The DORCUS COLLECTION

[Marc Chevalier]

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Thanks to Dixie Cannon and the website "The Chap", we can all enjoy THE DORCUS COLLECTION. Sit back, relax, and prepare to gag a bit.



---------------HISTORY OF THE DORCUS COMPANY



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“I have a dream,” Barney Dorcus once said. “I dream I take off my shirt at the end of the day and the armpits ain’t hanging out in smokin’ strings from my BO, that’s what I dream.”

Barney Dorcus was one of New York’s most colorful and influential clothiers, and his career had one unvarying motivation: his persistent, corrosive body odor. “I don’t know what it is,” he told an interviewer. “I don’t eat garlic. I wash up. Even in the places you’re not supposed to spend a lot of time touching. Okay, cigars now and then, what guy doesn’t. But that don’t explain why I smell like a hippo’s back end ten minutes after I get outta the bathtub. It ain’t the soap. I tried switching to Cameo. Freakin’ nothin’.”

In a way, Dorcus’ affliction - coupled, it must be noted, with halitosis so severe it often wilted the eyelashes of people to whom he spoke - was his boon. The retailing world in New York was crowded in the '20s; it was a dense, jostling, cutthroat world populated by energetic individual merchants on the bottom end, mass-market retailers in the middle and white-shoe stores serving the carriage trade. A man needed to stand out. A man needed a gimmick.

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[Marc Chevalier]

Teen fun! It’s a member of the Donald O’Connor Appreciation Society, and a gal from Future Della Streets of America!

Yes, any man can be a Manly Man with the new Dorcus line of Tite-Waist Pants. Designed to cruelly ignore your own natural contours, Tite-Waisters will force you to suck in that gut and puff up what little chest you possess. Your rib cage will hang six inches over your shoes! Your intestines will wither away into dead empty husks like the shed skin of a snake! Women wore clothes like this for decades in the age of Bustles - now it’s your turn. You’ll be so light-headed you’ll barely have time to notice that your left arm is actually touching a girl. Eew! Cooties!

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[Marc Chevalier]

What’s the well-dressed professional assassin wearing nowadays? Clothes that reflect his own essential traits of cruelty and ugliness, his abberant values and black dead heart - that’s what! You might not be a hired killer, but with the Dorcus line of Jackal Jackets you can stride onto the tarmac with a look that says: Women fall at my feet. Granted, they are usually bleeding heavily from the exit wound, but that's your style, tiger..

Note: price does not include sociopathic world view, Swiss bank account or significant dermatological scars whose humiliating disfigurement no doubt prompted your choice of career. Not available in British Caledonia at the moment, where they are still rather touchy over that matter with the visiting diplomat.


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[Marc Chevalier]

From our popular Husky Bast---d collection, this stunning checked jacket is a must for the arrogant theater major on your list. Those checks aren’t just for show - they’re part of a metallic skeleton built right into the suit! When the jocks hold you down and beat the crap out of you, no doubt out of spite because they couldn’t ever HOPE to perform in Oklahoma! the way you did last month, well, your jacket will hold its shape. Available in many colors - mud, blood, and hot snotty tears of shame.

The pants contain Dorcus’ patented Sternum GrippR system, which keeps the waistband at the desired, fashionable height. By an ingenious system of nylon threads, space-age pulleys and a piton hammered into the breastbone, the wearer can always be sure his waistband is right where Dame Fashion decrees it should be.


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[Marc Chevalier]

"Yup: wish ah were dead. Dead, dead. Kill me now. Putcher Winchester upta ma temple, press the bar’l gently ‘gainst mah head, and jes squeeze. Go’won, do it."

There are no notations in the Dorcus archives for this photo; it simply appears. There were rumors in the mid-'60s that Raoul had designed a line of men’s house dresses, but that the line met with such resistance that all evidence was “lost,” the designs “misplaced,” the photos “mislaid” and the designers “shot with a .357 nickel-plated pistol, driven to a marsh in New Jersey and buried by the big tree stump across from the IHOP off exit 67.”

As for this photo, one can only speculate about the model’s thoughts.
Perhaps he’s just the happiest man in the world right now, because he has a cup of coffee in his hand and it’s got two ounces of Jim Beam swirling around that rich Folger’s goodness. Maybe he’s thinking about the money this gig will bring - sure, it’s humiliating, but who’s gonna see it? The boys down at the plant don’t read annya them fashion magazines. And if they do, well, I got a football in my hand.

Luckily, Raoul abandoned his mid-'60s plan to put men in dresses ...


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[Marc Chevalier]

... only to bring them right back again, years later under the name of Dorcus He-Skirts. This rare shot from a press event confirms the details of an internal memoranda: “hire only men with large, hairy, developed legs, because in all probability they will be frequently chased by men wielding bats and clubs; models must be able to outrun their critics.”

The memos also detail the jingle for the ad campaign:

She Skirt - He-Skirt - They-Skirt - We-Skirt!
Wear a lotta Dorcus and the gang’ll all say Gee Skirt!
Men, you gotta bare it for a solid Dorcus Whee Spurt!
He-Skirt! He-Skirt! He-Skirt! He-Skirt!

The He-Skirt never made it to market, however, thanks to the intervention of an old family friend, Tony “Antonio” Bruschietta, who took Raoul aside and explained about the wishes of certain “investors” who would “break” his f--kin’ “legs” if he put their money in men’s dresses.


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[Marc Chevalier]

Don’t think we listen? Oh, we listen! We asked you, and you, and you: what’s the fresh new look for the season? And the answer always came back the same: you want to look like an aging French gigolo trying to blend into a harlequin convention.

Here our man Yves contemplates his next move. Dinner at the Ritz? The Opera? Servicing a married man who will throw the money at him afterwards and get angry? Je ne sais pas! Whatever the night demands, make sure your waistband is equidistant from crotch to nape. And keep a hand in your pocket where you keep the knife. The streets c’est froid, mon ami - but stylin’!

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[jamespowers]

The He-Skirt?! :eusa_doh: Uh, no thanks.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Yes, it’s summertime, and Dame Fashion says knees, knees, knees. But it’s not just a dare-to-bare scene this season. Scientists have determined that the knees are your body’s Air Conditioning unit - special glands behind the knee cool and aerate the body, while the porous skin on the kneecap admits the moisture your body needs to survive.

Don’t worry that your socks might fall, exposing godless calves. Our new Dorcosox stay high no matter what, thanks to an ingenious patented Self-Cinch technology. The sock’s top contains a self-inflating ring that binds with, and eventually becomes indistinguishable from, your own legs. Popular? We put the gang in gangrene!

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[Marc Chevalier]

At first glance you know it’s Dorcus. The matching pants and vest with their subtle pattern - based on actual painters’ dropcloths!The shirt that writhes like gigantic spermatozoa caught in a bed of blackened kelp. Dorcus head to toe - but there’s more. Our new City Man collection includes large planters attached to the shoe of your choice. The planters look like concrete, but new space-age resins mean they’re feather light. The ferns? The finest machine-spun plastic. Now any time you choose to stop and watch the world go by, your foot will already have a home.

No less an authority than Quiana Quarterly proclaimed Random Planter Foot-Perching to be the trend of 72. Are you ready?


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[jamespowers]

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See? Now this is why I can't see clothes from the 60s-70s as being cool.

Regards,

J

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Introducing our new style for Saturday Nights: the Bonocroce line. A little bit Sonny, a little bit Big Jim - and a lot of swank panache. What makes this suit so stylish, yet so easy? Simple - it’s all one garment. Look at that belt - what’s holding it flat? It’s sewn together! It’s all sewn together! Including the shoes. Just step in and start livin’. Remember your favorite jammies, the one with footies - well, this is the same idea, except these come pre-soaked in stale, reeking pipe smoke. Bonocroce: Dorcus all the way.


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[Marc Chevalier]

Sometimes you want to flaunt it. Sometimes you have to make a statement. Sometimes you want the world to know you’re loaded. Sure, you could knock people down and grind hundred-dollar bills in their face. But that’s not you. You have style - Dorcus style. So you wear our new Oh Fur Pete's Sake line to the job site. Let ‘em look. Let ‘em wonder what it’s like to wear something like this. Let ‘em realize every payday that their labors permit you to swaddle yourself in pricey dead animals. And then when they “drop” an expensive piece of plate glass, or “mistakenly” pour sugar into the gas tank of the front loader, or “forget” to let the concrete harden before they start pouring the floor above, you’ll know why.


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[Marc Chevalier]

It’s fun to stay at the YMCA! But scary, too. Dress tough in the Dorcus line of Vynlite (tm) training leathers. Special care is taken at the armholes, where our tailors have perfected the art of cinching off your bloodflow, causing your arms to wither into vestigal appendages. Fashion-first hint: Put your hand in your pocket and leave it there; when it rots, it won’t fall off.

Worried that your collar is wider than you shoulders, and a draft of wind might pick you up and throw you into the air? Have no fear - all Dorcus Extra-Wide Collars are lined with lead sinkers.

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[Marc Chevalier]

We planted a seed in our tailors - and the fields sprouted a bumper crop of style! Yes, it’s the look every professional Mikhail Barishnikov impersonator is wearing this season. Plaid. But not just any plaid - no, this is an authentic tartan from a clan of chicken-chested Scots, the McScrawneys.

Note as well that carefully undone button - that’s no mistake. Every shirt in the Dorcus line contains powerful magnets whose opposing polarity prohibits buttoning your top buttons. Go ahead - just try! But not too hard - you could build muscle tone that way. And you don’t want that. At least not until we tell you that you want that. And then we’ll humiliate you for not having it. Style - it’s a kaleidoscope in a funhouse, and you’re always lost and wrong.

We know you hate plaid.


And we don't care.



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[Lauren]

Reminds me of that one website with the really really bad interiors..

 

[jamespowers]

Ok,ok I give! Enough with the what not to wear! My eyes can't take anymore! Although that fur coat.......

Regards,

J

 

[Atomic Glee]

I'd just like to point out that the images and text descriptions originate, and seem to be copied line-for-line, from the web site of author James Lileks, who brought us The Gallery of Regrettable Food, Interior Desecrations, Mommy Knows Worst, and the rest of his essential work:

http://www.lileks.com/institute/dorcus/index.html

Just thought we should credit the original author if we're going to be using his material.

 

[Lincsong]

I thought he was the guy who came up the the GUESS? collection.lol

 

[Matt Deckard]

I don't know... I could walk around in the short fur coat for a while... seems like a swell idea to me. Nothing says fashionable like an armless argyle suit and short fur coat. Where are the hats?