed to ratchet up my wardrobe in order to fit in with them.  I needed a pair of Gucci loafers.

Douglas Fairnbanks, Jr., wearing Gucci loafers
Photograph courtesy of Google Images

"You want what?!" I remember MD asking me when I told her I wanted a pair of Guccis, instead of the much more reasonable and mundane Bass Weejuns she was prepared to buy me to take back to boarding school for the fall semester of my junior year.  Except that we didn't call it "Junior Year" at Saint Grottlesex; we called it the "Fifth Form," in the traditions of the English public schools that Saint Grottlesex (and others like it) followed.

"Are you crazy?!" she said. "Have you any idea how much those ridiculous shoes cost?!  Forget it!"

Brand-new and begging to be worn . . .

At the time I didn't know how much Gucci loafers cost, except that they were expensive (they had to be, considering those I knew who wore them).  But I was determined to own a pair, despite my mother's objections and her unwillingness to foot the bill.  I don't know whether it was then or within the next year, but I somehow scraped together enough money to buy myself a pair—black leather ones with brushed brass snaffle-bits.  I was beside myself with excitement when I brought the shoebox home, the forbidden treasure nestled inside, wrapped in tissue paper.  And when I slipped them on my feet, alone in my bedroom, I felt flushed with pleasure, but nervous, too, knowing that I had done something rash and extravagant and that my parents would disapprove when they discovered what I had done.

Even though I took no end of heat from MD for squandering what little money I had on a pair of shoes I could ill afford, I was thrilled to have them.  I felt as if I'd crossed over to the other side, to where the fast and exotic kids from New York at Saint Grottlesex lived and played.  I no longer felt like a suburban hick, staring through the window at the fun happening inside.  I was inside.  Well, sort of—at least I now had the same shoes as those inside wore . . .

The Gucci store in Florence, in the 1950s
Photograph courtesy of Google Images

And I've been happily wearing Gucci loafers ever since, thank you.  In fact, I'm wearing a pair of them right now, as I write this essay for you, Dear Reader.

The classic Gucci loafer is deliciously comfortable and marvelous looking in a sporty, horsey way, and pretty much "goes" with anything, in my view.  I wear them with suits, with khakis, with jeans, and with shorts.  I draw the line with black tie, though, but I didn't used to when I was younger, before I owned embroidered velvet slippers, or Belgians, or kidskin dancing pumps to go with my evening wear.  But that's another story for another evening, I suppose.

I wear Gucci loafers everywhere: to the office, while walking the dog, out to eat in the city, or knocking about in the country on a summer weekend's afternoon.  I wear them so often that I sometimes absentmindedly find myself wearing them while engaged in impromptu outdoor weekend chores or projects—hopefully (but not always) beat-up old ones, and not a fresh pair, just brought home from the store.  In cool weather I wear Gucci loafers with socks, but in warm weather I mostly wear them sockless—that is, assuming my ankles have the barest blush of a tan, a requirement to carry the sockless look off, in my view.

A mess of our worn-out Gucci loafers

Between the two of us, Boy and I own dozens and dozens of pairs of Gucci loafers in various stages of wear.  It is almost embarrassing.  Part of the reason we have so many pairs, though, is because we haven't gotten rid of our worn-out ones when we've bought fresh ones to replace them.  Boy has a number of what he calls "Gardening Guccis" that he keeps at Darlington, shoes that are so worn and scuffed that they really aren't suitable to wear off the property, but which are wonderfully comfortable and admirably suited to wearing while—well—gardening or doing painting projects.

Boy's mud-caked Gardening Guccis

In addition to his collection of classic Gucci loafers, Boy also has a number of pairs of what he calls his "Ghetto Guccis," as they were clearly designed to appeal to the Hip Hop set and are much fun to wear at parties.

A party favorite in three different colors of leather!

Me?  I stick with the old-fashioned, tried-and-true, classic Gucci loafers with the snaffle-bits, in either brown or black leather.  Sometmes I might get a pair with red and green ribbon beneath the bits, or I'll try some sleek driving shoes; more recently I bought a pair with bamboo "bits" instead of metal snaffle-bits.

The classic, with a twist

I even have a couple of pairs from the 1990s that were so of-the-moment when I bought them as to be unwearable today.  They languish in my closets, unworn.  Most of the Gucci loafers I own, though, are the classic style that looks good on the feet of anyone from a fourteen-year-old boy (should he be so lucky), out goofing around with friends, to an eighty-year-old codger out for a swell lunch with a scrumptious niece or granddaughter.

The look, the dog, the loafer . . .

In short, I love me my Gucci loafers.  And I'll never stop wearing them, either.

Tell me, when did you get your first pair of Gucci loafers?

All photographs, except where noted, by Boy Fenwick

One's Old School Ties, and Thoughts About Dress Codes In General

Now that the holidays are (finally) behind us, Reggie feels free to return to topics of more sustained interest to him than pretty bows and ornaments.  He's had a bit too much sugar in his diet, if you know what I mean . . .

Several months ago, the inestimable Admiral Cod wrote a thought-provoking post about old school ties that sent Reggie searching his closets and drawers to see what neckties he still owns of the schools, both preparatory and collegiate, that he attended.  And he came up with rather a lot of them.  It's not surprising that Reggie held on to so many of such ties over the years, since they are not exactly the kind of thing that one is inclined to throw away or send off to the jumble sale at one's local parish.  Heavens, that one should come across an unsuitable stranger wearing one's old school tie!

Pompey whizzing by Reggie's old school ties

When Reggie was a schoolboy he attended private and preparatory schools that required their students to wear uniforms or abide by dress codes.  From the time he entered fourth grade through when he graduated from prep school he was expected to wear a jacket and tie to school.  No questions asked.

Saint Grottlesex School ties

Reggie never found the wearing of uniforms or abiding by dress codes as a lad to be an unpleasant or restricting requirement.  Not only did they make his sartorial choices easier (or did away with them altogether), but they helped provide him with a greater sense of community with the other students he went to school with.  As an adult he has come to further appreciate that school (and other) uniforms and dress codes are a sign of respect for the institutions and places in which they are worn.

Sherborne School ties

Even though there was no formal dress code at Yale by the time he enrolled there in the mid-1970s, the wearing of a jacket and tie was expected of male undergraduates when attending university functions or other organized gatherings.  Reggie found himself donning a jacket and tie at least several times a week when he was an undergraduate at Yale.

When Reggie joined the workforce after college, taking a job in a large bank on Wall Street in New York City, men were expected to wear a suit and tie to the office each and every day of the week.  And so it was for the next fifteen years or so, until all Hell broke loose and "business casual" took over like so many canker sores.

Yale College ties

Reggie is a firm believer in the positive benefits of students and employees abiding by dress codes, and he rues the day that so many schools and places of employment relaxed or did away with such requirements altogether.  He would far rather see a young man wearing a jacket and tie in a lecture hall or his place of employment than one wearing an oversized golf shirt and ill-fitting, no-iron khakis.  Or—even worse—a tee shirt and blue jeans.

Yale Whiffenpoof ties

But Reggie isn't the only one who feels this way.  In the last several years there has been a movement in financial and other firms in New York City to reinstate the daily wearing of suits and ties in the office.  In fact, the Investment Bank where Reggie works on Park Avenue has recently re-instituted a policy that requires its client-facing male employees to wear suits and ties to work every day, at least during the cooler months of the year.  It's thought to be more respectful of the institution, our clients, and one's colleagues.  And it brings a level of discipline and professionalism to the firm that reflects well upon it.

Needless to say, Reggie is rather happy with this development.  And he would, of course, be overjoyed should his firm require men to start wearing proper hats again, too . . .

All photographs by Boy Fenwick