D2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020“During my mom’s Mexican youth, girls used to embroider their
boyfriend’s initials on a handkerchief with their own hair,” Rick
Owens wrote in an email from Paris, where he and his wife, Michèle
Lamy, live. Though hair can be a disconcerting substance when not
attached to one’s own head, it has a rich history of use as a memen-
to mori, used through the ages by artists, hobbyists, fetishists and
smitten teens.
“I loved that story,” Mr. Owens said. “So I asked my mom to
embroider a handkerchief with her hair for me.”
Years later, when the designer’s friends started having children, he plucked strands of
his signature raven locks and embroidered the newborns’ initials on baby blankets that
he gave to the new parents as gifts.
Though the baroque atmospherics of the instructions below are not required (Mr.
Owens may have been, as he wrote, on magic mushrooms when he composed them), it
probably helps to be in some kind of swoon while you sew.
Your Tool Kit
■Three long strands of your own hair
■One 35-by-35-inch silk handkerchief
■One Clover No. 3-9 gold-eye embroi-
dery needle
■An embroidery hoop
Step 1
Wash your silky hair in the milk of a don-
key, “just as Claudette Colbert did while
playing Empress Poppea,” Mr. Owens
wrote, referring to the actress’s racy turn
in “The Sign of the Cross,” Cecil B. De-
Mille’s 1932 pre-Code epic. TREsemmé
would probably work just as well if you
can’t find donkey’s milk in the dairy aisle.Step 3
Lightly pencil the desired initials on the
silk hankie, then stretch it over “your
prettiest” embroidery hoop.
Step 5
Slip on a thimble and start embroidering
the initials of the one you love. “Find a
cozy place to sit outside under a tree,” Mr.
Owens said. “This could very well take all
day.”Designer D.I.Y. Rick Owens
A Few Strands of Love
By GUY TREBAYStep 2
“Air-dry your hair by hanging it off a
balcony in morning sun, combing and
untangling it with a fine-toothed mother-
of-pearl comb while the Montserrat Ca-
ballé version of Camille Saint-Saëns’s
‘Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix’ plays in the
background,” Mr. Owens wrote.Step 4
Take three long healthy strands of hair
from your head and thread them through
the needle simultaneously. “Using a single
strand will take forever,” he said.ILLUSTRATIONS BY SAMANTHA HAHNThere have never been many
places to buy a pair of black
leather ankle boots in size 13 —
about four sizes larger than the
widely accepted average size for
women’s shoes. Now, with the clo-
sure of Long Tall Sally, there are
even fewer.
That news, announced by the
44-year-old British retailer, re-
sulted in “a quite tangible out-
pouring of grief,” said Vicky Shep-
herd, the company’s spokeswom-
an.
Long Tall Sally sells women’s
wear and accessories for tall peo-
ple: pants with extended inseams,
tops designed for longer torsos,
shoes up to size 15. The clothes are
uncomplicated and office friendly,
appealing to broad swaths of
shoppers — more Gap than Fash-
ion Nova, though at a higher price
point. It is the only retailer of its
kind, where tall shoppers can
browse a diverse inventory with-
out worrying about hemlines
landing three inches above the
point they’re supposed to land.
They’re not confined to one de-
partment in a shop; everything is
made for them.
The store will cease operations
at the end of August, citing in its
closing announcement the “very
sudden and very profound impact
of Covid-19.”
Even before the global pan-
demic, Long Tall Sally was strug-
gling, largely because of growing
competition from affordable e-
commerce behemoths like Asos
offering tall categories, Ms. Shep-
herd said. In 2018, the company
began moving entirely online,
closing the brick-and-mortar
stores that were once spread
across Britain, Germany and
North America. (The United
States presently accounts for 35
percent of sales, according to Ms.
Shepherd.)
“We really, really tried to make
it work,” Ms. Shepherd said. “But
the curse of Covid — it has rocked
us, and we can’t see how we can
claw back from it.”
Long Tall Sally was founded in
London in 1976 by Judy Rich, then
a 33-year-old American entrepre-
neur who had been six feet tall
since she was 13. She named her
West End store after the Little
Richard song, initially offering
three sizes. Back then, she had to
knock on manufacturers’ doorsherself to ask them to make
sleeves two inches longer. But the
first store was “almost immedi-
ately successful,” she said.
“It was powered by feminism
and a crusade and a pioneering
spirit — because I felt tall women
were being discriminated
against,” Ms. Rich said. “I have
had the experience of going into
stores and people looking at me
and shaking their heads.”
Ms. Rich, who sold the company
in 2005, learned of Long Tall
Sally’s closure a few days before
the public was told. She wasn’t
surprised by the thousands of dis-
appointed comments left on social
media. (“So sad to hear,” Crystal
Langhorne, a W.N.B.A. player,
wrote on Instagram. “You will be
truly missed.”) The store may
never have become a household
name, but if you were a tall woman
who liked to shop online, you very
likely knew it.
One vocal contingent among
the many mourners was tall trans-
gender women, who had for years
praised Long Tall Sally’s selection
while swapping shopping tips on-
line.
“When I go to Long Tall Sally, I
knowI’m going to find something
that can fit me,” said Rachel
Wheeler, 39, a shopper in southern
England who often bought basics
(like jeans and shoes) from the
store.
“I am stuck,” she said. “I have
no idea what I’m going to do.”Long Tall Sally, ‘Rocked’
By Pandemic, Is Closing
For 44 years, the British
retailer has outfitted
leggy shoppers to a T.
By JESSICA TESTAPA IMAGES, VIA GETTY IMAGESA look from the Long Tall
Sally 1982 fall collection,
shown at the Weig House
Gallery, London.EVERYTHING MUST GOIt is the picture of the tie, like the echo of the
words, that lingers. The tie no longer se-
cured in its big, boastful knot, but rather
hanging limply around the neck, like a
boxer on the ropes. The tie that has been as
close to a sartorial spirit animal as Presi-
dent Trump has had, along with his red
MAGA hat and his elaborately constructed
hair, completely untied.
The tie as it was in the small hours of Sun-
day morning as the president arrived at An-
drews military base from his ill-fated cam-
paign rally in Tulsa, Okla., later landing by
helicopter at the White House and striding
across the South Lawn, MAGA cap crushed
in one hand. The tie as most observers could
never remember seeing it before, at least
around the neck of this president.
Together, the two accessories created an
image as striking as those of the sparsely
populated rows in Tulsa, and the empty
overflow area outside. And as potentially
symbolic, though probably not in the way
Mr. Trump would like.
After all, this is not a president who as-
cribes to the shirt-sleeves photo op. Not
someone who invites his electorate in to see
him, jacket tossed aside, elbows deep in
work at his desk. Not someone interested,
like former President Barack Obama and
former Prime Minister David Cameron of
Britain or even former Vice President Jo-
seph R. Biden Jr., who seems equally com-
fortable with or without a tie, in announcing
his sensitivity to the younger generation
and their value system by willingly reject-
ing the suit.
He is, rather, someone who believes
deeply in the pageantry of his office, of air-
brushed calculation (see: Ivana, Melania,
even Jared), branding and the power of cos-
tume. Be that pageantry in the generals
whom he famously once lauded as “straight
from central casting” or his disastrously
staged march across Lafayette Park to St.
John’s Church in response to the protests in
Washington.
It’s a tenet that was clearly on display in
Tulsa not just in his own uniform — the flag-
reflecting blue suit, white shirt, red tie —
but in supporting acts that included Lara
Trump, his son Eric’s wife and a Trump
campaign adviser, in a white wrap dress;
Kimberly Guilfoyle, his son Donald Jr.’s girl-
friend and chairwoman of the Trump Vic-
tory Finance Committee, in bright blue
wrap dress; and Kayleigh McEnany, the
White House press secretary, in red, like a
matching patriotic array.
And when it comes to Mr. Trump’s cos-
tume, the tie matters. Especially the bright
red tie, which he made his doppelgänger
during the 2016 campaign, glowing in all its
Republican glory; subliminally remindingeveryone of the party’s Reagan heyday; of
the good old times when everyone dressed
according to establishment role; represent-
ing, in all its ridiculous, below-the-belt
length — well, who knows? Something!
Manhood or power or Mr. Trump’s willing-
ness to stretch the rules (he also Scotch-
taped the back, remember?). The psycho-
logical speculation has been endless, and
varied.
The problem is, when the tie becomes a
sign of victory, it can also be a sign of defeat.
So it looked Sunday morning. Sure, it was
very early. You can understand why a tie
might be undone. But Mr. Trump under-
stands as well as anyone that he is always
on display, always playing his part. There
isn’t really a backstage in his job, especially
during his entrance and exit moments.
Add to that the cap in hand, and the sym-bolism gets pretty loaded. As one observer
tweeted, “I mean, when does a baseball
coach scrunch up their team cap — it ain’t
when they’re winning, is it?”
Nope. It’s usually when they are about to
throw it on the ground and jump up and
down on it in frustration and disgust, be-
cause nothing is going according to plan. At
least in the movies, from which Mr. Trump
does seem to derive most of his cues.
Which is why, through all the bombast
and brouhaha, the denialism and accusa-
tions, that both characterized the flop in Ok-
lahoma and followed it, the unplanned
photo op stood out as a rare moment of
truth, caught on camera. It was realReality
TV.
The campaign rally was supposed to be
the start of a new stage (pun intended).
Maybe it actually will be.In a Tie Undone, Seeing the Truth About Trump
A presidential accessory
becomes a symbol after a
campaign rally in Oklahoma.
By VANESSA FRIEDMANCRITIC’S NOTEBOOKDOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMESA sartorially relaxed
President Trump arriving
at Joint Base Andrews in
Maryland early on Sunday.TRANSFORMING
WHAT WAS ONCE
A CLEAR SIGN OF
STRENGTH INTO
ONE OF DEFEAT.An article last Thursday about recent online
jewelry auctions misstated the clarity of a
diamond being auctioned by Christie’s. As
stated elsewhere in the article, it is graded
VVS1; it is not flawless.
CORRECTION