The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [82]
When I came to New York I decided I should start getting clothes made in this country so I could get fittings, because there were some rather bad mistakes, though not as bad as you would get with a Hong Kong tailor. So I went to a tailor here in New York and picked out a white material to have a suit made for the summertime. Silk tweed is actually a very warm material, so I starting wearing the thing in the wintertime. This was the winter of 1962 or 1963, and the reaction of people was just astonishing.
Long hair at that time outraged people. It was a real transgression. I did a story on Phil Spector in 1964, and he had hair about as long as the Beatles’. The things that were yelled to him on the street—I mean the hostility—were just amazing.
The hostility for minor changes in style was just marvelous. I had a great time. I was really getting into the swing of things. I remember my friend Bill Rollins, who was one of the great figures on the Herald Tribune at the time. Every time I came into Bleek’s or one of those places where newspaper people met, he’d say, “Here comes the man with the double-breasted underwear.” I rather liked that.
Which brings me to one final note on style. It’s still possible to have fun with clothes if you’re willing to be pretentious. That still annoys people: pretension in dress. In fact, this summer I was in East Hampton visiting some people who took me to a party. I was wearing a four-button seersucker jacket that buttons up really high—I think it is actually Edwardian—with a little tiny collar and a white tie with small, far-apart black stripes, and I had on a collar pin and cuff links, white serge pants and white cap-toed shoes, which are real English banker shoes, only I had them made in white doeskin. I had on some sheer white socks with black stripes to pick up the stripes in the necktie—I’m the only person who would confess all this to somebody. Pretty soon I noticed that I was the only man in the room—and this was a party of maybe sixty people—who had on both a jacket and a necktie. I think everyone had an income far in excess of mine. Finally this man came over to me; he was a little drunk, but he was also angry. He asked, “What’s the idea of the rig?” I asked, “What do you mean?” He said, “The tie, the pin, all this stuff.” So I looked at him, and he had on a polo shirt and some kind of go-to-hell pants, and he had this big stain down the front of his polo shirt, right down the middle, right down to his belt line. I said, “Well, gee, I guess I can’t keep up with the styles in these parts. How do you do that bright stripe down your polo shirt?” He looked down sort of in surprise and said, “That’s sweat, goddamn it, that’s sweat!” He suddenly was very proud of it. I could see that I had landed in the midst of the era of funky chic.
You know when I write certain things and it turns out that I’m correct, it amazes me, I must confess. When I wrote that thing, funky chic, I never dreamed how correct that was.
On several occasions, most recently in the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills, I’d just be standing around and people would come up and ask me if there’s a table available, because I’d have on a suit and necktie. Wear some trick outfits. If it’s worth it to you.
Does it ever get in the way of your role as the observer?
No, most often the opposite has gotten in the way. In the beginning of my magazine-writing career, I used to feel it was very important to try to fit in.
To be the chameleon?
Yes, and it almost always backfired, most notably when I went to do a story on Junior Johnson, the stock-car racer, one of the first stories I did for Esquire. I was quite aware that he was from the hills of North Carolina. A lot of moonshine and ex-moonshine runners were involved with stock-car racing at that time, Junior being one of them. I thought I’d better try to fit in, so I very carefully picked out the clothes I’d wear. I had a knit tie, some brown suede shoes and a brown Borsalino hat with a half inch of beaver