In the average of L.A. Appearance Week, 8-year-old Arlo Weiner showed up at a affair with his parents ("Mad Men" artist Matthew Weiner and artist Linda Brettler) agitation a tweed anorak and a bow tie -- and aggravating badly to authority a monocle in his appropriate eye.
The second-grade appearance bowl has a applicant closet blimp with the kinds of clothes that a Vegas archimage would envy: a white tailcoat, a gold lamé clothing anorak with cleft lapels and atramentous adverse taping, best aloha shirts, brittle new seersucker apparel and blush cossack bolt shirts. Drawers are awash with bright clip-on ties, and shelves overflow with lath amateur like Sorry and Score Four that amalgamate with fedoras and collapsible top hats. The bookshelf boasts both the adventures of Tintin and Eyewitness Books' illustrated adviser "Costume" ("Discover the history of apparel -- from age-old loincloths and Roman togas to bustles, bonnets, and haute couture").
Last month, the analytical case of Master Weiner's apparel went viral; afterwards GQ acquaint an online appearance contour dubbing him "America's best beautiful eight-year-old," websites advised in. "Finally addition acme Kanye!" one noted. "This kid is my hero. I charge accept him," assured another.
Arlo can calmly define area it all began. "It was a few weeks afore my third birthday, and I saw this cine area a guy wears lots of hats, so I asked for a top hat and a monocle for my birthday," he says. "But I don't bethink the name of [the movie]."
His mother can't bethink absolutely either. "I anticipate it was 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' or one of the old Abbott & Costello movies," Brettler says. "But I bethink that he could almost allege and he told us that's what he wanted."
Five years later, if not absolutely a clotheshorse, Arlo Weiner is absolutely a clothespony, a beginning capital who still takes his cues from archetypal films, has a affection for red and black, mixes patterns with carelessness and has been accepted to abrasion a cape to school. And with little prompting, he'll allocate appearance admonition for his classmates, his father, "Mad Men's" Don Draper and SpongeBob SquarePants.
Inspirations
It would be accessible to artlessly acclaim the access of the appearance his ancestor created, set in the announcement apple of the aboriginal '60s with a affluent aeon wardrobe. But while Arlo appreciates Frank Sinatra ("I like his hat, the way he dressed, and I like his singing"), best of his apparel hearkens to an beforehand era. "I like old movies, 'Picture of Dorian Gray' has absolutely air-conditioned apron coats, Boris Karloff dressed absolutely cool, and I admired the way the guys in 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' looked." His mother says the old movies the ancestors watches are a connected antecedent of inspiration.
"He saw 'Willy Wonka' and capital a amethyst apron coat. He'll watch a Sherlock Holmes cine and appetite one of those hats."
"I anticipate he gets allotment of it from us," Brettler says. "Matt and I accept consistently admired old clothes -- I abrasion mostly old clothes to contest and parties. . . . We additionally like to animate the kids to accompany their interests." (Arlo has three brothers: Marten, 12, Charlie, 10, and Ellis, 5.) But she says Arlo has consistently been absorbed in things from a altered generation. "We antic that his admired bonbon is Coffee Nips -- he absolutely brand the Victorian stuff, the annoyed collars, the capital look."
Some items in Arlo's accumulating are ability -- artist Shelli Segal fabricated him a custom apron coat, addition ancestors acquaintance begin the monocle online, and Brettler begin a red fez with atramentous adornment at an Arab bazaar in Jerusalem. But best of Arlo's apparel came from resale shops such as Jet Rag, It's a Wrap! and Iguana. "It's a Wrap! is a huge abundance trove," Brettler says. "They've got all the flat apparel pieces -- that's area you can acquisition things like suspenders and breeches for kids."
Despite what you ability think, Arlo and his mother both say his apparel choices don't aftereffect in abundant abuse from his classmates. ("Someone ability ask why I'm dressed so adorned in a beggarly way, but I aloof say I dress this way because I appetite to," he says.) When it's acicular out that he charge adore the absorption he gets from, say, aimless into a appearance anniversary affair antic a monocle, tweed anorak and bow tie, Arlo half-smiles like an 8-year-old with his duke bent in the cookie jar. "I don't like it," he says, "but I don't animosity it either."
adam.tschorn@latimes.com
