Brooks Brothers: Don't Bogart the Red Fleece

Red Fleece Fall 2013 - Twenty Somethings (age or waist)

Scissor to fly proximity

1975

Colorado Springs

Mercer & Sons, 2010

Go Army (far left)

Jay Kos, 2008


Red Fleece sounds like a $6 Algerian Cabernet I picked up at Costco but it's actually  Brooks Brothers new line for the younger customer. The one I'm too old to write for.  Most of it speaks to the, Leave-it-to-Beaver cuffed jean, Red Wing, Jethro-Bodine gingham dude that inhabits New York City right now. I suspect we'll be seeing red sheep monogrammed watch caps any season. 

This is a line, unlike "Own Make," that is all about tweak. And I understand young men not wanting to dress like their fathers. Rather, they want to dress like their grandfathers, smoke Marlboro Lights, hand out engraved, "Fuck Off" business cards and call themselves photographers while pictures on their Tumblers were shot by some dead guy 40 years ago. But...

There's a segment of the 2013 Fall/Winter line that takes me back to high school in Colorado where there was a Wonder Bread infatuation with the mountains, John Denver shirts (Fuck Yeah John Denver Tumbler)  and Vasque rock climbing boots --  Mine were 85% Valrhona dark chocolate with bright red laces.

Throw on a Eddie Bauer down vest or better, an REI parka shell and you were ready for a drive through Garden of the Gods at lunch in a Camaro with a nickel bag and a six of Schlitz Tall Boys while a Craig 8-Track cranked out Pink Floyd's, The Dark Side of the Moon.

A couple years ago, I was invited to view the Ralph Lauren rig rooms at 650 Madison. One had the REI / Colorado aesthetic complete with waffle stompers, down vests, parka shells, crampons -- There was even an old SVEA stove. You gotta love their attention to detail.

In all honesty, I looked at Waffle Stomper Red Fleece with a great deal of nostalgia and didn't ask where it was made or where the goods were from.  I marveled at the needlecords and how something, not only of a time, but of a place like Colorado,  had been brought back... to a show room in Brooks Brothers. Sadly, Red Fleece is not for a 38" waist and 30" inseam but that's okay.  Crank up Pink Floyd, roll up the car windows and it's 1975 again -- When no seemed to bogart or roll up their jeans.

REI & The Eiger

(all images borrowed from internet)

I stumbled across this book, The White Spider, shortly after to moving to Colorado Springs in the '70s. It's been a long time but images from a failed attempt on the north face of the Eiger are still with me.

I finished the book and went straight to a rock formation overlooking Constitution Blvd. Only 40 feet high or so, I didn't waste anytime in falling and luckily landing on a ledge. Flat on my back and with the air knocked out of me, I lifted my head trying to breathe while I stared and swore at my Frye Dingo boots.

One pair of Vasque boots later I headed back. They were chocolate brown with red and black laces and soled in Vibram lugs. I wore them everywhere and in school they separated you from the Goat Ropers in Stetsons with a clipped corner of a hundred dollar bill stuck in the hat band. Or, the Stoners in their herb scented flannel shirts or the John Denver look alike in denim jeans and denim pearl snap shirts. I was a Waffle Stomper.

While my Vasque boots could be categorized as Waffle Stompers I do remember feeling they were more authentic. While certainly no ice climber -- my boots had purpose. Primary being not to fall and have that problem breathing again.

I became a life time member of REI Coop for $5 and obsessed over the catalog where images from White Spider dovetailed with REI equipment creating dreams of my journey to Kleine Scheidegg where I'd eat Toblerone and hit on cute blonde girls from West Germany.

It didn't happen. And that's okay. The north face of the Eiger might be too authentic for me. But some day...before I die...I'm gonna have a drink at this hotel and remember how I was moved by a sport and by the boots it stood on.