The first time I ever set foot in the Brooks Brothers flagship store on Madison Avenue and 44th Street, I was invariably with my mother. As an Upper East Side brat attending a private elementary school of the sort that required the wearing of blue blazers, I was invariably there being fitted for same. Just a stone’s throw from Grand Central Station, Brooks Brothers was this hallowed Manhattan institution, frequented by monied captains of industry, and practically the Kaaba of all things “Preppy.” The store, just like the clothes it sold, exuded an unmistakable air of exclusivity, prestige and privilege. Seemingly erected on that corner not long after the settlement of the New World, Brooks Brothers was an iconic brand that became synonymous with old New York, almost as hallowed a place of worship as St. Patrick’s Cathedral just a few blocks away. As such, when I was a child, whenever I was taken there, I felt self-conscious, awed, undeserving and underdressed.
By the time I made it into my teens, I’d become not so enamored of the place, its pricey duds and the associations that were inexorably entwined with them. While Brooks Brothers clothes were impeccably well made, I largely wanted no part of that image or the mindset that espoused it. As both a cathedral of aspirational wealth and the uniform of the avaricious, Brooks Brothers started to represent everything I wanted to renounce. Somewhat ironically, there was a Madison Avenue record shop I’ve invoked here a few times that I regularly patronized in the early 80’s that was only a couple of doors up from Brooks Brothers. I was a thousand times more likely to be found blowing my dubiously earned allowance on LPs by The Clash and The Plasmatics there than ridiculously expensive neckties at Brooks Brothers just down the block.
But once an Upper East Side kid, always an Upper East Side kid, I guess. While my sartorial inclinations skewed largely towards all things black, augmented by band t-shirts and Chuck Taylors, there has always been a stubborn streak of inherent prepdom to my wardrobe. A former brother-in-law once described my style as one foot in CBGB and the other in Brooks Brothers. I think I resented him for it, at the time, but he pretty much summed it up.
In time, I gradually had a come-to-Jesus moment and reconciled my issues with Brooks Brothers, disregarding any remaining feelings of guilt or disdain upon treating myself to a snazzy jacket there in later life (it helped that, over the years, Brooks Brothers had branched out from its stodgier origins). My mindset, by this point, was that the clothes don’t make the man, they just help him look a little more presentable. Never was this more confirmed for me, however, than in July 2005.
It was a brutally hot day, and I was walking through midtown with my wife Peggy and then-baby-daughter Charlotte. Everyone was getting a little cranky from the heat until Peggy remembered she was carrying a Brooks Brother gift card and rightly assumed the nearby flagship store would be sumptuously air-conditioned. As such, we repaired to the palatial interiors of same to cool off and browse.
While pushing Charlotte’s umbrella stroller around tables draped with immaculate mandalas of pricey neckties, I heard Peggy remark behind me. “Check out that guy in the cowboy hat.” I glanced over and saw a tall gentleman with arms outstretched, presumably being fitted for what looked like a three-piece suit, and — indeed — sporting a jarringly incongruous, ten-gallon cowboy hat. I smirked, but then did a complete double-take.
The cowboy in question was Michael Gira, lead singer/primary mastermind behind SWANS.
So struck by the sight, I actually exclaimed, “Michael?” Through my friend Tod from Cop Shoot Cop, I’d actually met Michael Gira some years earlier, not that I was expecting him to remember me. He looked up and I just told him I was a big fan of his music. He smiled and told me I had a lovely family and got back to being fitted for his suit.
Peggy looked confused. I explained who the nattily-dressed and convivial cowboy was, taking pains to point out that he was the same man who wrote and recorded such zingy chestnuts as “Mother, My Body Disgusts Me” and “Raping a Slave,” which made Peggy look even more confused.
For me, though, the striking thing was that for Michael Gira, there is truly no more abjectly derisive and palpably base word than “consumer,” and yet here he was in the very plush, velvety lap of consumer culture. Now, maybe this was all a middle-finger to the face of that which he so abhors, but it certainly looked to me like he was enjoying himself and indulging. I don’t assume I’ll ever know the whole picture, there.
In any case, that episode totally absolved Brooks Brothers of much of its haughty intimidation for me. At the very least, it decimated any fleeting concerns about Brooks Brothers not being “punk” enough, or whatever.
The last time I went to Brooks Brothers, I went in looking for a Navy Pea Coat for my son. True to form, I found a nice one for Oliver that was a significant step up from the clunky one we’d gotten him at the Gap a year or two earlier and he went on to cherish it.
Today, the wife and I were back in midtown running an errand and found ourselves walking down Madison Avenue. We’d heard that Brooks Brothers was in trouble, but were still taken aback when, upon reaching that iconic corner of East 44th Street, we looked in and saw the flagship store closed, empty and gutted.
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