A fabulous photograph.
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I blew by this one on my first glance through this month’s pile of fashion magazines and am awfully glad to have revisited it.
Lord & Taylor is a clothing and knick knack store for the wealthy. If you want to see the best Christmas windows in New York you need go no farther than Cartier, Saks or Lord & Taylor, all conveniently close by on Fifth Avenue. By the way, when it comes to Christmas windows, we west coast recluses marvel at Saks’s in Union Square in San Francisco, a city with much of New York’s charm and diversity but little of its nastiness.
First and foremost, this complex composition, worthy of Rembrandt’s Night Watch, speaks of success. A large, well dressed family, preparing for a barbeque. Obviously this is the weekend place.
The silver haired paterfamilias, fit and tanned, is very much in charge, strengthening his position of control by taking on the menial cooking chores. He’s old world, of course, so no stainless steel multi-knobbed built in barbie for this man. So gauche. No. It’s charcoal and an old Weber grill, and who could argue? It’s the ultimate condescension of the wealthy – use what the working man does. It’s real – look at the smoke trails in front of the preppie boys.
The massive cantilevered arms must support a very large awning. The affluent have large patios which need large awnings.
He seems to have three sons, the two who finished prep school and are now at Yale and Princeton, the eldest very aware of his film star looks, and then the third, in the hoodie. He went to UC Santa Cruz, did too much surfing and too many drugs, started a rock band and is the real success of his generation. He’s making music on the bass with his niece on the trumpet. Rich people play instruments.
The mother (Lauren Hutton) is messing about with the pony (doesn’t everyone have a pony?) and the animal is the focus of attention for her daughter and grandchild on the right. Rich people have animals. Big animals.
The number of kids is hard to fathom. I’m reckoning the girl at top left was a surprise fourth child for the old couple. Rich people can afford it. That still leaves seven kids to account for, so either the last generation was Catholic, or someone else’s kids got into the party. It just adds to the fascination of the picture.
Finally, the almost too precious arrangement of vegetables by the Weber makes another subtle reference to wealth. Clearly these are for show, not consumption. The rich love show pieces, be they veggies or china.
Note also the Degas-like cut off of the child at the lower left and that insanely mischievous look of the little boy front center. What a piece of choreography! All told there are fourteen people in the picture …. and one pony. Mercifully, the art director and photographer left out the obligatory dumb-as-a-brick golden retriever. A Border Terrier would have been nice, but I suppose that’s too much to ask. The rich own Border Terriers.
The inspired choreography, the subtle and oft repeated message (if you have to ask you cannot afford it), the warm colors reminiscent of the great party scenes of Renoir, the rustic setting, the simple classy clothes worn with grace.
Advertising does not get more subliminal than this. Not only does the viewer get gently invited to the world of wealth, he gets an object lesson in deportment and behavior just by gazing at the guests. Would I change anything? Well, I would likely give the old boy a stiff G&T in a nice L&T crystal tumbler. Easy on the ice. When it dawns on the old boy how much of his inherited capital he has just blown on nice clothing, he will need a restorer.
What a photograph! Bravo!
Boy, do I wish I could speak to the photographer who took this.
P.S. The edge tears are in the original; the center ones are mine as I had to rip out the two page spread to scan and join the images.
