True Prep
Page 8
That’s why they invented porters.
We’ve all seen pictures of elegant old trunks, fitted to the exact dimensions of Fred Astaire’s shoes or Bette Davis’s gowns, or Grandmother Putnam’s golf clubs. Think of the visuals for On the Twentieth Century.
In 1946, Anthony T. Froitzheim, a former luggage salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue and a cosmetic-case designer for Elizabeth Arden, opened his own shop in New York, called T. Anthony (it was just after World War Two, and German names weren’t commercial), way uptown in the East 60s, a residential neighborhood. He made hard-sided, classically simple leather luggage, and hard-sided canvas and leather “packing cases,” as they prefer to call them. (They also sell Dopp kits, jewelry boxes, wallets, photo albums, backgammon and chess boards, and more.)
That very luggage is still available today. T. Anthony occupies just one store, now at 445 Park Avenue. But it has a loyal following around the world, through mail order and now the Interthingy.
The first canvas was black with tan leather trim. It was followed by bright blue, then red with black leather trim, which was created for Marilyn Monroe. Now T. Anthony offers black canvas with white leather trim. Très moderne.
Michael Root, the grandson of Mr. Froitzheim, has been the president of T. Anthony since 1998. He assures us that though very much a “niche” business, T. Anthony has no plans to “pack it in.” Still offering great service, on-the-spot engraving (embossing initials for no charge, either in gold or without color), and discretion, T. Anthony has customers who want to “fill in their luggage collections” or start anew. Yes, there is nylon, and yes, there are wheels, but for old-school preppies, there’s nothing like a set of matching packing cases from T. Anthony.
And yes, you can FedEx them to the ski slopes or fill them with your Vilbrequin and ship them to Anguilla.
Although the first ATM (automated teller machine) was installed in America in 1969, preppies are still often a little short of cash. Is it too much trouble to find an ATM machine? (Note: Calling it an “ATM machine” is redundant, but we do it anyway.) Have we forgotten our password? Damn it, did we forget our card somewhere last night? Did you just leave money for the cleaning lady? These are all viable reasons that may explain why we are undersupplied. Perpetually. You might want to do some work to come up with new excuses of your very own.
It’s not having money that matters, it’s being near money that matters. You don’t need a private jet, but it is lovely to have friends who do. This doesn’t mean you should solicit friends on the basis of who has what—you’re not setting up your sophomore-year dormitory suite, after all. Nor do you choose friends based on who has the biggest house—unless you want to count Candy Spelling or Ira Rennert as a close friend.
1. It costs $82.50 to buy a ticket to a James Taylor concert on the tenth of next month at the Fox Theatre in Saint Louis. If you wait until the night of the concert, you might find a scalper who will sell you a ticket for $100 or more. You are hoping that since it is last-minute, you’ll be able to persuade the seller that in a free market, the ticket has now declined in value, and offer him 20 percent less than the printed price. Right or wrong?
Wrong. You are hoping when you arrive at the theater, you will bump into Lulee and her sister—no, the older one—who will give you their extra ticket and buy you a beer during intermission.
2. Which costs less: two Big Macs for the price of one with a coupon at McDonald’s or three grams of caviar from the gourmet store?
Too easy. You’ve been eating the caviar during the caviar promotion at Marche Artisan Foods (1000 Main Street, East Nashville, Tennessee 37206) as you circle around with your shopping cart to buy a single French baguette. Total price for the Big Macs: $3.19. Price for the baguette: $2.50. The osetra? Priceless.
3. You have a $30 credit at Under the Palm Tree (4823 West 119th Street, Overland Park, Kansas 66209). You want to redeem it. What do you use it for?
A. A gift for Aunt Bunny’s sixty-fifth birthday—that cute pink webbed belt with the golden turtle buckle. It goes with everything she has, and costs $45—on sale from $78.
B. A teeny Lilly Pulitzer bathing suit for your newborn stepsister, Allegra. Irresistible at $40.
C. A pair of pink, aqua, and lime-green Capri pants that look like everything else in your closet. $120.
The answer is C. You can’t buy Aunt Bunny a present that was on sale. Allegra doesn’t need a stupid bathing suit, and besides, she might outgrow it before she can wear it … and she’ll never know the difference. The Capris? You love!!! You’ll wear them forever! Now they only cost $90 with your credit, so they are a steal.
4. Your friend Win mentions that he and some friends from work will be watching the Masters Tournament at his house, and you are welcome to stop by. As you are heading over, you receive a text from Win that he underestimated the size of the group, and could you please bring more alcohol? You are right near the Stop & Shop. Do you buy: two six-packs of Stella Artois ($16) or a bottle of The Glenrothes single-malt scotch ($49)?
You buy both
You have just inherited a six-story prewar building in a gentrifying neighborhood of Los Angeles from an aunt you never quite knew. Real-estate brokers are already hovering nearby before you even take possession of it. This is the kind of windfall that people dream about. What do you do with your new fortune? You put it in the bank, and as it grows slowly, you continue to pry off postage stamps that have been unmarked by the postal service, reuse manila envelopes from your lawyer’s office, save paper clips that come in the mail, and use your child’s rollover minutes on the phone. Why change now?
When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Miss Porter’s School, 1947) died in 1994, leaving an estate of approximately $200 million, her children culled through her things and sold many pieces at auction at Sotheby’s in New York City. Items ranged from one of her late husband’s desks to the common woven baskets used by florists to give arrangements a countrified look. She saved them, and they did indeed sell. So before you throw out your useless detritus, think first: Will you one day become famous enough for your children to make money from your junk? Will you marry the future President? Will you be President one day? As they say on commercials for the New York State Lottery, “You never know.”
Cheapness begins at home, but it is portable, as is generosity, its virtuous twin. It is rare that a preppy considers himself cheap to begin with. He sees himself as evenhanded and appropriate, though to be fair, with all the sailing and cocktails and tennis and ski weekends, do you actually think Trip sits down to calculate how many dinners or drinks or tickets or tabs he paid compared to any of his friends? Of course not! He is too busy enjoying life to be an accountant. And if you point it out to him, he’ll feel sheepish and pay for drinks or dinner or the movies next time you go out, and then who knows? You can be frugal and generous at the same time. The lesson here? Give your friends the shirts off your backs, but wear them out first.
Do keep repairing old appliances to try to extend their lives. Don’t store them on your front porch or driveway. Invest in great-fitting, well-made shoes. (Italian-made shoes are nice.) Your feet will thank you. Keep resoling them. Subscribe to a concert, opera, or ballet series. Buy season tickets to basketball. Pairs of tickets you can’t use make great no-occasion gifts. Some nonprofit institutions accept them as tax-deductible donations. Buy very cheap plane tickets to Europe on discounted Web sites. Stay at your friend’s grand villa for three weeks. Oh, make it four. Buy him a house gift and pay for dinner a couple of times. Let him win one tennis match every now and then. Complain about the heat.
Have your trustee dump an allowance in your checking account every month. If you can’t get your newsstand or barber to accept a check for cash, walk seven blocks out of your way (or drive, if necessary) to the ATM of your bank, so you are not charged that extra $1.95 to $3 withdrawal fee. Leave the office a little early to take the off-peak commuter train. (Even though you live in one of the ten most affluent zip codes in the U
nited States.)
Let other people handle your money.
Invest in your friends’ companies, but not enough that you’ll be damaged if they tank.
Keep your children on a tight budget.
Keep your children in the dark as long as possible. (When they are little, they don’t need to know that private planes aren’t normal.)
The preppiest Hampton? Mark Hampton, though he was a Hoosier decorator who was raised on a farm. These days if you want to live surrounded by the combination of good zoning and familiar neighbors, look elsewhere. Perhaps look for a town with a general store instead of one with its own branch of Dior. Or Tiffany. Or Gucci. Preppies are decisive in their wanting to live amongst other preppies but are ambivalent about money, so they prefer to settle someplace undervalued and less glamorous than the Hamptons.
However, if you like, consider “Pine Coast” the preppiest of all the Hamptons. (“Pine Coast” could be on Long Island, but it could also be in Delaware, North or South Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, California, or Washington State. “Pine Coast” could be somewhere along the Croisette in the South of France, in Dorset, England, or near Porto Ercole in Italy. If “Pine Coast” is in Europe, call it something else, like “Le Cadeau.”) This is where the family home has been deeded to you in the will, and therefore, it is a great place to summer. Even if it’s near the epicenter of the P. Diddy, Paris Hilton, Lizzie Grubman resort, those people can be shut out for more low-key neighbors and pastimes. There are still plenty of restricted clubs to join, plenty of tennis courts that insist on tennis whites, and beautiful large families that colonize compounds of their very own.
These Hamptonites don’t go to store openings or to restaurants or to movie premieres. They eat at home or at their friends’ houses. They enjoy a simple cookout. In fact, their lives are so circumscribed by their inherited community, you might say these preppies are practically invisible. You might see one or two on the train or on the Jitney, but in transit they wear protective coloration. Once they arrive at their destination, they disappear until the next commute.
If you think these are preppy, you are wrong. Aside from Tuxedo Park and a few others from another time, to us gated properties suggest assisted living, retirement communities, condo clusters with shared pools and recreational centers, or Sun City. If we live somewhere that is actually exclusive, its barriers are virtual, its constituency self-selecting. If your Pine Coastal house is already stone-walled and gated, so be it, but to put in an electric gate seems a bit de trop, doesn’t it? We don’t think the average burglar population has a keen appreciation for old glass vases, warped wooden tennis racquets, or Deerfield yearbooks.
Preppies love everything about water: swimming in it, surfing in it, skiing in it, drinking it, bathing in it, throwing the dogs in it, rowing in it, sailing in it, splashing a little in their scotch, showering, especially in an outdoor shower near the pool or behind the house.
Lake types are incredibly partisan to lakes. They love their private docks; they love rowing to their boathouses for barbecues in the summer, or swimming to the floating raft; and they’re surprisingly game when it comes to the water snakes or—in the Adirondacks—the bears and blackflies; in winter they love skating on the black ice. While you can, of course, have your own swimming pool built on your mountain-adjacent property, or bike to the lake, or join a swimming club, it is preppier to live near a beach. Nothing says summer like saltwater-perfumed air. How else are you going to get sand into the crevices of your thick summer paperback? And after all, hydrangeas don’t flourish near chlorine.
Lakes are preppier than pools. Real lakes are made by nature. Real lakes, as noted, have yucky lake bottoms, occasionally with leeches and snapping turtles. Some lakes never warm up during the summer, because they are surrounded by tall, dark pines. If you want the real, unequivocal answer, oceans are preppier. Because they are natural and uncontrollable, and offer very short seasons in which to swim. You can do your best, but you can’t swim laps like a self-improvement nut. Oceans have waves, jellyfish, beach glass, fish. They are controlled by jetties, the moon, and the club’s beach committee.
The Adirondacks
Annapolis
Aspen
Block Island
Cap d’Antibes
Chatham
Corfu
Dark Harbor
Deal
Deer Isle
Deer Valley
Fishers Island
Harbor Point
Hilton Head
Hyannis
Hydra
Jackson Hole
Jupiter Island
Lake Geneva
Lake Tahoe
Lenox
Locust Valley
Mabou Mines
Martha’s Vineyard
Millbrook
Montauk
Nantucket
Newport
Northeast Harbor
Oxfordshire
Oyster Bay
Point of Pines
Porto Ercole
Saint-Rémy
Santa Barbara
Santa Cruz
Southampton
Spetses
Suburbs of Siena
Sun Valley
Todi
Watch Hill
The charity circuit is the perfect excuse for getting dressed up and, like Lily Bart, putting on one’s best face. For preppies, there are several important events in the annual calendar, and otherwise, one doesn’t have to don black tie (unless a friend is being honored by a nonprofit you never supported and you are obligated to attend).
The actual beneficiaries of the charity events may not be of any significance to the guests; the party’s history and the party’s constituents are what matter. If the event sponsors medical research, the fewer reminders of sick people the better, though it may be what Uncle Harry died of. If it supports inner-city charities, however, the guests love to feel empathetic and are moved by being thanked for their good work by some of the organization’s offspring. If the party benefits an organization in the arts or the environment, so much the better, as there is nothing sad, poor, sick, or “needy” to confront.
If you haven’t guessed, the point is to again (or still) be with the Morses, who you would see anyway, if you didn’t go to these big parties. Your husband doesn’t mind the circuit because he can hang with Sheldon or Dickie from the Exchange. He might even be able to get a fourth for the weekend or a piece of business. They get points for attending these events and therefore won’t have to accompany their wives to the Whites for the reading from Pauline’s book on fifteenth-century calligraphy in Persia.
The real giving, of course, happens not through ticket sales, silent auctions, loud auctions, raffles, journal ads, or anything that occurs at a party, though benefits these days can raise sums in the seven figures. It is a dignified tradition among those who have much to give back. Starting at the turn of the twentieth century, families of means established foundations that have nurtured all kinds of advances in scientific, medical, and cultural causes—even land use. The nicest and preppiest of the foundations do their work in relative quiet.
BOSTON
February
• Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston annual dinner
April
• Art in Bloom gala, Boston Museum of Fine Arts
• Vincent Club annual spring luncheon
May
• Emerald Necklace Party in the Park (like the “Hat luncheon” in New York, it celebrates Frederick Law Olmsted’s “only intact linear park”)
• Newton Wellesley Hospital gala
• Wellesley Hills Junior Women’s Club annual Kitchen Tour
June
• The One Hundred Dinner, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center
August
• Dana Farber Cancer Center Pan Mass Challenge (huge bike-a-thon from west of Boston to Provincetown)
September
• Brigham and Women’s Hospita
l In Party
November
• Kenneth B. Schwartz Cancer Center dinner (“usually gets 1,000 people”)
December
• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center dinner
• Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLESTON
Two seasons: February through mid-June; September–December.
February
• Charleston Ballet Theatre Oscar Gala
• Dee Norton Lowcountry Children’s Center Chart a Course for Children event
• La Dolce Vita annual auction benefiting the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra
September–October
• Fall Tours of Homes and Gardens benefiting the Preservation Society of Charleston (their foremost annual fund-raising event)
October
• American College of the Building Arts Red Party
• Historic Charleston Foundation
CHICAGO
April
• Joffrey Ballet of Chicago (it moved there from New York in 1995) annual gala
• Museum of Contemporary Art performance gala
September
• Chicago Botanic Garden Harvest Ball
• Women’s Programs at Northwestern Medical Center: The Evergreen Horse Show
• After School Matters annual gala, featuring teenagers who have benefited from after-school programs; very dear to Mayor and Mrs. Daley
• Rush–Presbyterian–St. Luke’s Medical Center fashion show
October
• The Primo Center for Women and Children Red Hot Gala
NEW YORK
January
• Winter Antiques Show Opening Night Party
February
• Young Fellows Ball at the Frick Museum