RETHINK: Eleganza Man

Fashion can convey power. Fashion can attract. Fashion can be your calling card. Fashion can reflect mood. Fashion can open doors. Fashion can provoke.

So what was the man who wore clothes from Eleganza trying to prove?

You have to figure a guy in a lavender jumpsuit and bell sleeves is crying out for attention. See me! Hear me! Feel me!  That would fit with the new sense of power Black men were trying to show after so many years of hiding their light under a bushel.

That white walking suit (what exactly is a walking suit?) with removable cape gave you something to flip dramatically off your shoulder, or stylishly slide onto your lady’s shoulders in a cold restaurant. Then again maybe it was also a weapon, or a place to hide your weed.

Hell, I’m stretching for cultural context here. I was a kid then.  Bottom line, there was no good reason to be caught dead in any of this stuff.

A more important question, what was the person designing and selling these clothes trying to prove?

Unfortunately, we may never know. The Eleganza mail order ads ran in Ebony and Jet beginning in 1968 and in every issue until an abrupt end in 1975.  The institutional memories at Johnson Publishing who would have known more about the Eleganza account are long gone. As for whatever happened to the Eleganza business, it is also difficult information to find. The addresses given in the mail order ads turn up private homes and empty lots in a Google map search. But a deeper search of Brockton, Massachusetts records, where Eleganza was based, turned up this case of one James L. Green vs. the IRS:
 
The taxpayer is in the business of owning and operating commercial real estate. He was also the president and sole shareholder of Eleganza, Inc., a mail order business. Eleganza, Inc., became insolvent in 1975, and the taxpayer was required to pay $170,000 pursuant to his personal guaranty of a debt owed by Eleganza, Inc. Insolvency rendered the taxpayer's claim against Eleganza, Inc., worthless.

That would explain the end of the ad run. There is also this obituary from the Boston Globe published in 1999:

A graveside service will be held today for James L. Green of Wayland, an adviser to former governor Michael S. Dukakis and president of Educational Futures Inc.

Mr. Green died yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 69.  He held bachelor's and master's degrees from Harvard University and was a former resident of Brockton, where he owned Eleganza, a fashion merchandising firm.

So the mind that birthed pimp fly threads and double knit double breasteds was a product of Harvard. Somehow that makes sense. But just so you don’t get the impression that Eleganza was a cynical ploy to market rooster outfits to Black people, know that there was a separate group of ads in mainstream magazines with white models featuring clothing of equal  - ahem - sartorial splendor.

There’s a great story in there somewhere, but James L. Green is no longer around to tell it. We only have these ads as immortal evidence of Eleganza’s dubious impact on couture.

Oh, and we have this:

Eric Easter writes about politics, technology and culture for EbonyJet.com