Frank Healy is a clothes horse, or would like to be. According to the story line, he developed an eye for fabrics and brands while working in the men’s department at Filene’s (Boston plug!). Being working-class Irish, he couldn’t afford to shop there, but proximity drove his lust for fine attire. He knows sharkskin and worsted wool. He knows nubby silk and Harris Tweed. He knows polyester double-knit and acrylic. He knows Brooks Brothers, Savile Row and Milanese. He knows Haute Couture and JCPenney.
When he falls for beautiful, wealthy Lucy Firenze, he goes to the Salvation Army store to buy a suit before meeting her family. He doesn’t own one, and can’t afford to buy a new one.
What a bunch of crap! All you can buy at the Sal are other people’s cast-offs, more suited for rags.
Not true. I have purchased several nice suits there. I once bought a handmade suit at the Sal that gave me many years of service. I have a Hart Schaffner & Marx suit in my closet. I bought it for ten dollars. It had never been worn. The basting still held the pockets tightly shut. I was ragged mercilessly at my sister’s wedding when I let this fact slip, but I still got a five hundred dollar suit for ten dollars.
Frank’s eye for style extends to women’s clothes as well.
Why would a guy even pay attention to that? Shouldn’t he be home drinking Budweiser, watching the Lions lose?
Frank is almost a car stylist. He has an artistic temperament, but, like a minor league ball player, he just missed the cut. Frank is also somewhat uncertain about his sexuality. I know it’s a stereotype, but gays do seem to be disproportionately represented in the arts.
For the stories to work, Frank needs to be keenly observant, someone who misses very little. Why shouldn’t he infer things about people from the way they dress and act? He wouldn’t be a very good detective if he passed through life in a purple haze of pot smoke.
In a fictional world populated by artists and wealthy auto executives, clothing decisions would be very important to other people, too. The landscape ought to be “target rich,” to use the current military jargon. If other people are dressing for success, or at least to be noticed, a keen observer couldn’t help but notice.
That’s only fair.
But is all this necessary in crime fiction? Other authors are satisfied to say, “The gangster wore an expensive, nicely-tailored suit.” Sure, okay for them, but my characters live in a different world where clothes really do make the man and the woman.
Even in the real world, clothing makes an important statement. When I see a girl dressed in a too-tight T-shirt with her pierced navel showing, I can’t help but think “trailer trash,” even if she’s carrying a Gucci bag and wearing Seven For all Mankind jeans. At the Somerset Collection. She might be Paris Hilton, but that’s not who I see.
People dress to get noticed. To be sure, they want to be noticed by their target audience, whether steroid soaked body builders, drag queens or stockbrokers.
We’d better notice, or we may get smacked upside the head with a Kelly bag.
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