INSIGHTS

THIS IS my own Seventh Avenue saga of Calvin and Ralph. It is the mythical story of two men who decided to push beyond the known for something far more elusive and terrifying: the limits of American gullibility. They would not rest until they had stretched and snapped our credulity. They wanted to know once and for all where we would draw the line.

Our story begins with blue jeans, arguably America’s greatest contribution to world style. “Why, I’ll knock-off blue jeans,” thought Calvin, “and I’ll call them Calvins.” His commercials featured Brooke Shields, and the message was clear: sex in a pair of Calvins was not only desirable, it was inevitable. Mommy-daughter teams across the land snapped them up in quantities undreamed of by Calvin. Wearing his name on their behinds was no joke. Women as lithe as dumpsters felt themselves transformed; they were Brooke when they had their Calvins on. Calvin thought this would surely take us to the limits of what we would swallow, but he hadn’t even come close.

Ralph also looked to the West, for the West was the repository of sacred symbols. The West was the one place where men were men, and the manliest of them all was the cowboy. “I’ll knock-off the cowboy look,” Ralph thought. “In my ads I’ll use the symbol of the cowboy who never breaks his code.. .I think I’ll just use myself.” So the former Brooks Brothers tie salesman began appearing in the ads, looking into the sun, wearing pre-wrinkled, preweathered Western work shirts. His line even included copies of the cowboy’s familiar slickers. “What a joke,” Ralph thought. But suddenly, suburban cowboys began riding the Greenville Avenue ranges of America outfitted in Ralph’s Western wear. Ralph had tried, but he had not even come close to the limits.

When the sun set on the Western-wear craze, Ralph knew what he wanted us to look like next: old Eastern money. That tweedy, natural fiber, rugby-playing, riding-to-hounds look passed down from generation to generation by people with three first names, aquiline noses and ruddy complexions. Then Ralph had an idea he thought would surely stretch us to the breaking point. He would adopt the name of the quintessential gentleman’s game for this new line. But the American public still would not rebel. In fact, blank-faced adolescents ready to kill for one of Ralph’s sweaters thought polo was named after Ralph’s line. Even Ralph was amazed. “Can we ever push them far enough?” he wondered.

Then Calvin decided to go it alone, to push us to the absolute limit. This time he didn’t look West; he went straight for our sacred Jockey briefs, known euphemistically as packers. Calvin put his name on the elastic waistband. Next, he bought freeway billboards on which giant, tanned, highly defined male models stretched, looking a little tired from moving their lips when they read. Wearing nothing but their white Calvin Jockey packers, they nearly drove Valley Girls in their own Calvins off the road. Totally awesome, but Calvin knew he had failed again to plumb the limits of our gullibility.

Ralph thought, “Maybe I’m taking entirely the wrong tack. Maybe Mencken was right when he said, ’Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public’ Fair play. That’s it. Americans have an innate sense of fair play. If I can offend that sense on a big enough scale, I’ll have reached the limit.” So Ralph went to England, where he out-scrooged Scrooge by hiring country nannies to stitch elaborate, labor-intensive sweaters. He paid them on a pre-Industrial Revolution scale: roughly $20 per sweater. Then he sold them for approximately $400 each. But instead of pickets, Ralph had customers who couldn’t buy them fast enough. Even the usually upbeat Ralph began to despair. Were there really no limits to their gullibility? Is there nothing they will not accept?

This saga has no end. Calvin and Ralphmay give up, but there’ll be others to taketheir place. The search for the limits of ourgullibility is one without end. Now slideout of your Calvins. Tuck yourself in withyour copy of W. Don’t deny yourself anylonger -have a Bill Blass chocolate ortwo. Aren’t those little boys cute wearingCalvin’s new children’s line? It sort of resembles Ralph’s line. Your eyes are gettingheavy now. Take off Ralph’s glasses. Turnoff the light. Calvin’s sheets sure feel goodafter a long day. That’s great news aboutRalph’s decision to come out with a line ofsoups. The cans will be covered in realwool plaid. Ralph has such good ideas.Those little rice polo players should tasteswell. Sleep well.