Moths in the Versace

In thirty years of being a corporate executive, you buy a lot of suits.  Buying suits, dress shirts, ties, "sensible" shoes and then dry cleaning and shining them are part of the costs of doing business in Manhattan's midtown.  In Soho, Dumbo or Chelsea, black jeans and black T's are the uniform, in the Village (East or West), torn jeans or camo is fine and there are your neighborhoods where leather is preferred.  But in midtown, it's suits. Lightweight suits for summer, wool suits for winter, khaki suits for traveling to the branches, "bankers" suits for board meetings, pinstripes for lawyer meetings, tuxedos for formal occasions (the boss's daughter's wedding) and a white dinner jacket (charity fund-raiser, worn once): this is the wardrobe of an upwardly mobile corporate executive, which I was.

Of course, every suit needs a few shirts to go with it and every shirt must have several matching ties. In a year of fifty weeks (two weeks vacation), you would need at least a dozen suits to cover the seasons, occasions and traveling required. I say at least a dozen- some sharp-dressed men would have many, many more.  If your weight varies, then suits for the skinny times and suits for the heavier times.  European travel requires even more suits, since fashion there is so different and appearing at an important function with a poor choice of suit is difficult to overcome.  (It's "one strike" against you, but there's no baseball in Europe.)  Over thirty years, that's a lot of suits.

Further, suits vary by status - as one is promoted, one must refresh the wardrobe to reflect the new paycheck, and one must not dress above or below one's rank. You can pay $200 for a suit or $2000 for a suit.  A dress shirt can be $20 at Daffy's or $200 at Barney's.  A tie can be $10 with pictures of golf hole flags on it, or $100 imported from Italy.  When you get that promotion from manager to Director, you can't wear the Daffy shirt and Hole Flag tie anymore.  Early on my career, I celebrated a promotion by buying three suits for $1000 - my promotion netted me $6000. For another promotion, on a business trip to Hong Kong, I ordered custom made suits and shirts, measured, fitted and finalized over a ten day visit. The order was three suits, six shirts, two extra pair of slacks and a navy blue blazer.  I bought five leather belts in the bazaar for $1 each (yes, $1.  Saw the same ones back in the US at $19.99 each.)  Now I could address a Board of Directors.

I developed a hobby of shopping for ties wherever I was shipped for a meeting.  I would wear the "San Francisco" tie I bought on Market Street when staff from San Francisco visited headquarters in midtown, likewise Houston, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, LA, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, etc. I visited the largest mall in America,  near Minneapolis, and bought one tie.  At a sample sale at the Merchandise Mart in Dallas, I bought ten imported silk ties for $49.  Some years, I made 40 business trips - and on each, a new tie came home with me, along with whatever other souvenirs I bought for the family.  Over a thirty year career, that's a spectrum of ties.

Living in the GNC, I don't have much use for Armani suits, Missioni ties or Micheal Kors shirts. When I went to Manhattan last week for a beautiful dinner at a fancy restaurant and a Broadway show, I wore jeans and a nice denim shirt I ironed myself.  For a moment, I considered wearing a suit and dismissed the idea as silly.

When you stop by for a visit, if you're interested, I can show you my suits in the storage space over the garage.  They're still in the cardboard wardrobe boxes the movers used to bring them to the GNC from the Concrete Jungle five years ago. We'll laugh at the moth holes in the $1000 Versace suit.