City Desk: The Hunt Is On

THE truest statement I ever read in the New York Times came from one of their inserts on Men’s Fashions. If you have a long plane flight and want to travel light, they said, wear black jeans. For all but the toniest occasions, they will do for dress or suit pants, especially if you’re someplace dark (a restaurant at night). A long flight loomed before me, but thanks to bad planning my black jeans were in a washing machine. I had to pick up a spare pair. No problem for Gotham, onetime capital of the rag trade. Everything else productive may have flown, but we still sell books and clothing.

First stop was the Gap, right around the corner. Everyone knows the Gap. There was a time, as with many enterprises, when the Gap was a little interesting-low-end marketing with a difference. More likely, its main attraction was mere newness. It survives on volume, and offering the kind of dependability escalators have. My wife and I wove through Gap for Kids and Gap for Women (always take a woman when walking past the underwear mannequins of the latter, or you’ll feel like a crossdresser). We came to Gap for Men, and saw the first sign of trouble: dozens of jeans, none of them black.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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THE truest statement I ever read in the New York Times came from one of their inserts on Men’s Fashions. If you have a long plane flight and want to travel light, they said, wear black jeans. For all but the toniest occasions, they will do for dress or suit pants, especially if you’re someplace dark (a restaurant at night). A long flight loomed before me, but thanks to bad planning my black jeans were in a washing machine. I had to pick up a spare pair. No problem for Gotham, onetime capital of the rag trade. Everything else productive may have flown, but we still sell books and clothing.

First stop was the Gap, right around the corner. Everyone knows the Gap. There was a time, as with many enterprises, when the Gap was a little interesting-low-end marketing with a difference. More likely, its main attraction was mere newness. It survives on volume, and offering the kind of dependability escalators have. My wife and I wove through Gap for Kids and Gap for Women (always take a woman when walking past the underwear mannequins of the latter, or you’ll feel like a crossdresser). We came to Gap for Men, and saw the first sign of trouble: dozens of jeans, none of them black.