Summer has just begun yet it is entirely too hot to do anything. Way too hot to sit in the sun for tea with your grandmother at her country club but you only have to do it once a year and so you find yourself scurrying through your closet for the perfect thing to wear. If you wear shorts, she’ll chastise you for being too old to show your legs in public during business hours. If you wear jeans, she’ll raise her eyes at your career as a writer and question how you’re paying the bills. Instead, you settle for an outfit that will surely be fitting for your grandmother, although, you were sure, she would say you looked exactly like a modern day Atticus Finch resurrected from Maycomb. And then…she would recite the opening of To Kill a Mockingbird, her favorite book. And as you listen, the heat excited sweat all over your body, the taste of the mint tea soothing your throat, soft tone of your grandmother’s voice takes you back to summers you spent with her in the South…not so long ago.
“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.” Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird
Out of Our Closet Today 5-31-12: Mint Tea
Shirt: Paul Smith Blue/White Small Checked Shirt/Paul Smith $155
Pants: Paul Smith Slim Fit Green Jeans/Paul Smith $255
Shoes: Harris Wingtip Balmoral/Barneys $625
Watch: Vestel Plexi Brown Leather Watch/PacSun $280
Bow Tie: Dotted Bow Tie/ rag-bone.com $105
How do you define your individual style?
Be Yourself. Be Fearless. Be Your Own Unexpected Luxury!
See all of our looks from Out of Our Closet in our daily Out of the Closet Section!