My Tired Russian Coat
During the holiday season the word “bespoke” took on a special currency. “Bespoke” has historically been used to describe custom-made suits from Saville Row in London, but now seems to be used to describe just about everything, including custom bikes, websites, furniture, cars, accounting systems and so on. I have a business associate in New York City who tries to slip “bespoke” into every other sentence, a practice that apparently puts him on the leading edge. He’s an investment banker and claims his clients like to hear that their money carries the medieval smell of old English cash even if it has been plundered from the colonies.
I went through my bespoke phase when I worked for the French company that published Elle. Under the circumstances, I had to donate to Goodwill my suits purchased at Today’s Man because they were made with wool from Romanian sheep and stitched together in factories in Mexico and Hungary. They would not have impressed my Gaelic brothers, so I went to Saks Fifth Avenue and spent a fortune on Armani and Canali custom suites. I also was ready to tell my new employer that my bespoke Cinelli bicycle was equipped with custom Campagnola and Colnago components. And I studied French in college.
I was a little disappointed to learn that most people on the 42nd floor in mid-town dressed like slobs and occasionally threw up in their offices after an alcohol-laden lunch. Sometimes I was invited to a dinner by the CEO who regaled models, many from Eastern Europe, who would die to get on the cover of Elle. I was mainly a lawn ornament and side dish, a presence to laugh at the CEO’s impoverished bon mots. He had to huge salary but I had the 32-inch waist. I didn’t help.
I realized that my life had profoundly changed when I donated an Armani suit to Goodwill. It was in good shape and still fit me, but I didn’t need to be so nattily clad for the kind of tech startups I’m currently working on. It would be unfair to say that I was running away from the memories of beautiful women, pricey French champagne, and an expense account that still makes me blush. In my small way, I’m trying to be less bespoken in my attachments.
In the New Year, I intend to give away more clothes and shoes but not my tired Russian coat, which has provided a quarter century of warmth, memories, and talking points. I must admit that the wool coat is a little shabby as it is now held together by duct and masking tape. My family has strongly suggested that I don’t get the mail or take out the garbage when I’m wearing this thing, a request I try to honor. But I am having real trouble shedding this once-bespoke wool coat because it is so closely associated with the fall, rise and fall again of the Russian state. To me, this coat is like a map to a cartographer, a perfect mirror of Russia’s imperfect history.
On my first trip to the Soviet Union I stopped in London to buy the heaviest wool coat available. Good thing I did because the Moscow winter was wretched and my friends had warned me that Russians like to have outdoor picnics in January, if only to test the mettle of their visitors.
I was a frequent visitor to Moscow from the late 1980s through the 1990’s when the Soviet Union fell apart, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) became operative principles, and Boris Yeltsin made his famous “democracy” speech on top of a tank in front of the Russian parliament building. I helped launch a joint venture related to pig farming in this Byzantine land at a very curious time. I watched Yeltsin give away Russia’s energy resource for a song to ex-Communist thugs who were later called oligarchs. I observed the initial joy of Muscovites in throwing off the Communist yoke and the sadness in learning the new game of economics was rigged. Russia’s energy riches and Putin’s bluster would soon assume center stage.
My tired Russian coat was along for much of this ride. The coat has aged, lost some of its heft, and doesn’t keep out the cold the way it once did. If I hold up the coat to a certain filtered light, I can see a rough outline of Russia, taking on land here and water there. My coat, which seems to be rotting from within, has been patient with this Russian thing and hopes for our good friends in Moscow that the country will become less bespoke and precious so this tattered fabric once and for all can retire from service. The poor thing is literally worn out.
