AS THE SLOGAN puts it, "If You Loved His Style, Youll Love JFK PT Wear. JFK is the late President; PT is "Patrol Torpedo a reference to JFKs WW II boat, PT 109. In this exciting new range of leisure wear by Kerry McCarthy, the Presidents cousin once removed (though it seems no Kennedy cousin is ever really removed), the clothes are not based on what the well-dressed PT crew member is wearing when the Japanese slice his boat in two: that, after all, was one of the few moments in his life when JFK was not thinking about image. Instead, its the sort of yachtwear JFK cap, $19.95 the President used to favor when mooching about off the Hyannis coast in less turbulent waters. Each item in this exclusive collection, however, features a reproduction of the "PT 109 insignia, which the young Kennedy sent over to Kerry McCarthys mom during the war. "Now you too can wear John Fitzgerald Kennedys PT patch, says the advertisement. "You too can be part of that Kennedy style and without the messy business of having to be sunk by the Japs, and maybe losing your life, as two of JFKs crew did.
For my own part, I regret that Kerrys slogan isnt more Kennedyesque: "JFK PT Wear: The shorts have been passed to a new generation, or "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what your pants can do for you, or "The JFK sleeveless PT-shirt: Ich bin ein bare-limber, or "JFK PT Wear: it sums up not what we intend to offer the American people, but what you intend to ask of them ($129.95 plus shipping and handling). Once upon a time, style was organic: as Frank and Dino sang in Robin and the Seven Hoods, "Youve Either Got or You Havent Got Style. But not any more: today, style is everywhere; as the jingle puts it, "J. C. Penney I Love Your Style! Style is what endures when any genuine emotional impulse has faded: long after everyone has forgotten that JFK was ever in a PT, well still have the sweatshirt. Indeed, style doesnt even have to be authentic: a future FDR designer range will not include a cigarette holder; the Eleanor Roosevelt collection will do without that familiar fox head hanging over her shoulder. Were I Vice President Gores couturier, Id suggest to him reviving this stylish accessory though obviously in his case the fox would be live.
Which raises the question of the present presidential style, and what we can expect from the inevitable WJC DC Wear ("Now you too can be part of that Clinton style! You too can have his Distinguishing Characteristics!) Some of it is already out there on the market: for much of his political life, Bill Clinton has made it a practice to give away his underwear and claim it as a deductible item against his income tax. For example, in 1986, he claimed $2 per pair for three pairs of used underwear donated to the Salvation Army. Though his tax return is non-specific, experts seem to agree that these were briefs, given the low valuation when compared to his 1988 tax return, where he deducted $15 for a pair of old long johns hed given away. All over Arkansas there are guys walking around with plaques in their gussets: "William Jefferson Clinton Sat Here.
For most style arbiters of the Camelot era, the journey from Kennedy ("One Brief Shining Moment) to Clinton ("Ones Momentous Shining Briefs) must surely mark a precipitous decline in presidential glamor. In no other Administration have the Chiefs briefs loomed so large. His answer to the high-school student who enquired as to his underwear was the classic Clinton equivocation, definitive if not of his sartorial style at least of his political one: he "usually wears briefs, he said, no doubt having been briefed by some pollster that briefs outsell boxers by 5 to 1, but not wishing to kiss off that crucial 80-million-per-year boxer-buying swing vote.
Style-wise, of course, the last half-century has been one accelerating striptease. Ever since the hatless JFK did for mens milliners, the Presidency has become a kind of "as bare as you dare party: my forthcoming line of LBJ designer leisurewear, for instance, in place of a PT 109 logo has a distinctive appendix scar running across the base of every sweat and T-shirt. True, there have been temporary reverses on the road to this brief new world: President Reagan declined to jog; wore bluejeans and open-necked shoulder-piped western shirts as a projection of ruggedness rather than casualness; and confined his sartorial innovations to those distinctive jackets with large red checks. (These days, the only large red checks in the White House are from the Chinese government.) But otherwise the dress-down trend continues: Anthony Holden, the disheveled "Royal-watcher who has been giving exclusive interviews every hour on the hour to ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and WZZZ-AM Presque-Isle, Maine, for the last month, is demanding that, as a sign of his commitment to a modernized monarchy, the Prince of Wales discard his Coronation robes plus matching orb, scepter, and Imperial Crown of State and instead be sworn in in a lounge suit. Even this may no longer be enough: "Why does he wear those double-breasted suits and that outsized signet ring? complained Sally McDonald, 31, one of the grief-stricken mourners camped outside Kensington Palace. "It simply enforces that he is out of touch.
President Clinton has stayed nimbly ahead of this game. The question now, as he contemplates his place in history, is how much farther hell go in his second term. This summer, he had a presidential hot tub installed on the White House lawn a seven-seater no less, which suggests hes planning to host G7 summits in there. (Russia is still not a full member, so Boris Yeltsin will have to participate from an adjoining horse trough.) As with "dress-down Friday, the new informality presents even more opportunities for social embarrassment than the old days of rigorously correct form. Suppose youre standing in line to be presented to President Clinton behind a television comedienne and her movie actress lover. As the President explains his proposals on welfare reform, the ladies drape their arms about each other, idly dangle a finger over the others cleavage, nuzzle noses in ears, and generally indulge in what older societies would have regarded as appalling lezzie-majeste. As the next in line, youd been planning to stand up straight and listen respectfully and deferentially to the President. Clearly, this would now be a ghastly faux-pas. But what to do? Should one grab a passing busboy and stick ones tongue down his throat? Or make a pass at President Clinton?
For those unnerved by the relaxed Clinton style, there are no easy answers. As the President himself might say, if you cant stand the heat, stay out of the hot tub. Last year, Bob Dole ignored this advice and, of the many painful moments in the months that followed, there was no more poignant sight than the newly resigned Senate Majority Leader walking stiffly down a Chicago street in a powder-blue sport coat and an open-necked shirt. Dole was being forced on to Clinton turf: remember the picture of him in running shorts plus black socks and wingtips, for which he was much mocked by craven style commentators. No one leapt to his defense to say it was a witty, post-modern inversion of contemporary style: the business suit and running shoes favored by middle-ranking Hollywood vice presidents. No one hailed the Dole style as an eclectic mix that says hey, Im laid-back but Im uptight, too. The style fascists were merciless, no matter how hard he tried, gamely posing in a baseball cap and the last remaining unlogo-ed T-shirt in America.
Admittedly, the baseball cap did have a logo "Farmland but theres something a little calculated about that. Clinton has a shrewder understanding of baseball cap chic. I would say that the trick with baseball caps is to wear ones that have absolutely no discernible connection with you whatsoever. Sure, some fellows still have "John Deere caps, but the cutting-edge boys have ones that advertise HMOs from states theyve never been to or mark the grand openings of auto-parts shops long closed. One guy had a cap that read "Nantucket Nectars and, when I ventured that this was perhaps a somewhat effete beverage for his tastes, he explained that hed got it from a friend whod got it from another friend whod got it from a general store owner whod got it from a guy who works for the distributor. Some similar process must have been at work when Bill and Chelsea appeared on the front page of a recent New York Times in jogging garb: Chelsea was wearing a T-shirt bearing New Hampshires bloodcurdling state motto "Live Free Or Die, the antithesis of Clintonism. Just as gangsta rappers wear their baseball caps back-to-front, so a good White House T-shirt should get its politics back-to-front.
