The most stylish man I ever knew was Fred Hughes, the right-hand man of Andy Warhol, who acted as the artist's agent, social secretary, decorator, and ambassador to uptown and across the Atlantic. He was a great character who would have fit in with the F. Scott Fitzgerald/Gerald Murphy crowd in the twenties, and his refinement and aestheticism seemed something of a throwback in the seventies and eighties, although he could be a party animal as well. Andy Warhol always complained that when Fred was drunk he started talking like Diana Vreeland, a favorite date of his. His other dates tended to be beauties like Patti D'Arbanville, Donna Jordan, Jane Forth, or Tina Chow, but I remember vividly Fred dancing animatedly with the aged Luchino Visconti in a black gay bar.

Fred died young of multiple sclerosis in 2001 at the age of 57, and the world lost a great man. He was impeccable yet diabolical and quite amazing to the end, which was sad, as he had lost the power of speech, and there were few more colorful and delightful conversationalists on this planet. Anyway, Fred turned me on to Calvin Curtis, a New York cravateur, shortly before the shop closed. I still have one of the ties I bought there in the early seventies, and one from Fred's collection that was given to me.

Recently, while antique shopping on LaBrea in L.A., I encountered a very strange scarf with the Calvin Curtis label. It seems to be an experimental form of scarf. The illustration is very Italian Futurist, in the manner of Giacomo Balla. I have worn it but I still haven't figured out the engineering principle. The "legs" are much longer than the poor photo would indicate.