Blazer-Focused
For as long as slang’s been slung, there’s always been at least one word going about which, having never meant ‘good’, it now does, entirely in order to confuse old duffers, outsiders and squares, until inevitably some up-and-coming up-and-comers come up and the little fuckers change it. This is, of course, Einstein’s Law of Bodacious Dynamics. Nobody knows who chooses what the next word will be. Probably the Zeitgeist himself does it with a bingo machine.
You know, of course, ‘bad’, ‘far-out’, ‘radical’, ‘groovy’, ‘wicked’, whatever. I remember it was ‘skill’ for one summer in 1980-something, and I swear it was ‘saucy’ for six months in the nineties, but don’t quote me on that as that was around the time I did acid in a chocolate factory and my memory might be on the fritz.
My reason for mentioning this is that I’m semi-sure that ‘iconic’ is a word-that-don’t-mean-good-but-does. I think this because I’ve seen it used a lot for things that are demonstrably not iconic. Or, it may just be the algorithmically whipped-up hyperbole of over-caffeinated marketing folk. Whichever way it is, since I’m keen to be as clear here as an infinite-pool full of Windolene, please be super-sure that when I say ‘iconic’ in a few seconds, I will mean the word in its original sense: i.e. fully, properly so, like Jesus on the Cross and the Hamburglar. (You’re welcome to use that as a band name.)
Here we go…
Iconic moments in movie history: the first time we see a dinosaur in Jurassic Park, Marilyn Monroe’s dress flapping about in The Seven Year Itch, Darth Vader not bothering to knock in Star Wars, Royale with Cheese. Universal iconography, all of them. But there’s also a none-universal iconic movie moment, in that it’s iconic only to me. One that still affects me the same way as that dinosaur up on her back legs in front of those slackjawed scientists does.
The specific film is That Touch of Mink from 1962, in which Cary Grant plays a millionaire, who we first see arriving home from a hard day’s millionairing. Being the olden days, and being Cary Grant, he’s dressed as superbly as a penguin’s best man. The moment goes thuswards: He comes through his front door, walks to his wardrobe, takes off his suit jacket, hangs it on a hanger. Then he takes a smart cardigan from another hanger and puts that on. Then he goes and chills out alone at home.
Doesn’t even loosen his tie.
My gob was as smacked as the arse of a 1950s schoolboy.
We twenty-first century occupants tend to get a shock when we see how well people used to dress for work: to go to the chip shop, down the pub on a Wednesday, up a ladder, to dig a hole; the way they used to dress down higher than we dress up. But to maintain that standard when slobbing about at home?
In that second I was Dr Alan Grant staring googly-eyed at that giant mooing Diplodocus, or I was the dude stood closest to Marilyn’s knickers when the 10:52 to Times Square went windily past. I had honestly never in my life witnessed anything like it. Such sky-high-standards of formalwear in a situation where no human judgement can possibly be served upon you.
I was reminded of this life-altering spectacle last week when I saw the 1960 Monroe film Let’s Make Love. Firstly there was a minor character similarly doing the cardigan + suit combo, looking sharper than a samurai’s bread knife. Secondly, this movie’s millionaire, played by Yves Montand, begins by dressing so far up he makes Cary Grant look like a sewer-dwelling bog-man. Then, goes the plot, he dresses like a poor bloke in order to fit in with some starving artists so that he can talk Marilyn Monroe into shagging him. It’s essentially a pervey version of Undercover Boss.
Dressing ‘like a poor bloke’ in this case means Yves still wearing a nice suit, just with a pre-owned jacket. One that fits perfectly and would easily get him past the door at a penguin’s wedding.
The direction I’m going here is not to complain about how scruffy you and I are right now, you with your covid-hangover social norms of working from home in pyjamas with three day old egg mcmuffin stains and that M&M still lodged in your nostril from your birthday last month, and me with my colander-socks and my bobbly ankle-swingy joggers I bought when I had a beer-belly growth spurt in 2019. No, you and I are doing okay, considering it all. Well done to us.
But it has made me think about standards. About my own reputation with myself and how that affects my work. Like why Steve Jobs insisted that the inside parts of Macs, which nobody would ever see, had to be in as pristeenly-perfect order as a pack of cards in an OCD clinic. Or why, even given your McStains and your nose M&M, you’re still wearing clean undies. You care about what you think of yourself, you do.
And let it be as clear as a flat Seven-Up, by the way, that I am not here to be snobbish. I’m a genuine, actual working class person who grew up in a council house and worked in a factory from the age of sixteen. I’m typing this in a Brummie accent (except when I wrote Yves Montand as I put a bit of Francais into it). So there is no horse here to be high on. Do whatever gets you through and you’ll be alright, my mate.
But Cary and Yves and their tailors and costumiers have sent me on a mission. It’s sparked something in me. It’s put firecrackers in my undercrackers. It’s put tiramisu in my toothpaste. I‘m inspired to cast off my big bobbly-joggers and, be fully assured, when I write each entry of this blog, I’ll be dressed like I’m going to that penguin’s wedding. A famous penguin. A penguin who’s marrying a princess. In Monaco. On a yacht.
Let’s see what happens.
NJH.