London in the sixties again –
Three Americans in McCann London, facing weird problems.
Our chairman was a good-looking Irish-American executive,
from Bay Ridge Brooklyn.
White hair, immaculately dressed always, the right schools -
London was his stepping-stone to much bigger responsibilities.
He seemed like he went to Princeton or Yale, we are talking
about a serious senior executive in our company.
He was central casting for a CEO in a movie about American
industry.
He was always backlit - great suits that he changed mid-day
so he was never wrinkled.
In spite of all that, he was still a good guy from Brooklyn.
Our executive CD was a well to do American that had custom
suits, a well-dressed guy. He would have his favorite suit copied at a Savile
Row tailor (and they would even copy his baggy knees). His suits were so
English they didn’t even fit right, the true sign of an upper class custom-made
suit.
I was not as conventional as they were, but certainly not as
wild as most of my department, after all it was the 60s in London.
Bell-bottom trousers, multicolored shirts, velvet jackets
and cowboy boots, short mini skirts on the women, not hippy American style but
London Carnaby Street stuff. That was pretty much the style of our creative
department (and we were not the wildest agency in London).
Our boss would stop me and complain about the dress code of
the creative department. I would defend them by saying if they dress wild they
have to change their outfits every day, you cannot wear orange bell-bottoms
twice in the same week. My argument was that at least the creative’s clothes
were aired out if not cleaned. The account guys wore the same blue suit every
day, probably even on holiday, you couldn’t get downwind of some of them.
He reluctantly accepted my argument, but I don’t think he
was completely convinced.
He was in the lift one day going up to his office on the
fourth floor; we had four out of the six floors in the building. There was an
especially wildly dressed guy on the lift with him - I think he was even
wearing glitter in his hair.
Just too damn much swinging London for our grey suited
leader.
“God damn it, you are fired! Get out of this building!”
“You can’t fire me dude, I don’t work for you, I am just
delivering these Photostats.”
He never tried to fire anybody from the elevator again. And
certainly not because of their clothes!
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