Giorgio Armani and me

 

     I was never a Giorgio Armani kind of guy. First off, I wasn't rich. Second, I wasn't thin — a chunky endomorph in an Armani suit was a contradiction in terms.
     Third I had no taste. I liked corduroy. I wore beige khaki pants and baggy blue Oxford shirts with solid knit neckties loosened to sternum-level. On fancy occasions, I tightened the knot.
     Armani might have been my polar opposite. He defined the greed-is-good 1980s —  unstructured suit jackets of lush fabrics over elegant t-shirts. Money was almost meaningless to me — I cashed my paycheck and keep the currency in a fishbowl on my dresser, digging my hand in and taking some when I was low. Money bought stuff; it wasn't the barometer of my personal worth. That was what writing was for.
     That doesn't mean I didn't benefit from Armani. I did. He enriched my life in a way I hadn't thought about lately until the designer died in Milan Sept. 4, age 91.
     Once, in the late 1980s, I was grinding through my career as a night-shift nobody on the City Desk of the Chicago Sun-Times. I forget what got stuck in my craw — no doubt some passing spat with a long gone editor, stepping on my neck. They all were, in my estimation. "Not having a column," I used to say. "Is like being drowned."

      Not in hazy, abstract way, I'd continue, if anyone were listening. But like someone holding my head underwater and killing me.

   So I went to Marshall Field's — I did that a lot in those days, going to Field's State Street store to waste time, cool down, usually by walking through their furniture department, looking at the gorgeous Chippendale breakfronts and deep leather chairs. Going to Marshal Field's was free, and anonymous, and restorative. Somebody was buying this shit. Somebody was enjoying life. Maybe I would too, someday.
     I don't think I was alone — I recall my friend Cate being somehow involved, a memory she confirms, along its vague parameters.
     We went to the men's section, where I bought this Armani tie. Deep red. With this little yellow and black arrows. I think it cost $70, almost 40 years ago. A fabulous sum, no doubt smoothed by Cate's presence, goading me on: of course I must have that tie. I deserve it. She probably picked it out for me, or at least endorsed my selection.
     Need it I did, and every time I put it on, some of the cachet and power and mystery of Armani was transferred to me, by osmosis. I made its tiny little knot so many times that eventually the red silk wore away and the white lining showed through — not something that happens often with neckties, so either I wore it an awful lot, or it wasn't as high quality as it pretended to be.
     Even unwearable — even if it wasn't worn through, the knot was the size of a cherry, and as out-of-date as spats — I kept the tie. As a talisman. I liked seeing it, hanging there, deep red with that little arrow motif. I had class, to paraphrase Terry Malloy, I was a contender. I was somebody.
     That's a lot to get from a single necktie. Thanks for the assist, Cate. And thanks for the tie, Giorgio. Rest in peace.