Saturday Night Casual or Car Wash Casual

The day of my mother's funeral, we spent New Year's Eve at the Holiday Inn in Wichita, Kansas. The huge center courtyard was the scene of a big party, and what caught my by then numb eyes, was that the girls were dressed in slinky black with stilletto heels and the guys wore their best jeans and bowling shirts. How they dress in sorta-small-town mid-continent, I decided.

Since then we have seen this women dress up, men dressed down all over, and who the hell knew that Wichita was on the cutting edge of fashion, New Year's Eve, 1989? Not moi.

Tonight at dinner, however, it was obvious that the girls have gone over to the men's way of dressing, which is to say, down, way, way down. Why would a woman wear a baggy t-shirt, baggy shorts and teva sandals to a nice restaurant on Saturday night? I don't know. The people in jeans weren't even wearing dark pressed jeans, but well, you know, wash the car jeans. Finally, two older (wouldn't you know) couples came in, with the men both wearing jackets and (gasp!) ties. Upped the tone considerable.

Folks wearing finery, even modest finery look festive. Folks wearing "wash the car" clothes look like, well, they look like they're going to wash the car after they eat.

Grapeshot grew up "out west" where even as a kid California sportswear was worn and appreciated and the most important thing in one's wardrobe was elegant casual clothes, even as evidenced by a squaw skirt and a concha belt. The East Coast (NYC excepted) has a weird attitude to dressing up. Dressing up is for church and work, if one must, and the rest of the time let's put on our wash the car duds. In the late 80's when our company went "business casual," even the women didn't know what to wear. I would like to know if anyone really wears resort casual anymore. Anyone under 60. Except on cruises, of course. Certain cruises.

The cats just wear clean fur every day and don't worry about such things. I scarfed down steak tartare (lovely), scallops, (lovlier) and something called whipped cheesecake that tasted like
panne cotta (loveliest). So, as usual, the diet begins tomorrow.

Toujours,


Grapeshot