Classic Coup at Magic

freebird

Last week Classic Coup went to Magic, the largest fashion trade event in the world.  Held in Vegas where old and new converge,  classics like the Rat Pack and The Mirage meet Billionaire Mafia and XS.  It was  an appropriate place for our brand.  Our name is an oxymoron and a reminder that great books never go out of style.   While their themes are timeless, their writers, now revered, were once nonconformists....downright subversive.  Dickens, Hardy, Lee, Conrad, Chopin, Steinbeck, Twain, Bradbury, Huxley, Orwell are just a few who rallied readers against social injustice and oppression.  They were visionaries.  Cutting edge.

My quest was to take Classic Coup to the next level. We’d had a good first year, but I still had questions about the fashion industry as the medium for our message: Lit is Life.  Classic books stir critical thinking  and compassionate living, conversations that lead to understanding and action.  And simply put, my colleague teaching in Quito, Ecuador needs books for her children.  So this teacher headed to Vegas to be a good student... believing that knowledge is power.   On the advice of two friends in the biz, my designer and a buyer, I followed the yellow brick road… from Nashville to Vegas… to consult the Wiz…the Big M. Flying home through Kansas (where else would my designer live outside of Oz?), I delivered the ruby slippers…jewels I’d discovered, and in Angela’s living room we expanded our plans. Mission accomplished.

And did I have fun.

Though a Vegas virgin and a Europe enthusiast, this Nashville girl underestimated how much I'd enjoy Vegas' energetic vibe.   Not since I’d driven into Paris the first time had I seen so many lights. And though I’ve never thought anywhere in the world compares to Venice, the massive Venetian comes close. Also towering above me were pro athletes checking out Spring 2011 collections. I was swept along in a rapper entourage when I bumped into (literally) Juelz Santana and Lloyd Bands at the Street show. Later that night they were the show at Billionaire’s Mafia’s after-party at Eve Nightclub.   At the Premium couture exhibits at the Vegas Convention Center I saw a sketch of Princess Grace's wedding dress for the first time and realized I'd married in a near replica.  Likewise, I especially loved the retro clothing and jewelry designs at the Pool Trade Show in Mandalay Bay--my market.

Business meant pleasure in finding a new company for our blanks… discovering the most feasible way to sell at Magic next year… savoring seminars on fashion forecasts, trade tips for new businesses, advanced social networking and building brands. Most importantly, I met nice people willing to help a girl out…like Jill of another newcomer tee company, ATX Mafia from Austin, Texas and Industry Guru and creator of afingo.com Liza Deyrmenjian.

On our free limo ride that shuttled us from the city center to the bay, I shared what I’d learned with a pretty girl about my daughter’s age who came to Magic hoping to start her own line. It felt good to give back. As one who has always depended on the kindness of strangers (yes, we’re releasing our Streetcar Named Desire shirt this fall), I discovered a place to get the goods on spring and the rewards of goodwill hunting, never out of season.

QueenofHeartz.com

PinupGirlClothing.com

lizalig.com

Thanks to Anna for Great Advice

At Angela Muir's Home in Kansas City

I Am Love...What Kate Chopin Wanted to Do

 Read Classic Coup's review of the movie as it relates to Chopin and Company HERE.

NYT on William Golding

Article on William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies

Classic Coup in Her Nashville Magazine

Thanks to Her Nashville. The story is here:
http://hernashville.com/her/book-look

Holden On: J. D. Salinger's Hero Still My Boy

Taylor and Holden--Venice Beach 2009

                                        

Times are tough all over.  Even for Holden Caulfield.

Some of us argue the cult classic hero never had it exactly easy, that his angst/anger  (though feigned as apathy) was depression amply induced by his climate and temperament.  Others disagree. Catcher in the Rye fans and critics are in fresh debate over Holden’s relevance for today’s teens.  But even before educators mourned the literary loss of J. D. Salinger last week, some educators, like those quoted in a New York Times article published last summer, say students find the prep school flunk-out obsolete.  They say Holden is “whiny,” “immature” and spoiled.  Said one student, “I can’t really feel bad for this rich kid with a weekend free in New York City.” Writer Jennifer Schuessler concludes: “Today’s pop culture heroes, it seems, are the nerds who conquer the world — like Harry (Potter) — not the beautiful losers who reject it.”

No doubt more teens tweet about Harry.  There’s his fight rather than flight response to adversity.  There are his friends (crucial to the Facebook generation).  And there’s the fantasy, a plus for the masses who read for escape.  Harry’s more popular, like the kid voted “Best All Around” and “Most Likely to Succeed,” while Slacker Holden doesn’t make the yearbook at all, flunking out of multiple high schools. 

Harried by more competitive undergraduate programs, maybe the class of 2010 is too winded building resumes-- chasing down recs, competing in sports and arts, doing time at community service, and studying for AP courses—to get Holden.  When faced with their own pressures— the majority in single-parent families and all caught in a crushing economy--  young readers may advise Holden, as did one student in the Schuessler article, to “Shut up and take your Prozac.” 

Perhaps the beatings and bad dates Holden reports aren’t the stuff of tragedy. But given Holden lost his brother to leukemia and a classmate to suicide (wearing Holden’s sweater as he jumped from their dorm window), telling him to go pop a pill seems harsh.  Or maybe it’s the post- modern way a generation of teens teethed on Family Guy and South Park deal.  Maybe Holden doesn’t seem so novel anymore given his profanity is merely candor when compared to reality tv.  Holden’s 1950s shock appeal may be all too commonplace in 2010 when anti-depressants are the most prescribed drugs in the US and suicide is the third leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults.  What is shocking is how many teens are at risk.  The 2007 American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment  surveyed 20,500 students on 39 campuses.  They found 3,200 diagnosed with depression, almost 40% of them in the past twelve months.  Almost one fourth were in therapy while 35.8% took antidepressant medications.  Over ten percent of those surveyed confessed "seriously considering suicide" within the past twelve months.

Based on these numbers, some may say Holden is now just the kid-next-door. But Holden approaches the disappointments of life with more than a fatalistic “It is what it is.”  He asks “But why does it have to be that way”?  Like  Stephen Dedalus he is a sensitive soul.  Like Hamlet he is more a disillusioned idealist than a cynic.  His melancholy musings denounce “the oppressor’s wrong” and “the law’s delay” (bullies who drove James Castle to suicide but were never prosecuted) while he flinches from  “the pangs of despised love.” 

And yet, Holden wants to be a champion for girls:  ”It was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them.  When they got out of school and college, I mean.  You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys.  Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their gd cars.  Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong.  Guys that are very mean.  Guys that never read books.”

But Holden's fans do.  They're the kids who read Catcher because they want to, not because it's assigned.   The ones who meet in coffee shops to discuss it and invite me to drop by. They see Holden as a rebel with a cause.  Gotta love that. 

He's a romantic who wants to be ready for marriage.  He wants to be taught by Monsieur Blanchard, a guy he reads about in a book because “a woman’s body is like a violin and all, and... it takes a terrific musician to play it right.”   But he remains a virgin because:   “The thing is, most of the time when you’re coming pretty close to doing it with a girl…she keeps telling you to stop.  The trouble with me is, I stop.  Most guys don’t.  I can’t help it. …They tell me to stop, so I stop.”

Holden wants to save the children. He wants to rub off every “F U” on walls before the kids see them.  He wants to protect his little sister, Phoebe, as he couldn’t his brother, Allie.  He wants to catch all kids before they go over the cliff.

Does Holden still have a hold on today's youth?   Do I still like the guy?  To find out I reread my old copy of Catcher the night Salinger died.  But first... I had to ask my nineteen-year-old daughter to give me my book back.

What is a Classic?

            “The man who does not read good books has no advantage
             over the man who cannot read them.”--Mark Twain

            “To destroy the Western tradition of independent thought it
            is not necessary to burn the books.  All we have to do is leave
them unread for a couple of generations.”--Robert Hutchins, The Conflict in Education
                       

CLASSICS SEAR US.

     Most serious readers are convinced they need to read the classics, whether for personal enrichment or cultural preservation.  But what is a classic?

     “ Lit. is Life.”  I’ve told my students that for almost three decades. Some years I write on my syllabus “Life 101” rather than American Literature I or Survey of World Literature.  Great books breathe.  Kingsley said, “Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book!  A message to us from...human souls we never saw...and these arouse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.”

   
     I became a literature teacher because I love to read and I love to analyze people and ideas.  I can teach philosophy and psychology when I teach literature.  Quality literature affords us chances to act, judge, think, and feel. I can agree or disagree with the epiphanies of authors as I try to understand more fully human nature.  Great literature is the catalyst for intellectual, imaginative, emotional, and spiritual growth.

   
     A classic will SEAR you.  Unlike too many films, books, and most of television forgotten within an hour, classic literature burns or brands us in some way.  Ten years from now some may not remember much of the plot of Great Expectations but all remember Miss Havisham, the crazy lady who wore her wedding dress from the moment she was jilted at the altar until the day she died.  Once we've read To Kill a Mockingbird, we remember Scout, Boo Radley, and Atticus--partly because they are unique characters but more because they have universal character traits. They are like real people we’ve met, perhaps only briefly, who have left a mark on our lives.

   
Classics don’t go out of style.  They affirm or change us, but they always affect us.

     Classics:           Stimulate thought

                             Entertain

                             Align details to create a coherent whole

                             Relate to our lives

Classic Coup at Davis Advisory in Arcade

Stop by the Arcade to pick up shirts/purses/totes for book-loving friends this Christmas.  And when making resolutions to work out your body and eat better in 2010, don't forget an exercise/diet regime for  your mind.  Put down empty-carb reads and pick up classic works for some brain and soul food.  In a time when we're all tightening our belts, heeding William Wordsworth with some "plain living and high thinking" really is too cool for just school.

Davis Art Advisory/Showroom 
75 Arcade
Nashville, TN 37219
(347) 306-1859

We met Atticus at the Art Crawl.