If there really were fashion police, any call to arrest the usual suspects would have me caught up in the dragnet. Despite the best efforts of my wife to dress me up, my sartorial plumage remains predictably bland and conventional.
My clothes exist in that gray area somewhere between Sunday Best and Casual Friday. An army of underfed models can parade down the gangways of Paris, New York and Milan, but my slacks and blue blazer remain unaffected.
That's why the controversy about the alleged pornography contained in the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog took me by surprise.
Silly me, but I would have thought that if any clothes merchandiser were to be linked with naughty behavior it might be Old Navy, given the fact that the real old navy -- the British one at least -- was distinguished by rum, sodomy and the lash, which could make for an interesting catalog.
But no, Abercrombie & Fitch is the offender here. Along with other fashion-challenged readers, I first became aware of this thanks to a story in the PG on Friday.
It seems that a Mt. Lebanon mother, Wendy Smith, is complaining about the catalog and has alerted the Pittsburgh Coalition Against Pornography, whose members are so moral they are widely believed to take showers with their clothes on.
The reflexive temptation is to make fun of such people. Bluenoses have been stock characters on the American scene ever since the Pilgrims landed, waving their furled umbrellas at the sight of exposed ankles (for starters) and generally providing much hilarity.
Actually, I am not sure that Ms. Smith is a bluenose. The only thing that is clear is she is from Mt. Lebanon, which, in fact, may be more prejudicial to her case. The thought inevitably occurs that somewhere in the world people are battling hunger and disease but in blessed Mt. Lebanon a person is fretting about the contents of the A&F Quarterly.
Her crusade suffers from another defect. To illustrate this point, I must open the old joke cupboard and dust off an especially pertinent one. Goodness knows this column could use some levity.
A lady calls the police to say that when she looks out her window she can the see man next door naked as he changes his clothes, and, of course, she is shocked.
A police officer arrives to investigate and looks out her window. "But madam," the officer says, "I can't see anything over there."
"Well," the lady says, "You have to stand on the chair to see him."
It seems to me that this Mt. Lebanon mother has been standing on a metaphorical chair. To buy the catalog, which is kept in shrink wrap and costs $6, she showed her ID because you have to be at least 18 in order to be offended. This does raise an issue of if you don't like it, don't get it.
To be fair -- always a darn nuisance -- the story made clear that she wasn't so worried that her children could see the catalog, but that if they wore the clothing they would be endorsing the promiscuous lifestyle the company seemed to be endorsing. And what is that?
At the risk of offending the no-research rule of the International Society of Pontificators, I got my hands on the catalog and perused it in a strictly professional way.
Alas, I must report that this mother, whom I would rather dismiss as a moralizing busybody, actually has a point. Heck, they are butt-naked in there. What really got me mad was a feature in the catalog titled "Dating the Elderly." How dare they satirize my love life?
As it happens, I am also old-fashioned about dirty images. To my mind, anything of an explicit nature should come in the traditional brown-paper wrapper, or else be sold in exotic ports by disgusting characters who whisper to tourists: "You want feelthy pictures?"
Thus, I am not in favor of dirty pictures coming over the Internet or in clothing catalogs. In fact, I don't understand why a clothing catalog should be full of naked people, even granted that they are the ones most in need of clothing.
Methinks we should think well of Ms. Smith, against our better instincts, because, in fact, she is striking a small blow against the everyday coarseness of modern life.
Of course, if everybody dressed like me -- in clothes even a nude person could not envy -- there would be no problem.
Reg Henry's e-mail address is rhenry@post-gazette.com.
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