Thursday, April 01, 2010

Best From the Vaults

Mom emailed me something excellent yesterday:

"Grandpa Taylor had his first trip to NYC in Oct 1963, a medical meeting. He brought home a piece of video tape from his tour at Rockefeller Center. Video was the new thing. TV wouldn't have to be "live" anymore."


(Lady in blue, I dig your super-chill rail-lean.)


You people can have your Mad Men, I'll stick with Grandma's slides.

Look at Grandpa (who would have been 92 this weekend), he was always a 100% authentic, 100% sharp-looking guy. This makes me think of the present super-saturation of the internet by male fashion blogs and websites—so many dudes who used to fawn over tight t-shirts now trying to keep it real by taking it back to the old school, either dressing as guys who go camping or guys who dress sharp in the exacting manner of a bygone golden era of style—but the problem with all this man fashion is you'll always be an imitation, always a reference, always a sign but not the signified. As long as you're trying to be a 100% authentic, 100% sharp-looking dude (no matter how close you get or how good it looks) you're just going to be a tribute, a wink, a wish. If you weren't on a business trip in 1963 (or on a vacation to Yosemite) you'll never be on a business trip in 1963, as much as we all wish we were.

2 comments:

k said...

Amen! What always trips me out is that those clothes were the norm, not the outlier, seeker, free-to-be-me styles. That at one point it was normal for a businessman to wear shaggy hair, mutton chops and plaid pants. Or how the pendulum swings to make weird things acceptable then weird again. (My boss is wearing a Mulligrubs-orange button up shirt today.)

Nice pics, grandpa!

Ali said...

so you should probably just shop at the buckle.