Cecile and I had a party to go to in honor of Michelle and Kyle. “Dress casual,” she said. Music to my ears, I thought. After all, my favorite wardrobe these days is Lululemon yoga wear. Don’t knock it, until you try it, guys. It’s like wearing PJs all day.
I compromized. I put on a blue Lululemon shirt, a pair of blue jeans and a grey J Crew Outfitter pullover sweater with a half zip that my fashion conscious son Jason had given me for Christmas last year. There was an unseasonable chill in the air at the pre-dinner backyard cocktail party at the Metrulas family home, and I praised myself for selecting the right choice of clothing to wear.
Suddenly, I noticed our young friend, Noel motion with his fingers to his chest and then then pointing to my chest. I realized this was men’s speak for, “Dude we are wearing the same sweater.” I’m sure this has happend to almost everyone at one time or another, when you suddenly realize that someone is wearing the exact same oufit as you.
As fate would have it, we were seated across from each other. A Millennial and an aging “Baby Boomer,” with over 30 years between us, sitting there like two book ends. Noel’s fiancee, Kacy, a psychiatry resident at Stanford said, “You look like twins,” as she smiled micheviously. In the end, Noel and I were pretty cool about it, laughing about it in fact, as we partied on. After all, we didn’t have to worry about the late Joan RIvers of the Fashion Police getting on our case for confusing the public.
After a few days went by, I got this brainstorm to email J. Crew Chairman and CEO Millard “Mickey” Drexler. Really, no lie! In fact, I discovered that he had extended an invitation to J. Crew customers to give him feedback on the companies e-commerce site. So I did. I told him about the party, how Noel and I were dressed alike in our J Crew sweaters. The one observation I had made about their website was that it markets to a much younger crowd, and one market they were overlooking was more mature dudes like myself.
He promptly wrote back: “Hi Dennis, hope everthing is well—thanks so much for your email—totally agree with your comments and we’re actually working on showing more people of different ages...who do in fact wear our clothes or ‘should be wearing our clothes'…Have a great weekend!" Best, Mickey.
Whoops, I need to go. Noel and I have a photoshoot with GQ:-)
