I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend. A friend is visiting from France and I gave him the official Trader Joe’s experience this morning. I picked up a New York Times on the way home as well. As I wrote a few years back, one of life’s small pleasures is reading the “Lives They Lived” section that appears the final Sunday of every year. The genius of it is that the focus is on people who who were not necessarily famous, per se, but who contributed to society in some important way. I have only had a chance to glance at it so far but I read with interest the vignette on Georges de Paris. de Paris was a tailor whose workshop was three blocks from the White House. He tailored suits for every president from LBJ to Obama. He even made the tan suit that President Obama was unjustly ridiculed–pilloried–for wearing two summers ago. It was all rather hysterical. Earlier this year the Administration had a little fun the day of the State of the Union speech and featured the suit on the White House twitter page.
Georges de Paris led a complicated life that was not all that he claimed it to be. Though he claimed to have been born in Marseille, France, de Paris was actually born Georgios Christopoulos of Kalamata, Greece. I would tell you more but then that would be depriving you of the captivating story.
Enjoy your holidays.
The Strawfoot 