Bloomingdales attracts attention

Clever email titles will do it every time:




This has me wondering - is the opposite of most major: least major, most minor, or least minor? Chime in!

A wardrobe malfunction and some further thoughts on legible clothing

First, a HUGE SHOUT-OUT to xoxo and her delightful blog Will Work 4 Shoes, for starting off my day in a condition of utter delight. If you haven't seen xoxo's post about the LaRedoute website/catalog and its inadvertent inclusion of something more than scenery and less than typical North American beachwear, go over there right now and have a read.

LaRedoute is an enormous French mail-order catalog and website business.

I've never ordered from LaRedoute, but friends who have ordered, say, sheets or picnic baskets have regaled me with tales of arbitrary and capricious customer service, and there's enough of that going around in New York that I don't need to look elsewhere. I've been familiar with the catalog for years though, ever since a desperate and creative French teacher used it in vocabulary lessons (saving the bracketing of desperate and creative for another post, possibly for when I'm feeling desperate).
LaRedoute doesn't have a dedicated cult following, clothing sales are mainly outside of Paris, and the most popular sizes sold are in a range of US 12 to 18, although you can easily find smaller sizes. Larger sizes, too. And guess what? They also have a Designer/Collection department.

The LaRedoute web site recently featured this tee,

which was removed after much ridicule and indignation, reportedly not because of the puzzling exhortation "Keep the move," but because in the white background motif lurks another direction: "Enjoy holydays." I was reminded of a J.Crew "holidays" tee which directed those who beheld it "Voir la joie," or "to see the joy," or possibly "See the joy," but in the tone of  a user's manual or old-fashioned recipe.

I figured if there was one howler in marketing/production chez LaRedoute, there might be others, so I scrolled through the site.





 I've ranted about the awkward use of almost-French on tees like this and and also on not-quite-Italian on tees. None of these wearable bloopers are cheap, so it's not even a question of supporting the ravenous family of the tee-shirt guy on the corner or in the stadium parking lot.

I guess Bushfire has something to do with College Academy W?

And of course most of us, while traveling, have seen tees bearing indecipherable

exhortations or memories in not-English, that are sold to tourists, preferably when stoned.

When xoxo sent me to LaRedoute, I thought it was a good opportunity to see whether the trend to surrealism in grammar, usage and vocabulary had reached the solid, respectable citizens of France. Reader, it has.
All of the pics in this post were copied from the LaRedoute website.

Including this one, which is not only surrealistic

but anachronistic and politically incorrect.

Oh, the canvas shopping bag at the beginning of this post is also LaRedoute.

You're wondering, what is French shopping? French shopping is to New York shopping as rugby is to football (soccer). It's like war games gone bad, the enemy is - unquestionably -the store's personnel.

By way of example, here's a conversation that took place about a year ago between me and a sales associate in Printemps:

Moi: Good morning, Madame, I am so sorry to disturb you, but would you be kind enough to tell me if this coat is available in a size 38 or 40? (US 6 or 8 or 10, depending on manufacturer) 

SA, looking away from me into infinity: We don't carry large sizes. 

Moi: Ah, non? So then where do you shop?

heh, heh, heh. Yes, it's a rough game, and you take your chances when you feed me lines.

when the going gets tough the tough go shopping

The book I've been reading lately is called Ignorance Is Blitz. It is a collection of wonderful mistakes that college students made on papers and exams in History 101 at colleges where the author and his friends taught. The kids made the mistakes because they slept during the lecture, were lazy, didn't study, or were just plain dumb. Read separately, or even a few at a time, these items are hysterically funny. For instance: "Death rates (from the Bubonic Plague) in many villages exceeded 100%." Taken together, though, these gems cease to be funny and scare the dickens out of me. These were written by people whose parents - or worse, taxpayers like me via subsidized loans - were paying for them to learn things. And guess what? These kids are over 18. They can vote. Our country will be in even more serious trouble if these kids ever learn enough geography to find a polling place.

One thing these kids don't know: who was Nathan Hale? Canadians, you are not excepted, because if I learned who Major Andre was, you could know about Nathan Hale. Just in case, know that Nathan Hale was a very young schoolmaster from Connecticut who joined up to fight on the side of the Americans in the Revolutionary War, had a gift for ciphers and language that came to the attention of the chain of command, and was made a spy. He was a very successful spy, until his luck ran out, and the British put him to death by hanging. He was asked if he had any last words. He said, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Someone present at the awful event was moved by this statement, and wrote to Nathan Hale's family (or commander, not clear) so that his sentiment would be remembered. And it has been. It used to be part of every patriotic holiday: someone would either be dressed as Nathan Hale, blue coat, tan pants and buckled shoes to march with a fife and drum corps, or would have celebrated too much and would make Nathan Hale's last speech and pass out, or would - you get the picture. The guy was a hero and a patriot to the end.

NOT A SIGN
YOU WILL SEE
IN NEW YORK

I didn't think about Nathan Hale much after 7th grade until September 11, 2001, brought him to mind again. I was walking around the area I loosely call "the neighborhood" and noted that stores were opening, the dry cleaner was taking in clothes, the nail parlor had a "Back On Friday" sign in the window. And then I passed the Banana Republic. There are many Banana Republic branches in our town, you can have a nice tour of New York going from one BR to another looking for your size. This particular BR is on the

NATHAN HALE DELIVERS
HIS FAMOUS LAST WORDS

site where a famous restaurant, née a coaching inn and tavern, stood for literally centuries. The restaurant was most recently called The Sign of The Dove, and everybody's parents remembered a romantic meal there. Now there's a large apartment building with a BR on the ground floor. Sick transit glorious Monday, I muttered to the bus that didn't stop for me, and I went back across the street for a closer look at the BR. The plaque you see at the top of this post comforted me. The spot where Nathan Hale (more than likely) met his martyrdom now hosts a middle-level chain store. First I was outraged, and then I was comforted. Business moves on, New York keeps going. The Banana Republic is still there, and so is the plaque. And the idiot who asked whether Nathan Hale was my cousin when I told this story at a dinner party, is still eligible to vote. Although he has no idea why, as a born and bred New Yorker, I always reply "Early and often" when someone asks me on Election Day if I've voted yet.

Just can't resist another quote from Ignorance Is Blitz: "The British defeated the French from 1793 to 1815, but at gastronomic cost." Hm, maybe the kid's got something.  Do I detect a teensy ray of hope for the future?