It is, I believe, the reason that parties, festivals, family reunions and cookouts are so intensely celebrated in many poorer communities, why people find ways to wear their finest. It is, on some level, an absolute insistence on expressing joy and beauty. Celebration becomes survival.
Years ago, I visited an organization in Harlem that provides supportive housing for formerly homeless and low-income individuals and families. The facility was not only immaculate; it was also filled with art and had an art gallery on the top floor.
When I asked the administrators why they put so much emphasis on aesthetics, one of them responded: “You don’t just give a person four walls to live in. You give them something to be inspired by.”
Well said.
I’ve always insisted on maintaining the part of me that embraced beauty. I used to scavenge for antique furniture and restore it myself. I painted with watercolors and drew incessantly. When I lived in Detroit, I started a small clothing company. When I was married, my wife and I spent many weekends combing the fabric stores in Manhattan’s garment district. And I once took a night class at Parsons School of Design, where, after working at The Times all day, I would drape muslin over dress forms.
I can make no sense of my life without design being central to it, and it never feels to me like a distraction, waste of time or diminution of gravitas. It feels like an expression of freedom.
I have become consumed with the idea of freedom, with running toward it, with embracing it. I want freedom in all things: thinking, working, loving and living.
That’s one reason I look forward to becoming one of those men with the quirky suspenders, bow ties and orange socks. I’ve often been delighted by how older men lean into sartorial whimsy when they exit workplace life, when the uniform becomes irrelevant, when the testosterone coursing through their systems slows to a trickle.
