Eavesdropping in New York, №3: Trending Designer Graphic T-Shirts at Uniqlo
I like to look. And listen. The combination of sight and sound map the course of my curiosity as I wander the city. The French poet Charles Baudelaire came up with a name for the ever-observant street rambler: he called such a person a “flaneur.”
The great Makhail Baryshnikov, answering the Proust Questionnaire for Vanity Fair in 2016, said being a flaneur would be his favorite profession. Fortunately for the world — and for him — he chose to do something else. But you can’t blame him for appreciating the sublime pleasure of leisurely consuming the cornucopia of visual and auditory stimuli encountered in a simple walk in the city.
For an old retiree like me who has the Big Apple right outside my window, the world is my oyster. While some men in my shoes go fishing, I explore New York’s streets, parks, restaurants and cafes, museums and shops for eye-catching people and ear-catching conversations. I found my latest subject for “Eavesdropping in New York” in the mammoth Uniqlo store at 650 5th Avenue, a short walk from Central Park.
Uni-Who?
I don’t think I’d ever even heard of Uniqlo until I noticed an unfamiliar logo on Roger Federer’s outfit when he stepped onto Centre Court at Wimbledon in July 2018. He’d worn nothing but Nike for more than a decade, and when he…
