Summer in the City

As purveyors of fashion information and advice to the young urban male, we feel the time has come to convey a great big fat secret to our readers. This hot bit of news is that -- virtually all other magazine illustrations to the contrary notwithstanding -- the average and even the above-average young man does not spend his summers vacationing in Cannes, Newport, Banff or Kamp Kill Kare in the Catskills, but (except for a couple of weeks) stays right in the city, at his office.

This stunning hunk of info used to be bad news. A guy had every right to feel sorry for himself while he toiled at the rolltop desk and had his hair ruffled at droning intervals by a hot, wet wind from the office fan. No more. Summer in the city can be wonderful fun.

What happens is this. The aged and the rich, the housewives and their broods, do take off for the country. Behind them they leave a much less crowded city of smart young folk, a city that may shimmer in the heat, but shimmers romantically and excitingly. A city whose gleaming glass and steel and concrete buildings are air-conditioned, whose restaurants, bars, theatres and clubs (air-conditioned, too) are less jammed, less apt to be filled with yammering suburban matrons and middle-aged drunken conventioneers. With daylight-saving time, there are hours of daylight after work in which to play -- or rest up in one's air-conditioned apartment for later living-it-up through the lush summer night.

We know some happy commuters who bitch bitterly about their daily stint in the city and talk big about the bucolic joys of their split-level junior estates. But we also know (and tend to identify with) quite a few happy toilers in the city salt mines who get a sadistic clout out of going from office to railroad station, now and then, to watch the poor pseudo-hayseeds scurrying to make the 5:05 or the 5:39, dutifully homeward bound to the little viragoes who, 40 minutes hence, will be waiting for them in the jet-propelled marshmallow called a station wagon. It's fun for the confirmed urbanite to watch the station's sweaty bustle and rush -- and then to turn his (concluded on page 67) summer in the City (continued from page 30) back on it, stroll back out to the waiting city, find a nice, dark, cool bar and have a tall, beaded collins or gin and tonic. The commuters' vineyard bears sour grapes when he swats at mosquitoes and children; it bears grapes of wrath while he sweats out his suburban summer night, knowing he'll have to rise an hour before his urban opposite number stirs from his comfortable air-conditioned sleep. In our book, the canny urbanite has it made.

It's no news that cities can be steaming hot; it's equally true that only a masochist needs to be uncomfortable during a city summer. What with virtually universal air-conditioning and cool, lightweight, good-looking garb, the urban man can be happily at ease while he earns his keep and seeks his pleasures.

Consider a midweek city morning. The hum of traffic is light as a young man about town -- perhaps you -- peers at the street from his apartment window, sees the city in the lambent haze of a summer morning, decides that yes, it will be hot again, and goes to his clothespress to select his wardrobe for the day. In the likely instance, he'll don a gray dacron-and-tropical suit. It might as likely have been shantung, Palm Beach, one of the man-made fabrics we discussed last month -- or a linen jacket and slacks (perfectly legit for office wear in summer). His shirt, too, is lightweight, despite its correctly conservative look (he wouldn't dream of wearing the sleazy meshes that are touted as cool), as are his club-stripe tie and black socks. His shoes are slender, of calf, with thin soles and lean lines. (He leaves the two-tone, ventilated novelty numbers to the rubberneck goons from the sticks.)

Once dressed, he phones down to the doorman to get him a cab, takes the lift to the street and rides to his office. En route he may pleasure himself by gazing on one of the city's finest sights: young, chic, svelte office girls in summer dresses heel-tapping their way to work.

Summer lunching in the city is apt to be leisurely. The spritzer with white or red wine may take the place of winter's martini, a salad and iced coffee does the urban man nicely for his two-to-five afternoon of work. And then, in full daylight, he's through with office toil and ready for the sweet labors of love.

Now, he may have one for the road in a midtown bar; he may have made a date with one of the office girls for a drink in his favorite lounge; or he may go home to change for the evening.

At home he showers and then puts on a midnight-blue mohair with a sleek hint of silky sheen, a white shirt with tab collar and a silk tie. Still coolly dressed, his attire is formal enough for any city summer occasion. Perhaps he'll start this particular evening by rendezvousing with his date at some hotel roof or penthouse club, where they can sip their 12-ounce highballs and watch the sunset bathe the city with the purple hues of an urban twilight. Perhaps she'll come, instead, to his digs for a drink -- and they'll decide to stay in and run up a cold buffet together. It may be a restaurant where they meet, or her apartment.

Whatever is planned -- or unplanned and done spur-of-the-moment, the way you can in the summer when advance reservations are seldom needed on weekdays -- you can be sure that the smart urban man and his smart urban date won't subject themselves to a traffic-tangled dash for al fresco dining out of town in the dubious hope that the local countryside may be cooled by a vagrant breeze. These are city people and glad of it. They are indolent and easy in their way of summer life. They're part of the club, that nameless club of working city people who are regularly begged and cajoled to be country guests, but who tend to finesse the invitation without giving offense, because they live the glamorous city summer scene.

Above: on his mind, designs. On hers, designs on him. On his back, a breeze-light dacron/wool suit, dark, and eminently air-conditioned.

Above: twilight time on his penthouse roof garden, variations on a cocktail theme (spritzers), then a quiet dinner for two while the city simmers below. His suit's a blue note in sleek and lustrous mohair and he couples it with an English tab-collar shirt.

Right: they're still fresh and frolicsome in the wee small hours. The cabby in the back sports the new (circa 1900) all-purpose topper.