Is it just me, or is the whole world starting to look like a parody of itself? Tonight, I found this in my inbox. For those people living in caves (or abroad), the TOAST catalog has become required reading in every British household of a certain complexion — households that either boast a genuine wafty type of woman who lives in TOAST, or a non-wafty type (ahem) who occasionally cracks and aspires to waftiness, irresistibly buying into the 16-year-old-waif-wandering-aimlessly-through-huge-yet-somehow-decrepit-Irish-mansion-in-cashmere-argyle-socks-and-flamenco-shoes-wannabe syndrome. The former orders printed silk tunics with odd necklines and short sleeve cashmere in colours like burnt pumpkin, the wannabe orders something harmless, like pyjamas. Or boots.
The this in my inbox for some reason struck me as hilarious. A mad parody of the TOAST for women catalog, now available for men. Or, a kind of man.
Sixteen year old wafty female models are one thing, we’re all more or less inured to them. But the models in the TOAST for MEN catalog sit smack dab in that classic middle ground between a documentary on the Amish and a film about the Napoleonic wars.
I have a very giggly vision of future archaeologists and social historians poring over this catalog (in conjunction with episodes of Big Brother and Britain’s Got Talent), making notes in the margin. Like, ‘Decline of modern British society. Started about now.’
Or maybe, more simply, ‘Eeek.’
Jerseys that cost £135 ! Aye, well, you can wax as lyrical as you like if you got that sort of money. Parodies pay, I reckon.
(Spoken like a true Yorkshire Lass)
This is terribly funny. You have to wonder what those fellows are thinking… or perhaps best not to speculate.
Do you know the very droll blog Catalog Living? It seems to have arisen out of the same sense of bemusement you express here.
http://catalogliving.net/
Very funny, Sara, thank you. I particularly like Gary having to sleep in gale force winds on the deck of a ship…..
I thought the beardy man looked rather too much like the Yorkshire ripper. Possibly not Toast’s top choice of model if they were looking for that outdoorsy freedom-loving type.
I am not familiar with Toast [well not until now] but I immediately thought of this recent Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/browbeat/archive/2010/09/01/who-is-the-bearded-hippie-in-the-september-j-crew-catalog.aspx
Oh god, J Crew! Where will it all end? Hermits with tangled dreads and foot long fingernails in the LLBean catalog? Wild men with yellowing toenails advertising Chanel? No more silly than the square jawed-bespectacled ‘regular guys’ who’ve been appearing in catalogs for years, I suppose. But still.
Call me a wafty Toast girl, but I draw the line at my man turning into Worzel Gummidge….though I could see John Malkovic doing his embroidery in that chair….
Weirdly, I kind of like this look. It’s very much part of the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (aka William Oldham) low-fi rootsie Americana movement. see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9d5j-QJIGU
Or, of course, the Fleet Foxes (please look at this – it’s lovely)
Have you seen Winter’s Bone? It’s all a bit Deliverance-y to me, but then, you probably weren’t born back then.
Really want to see Winter’s Bone. I’m a bit young to have seen Deliverance in the cinema, but ‘squeal like a pig, boy’ has long been a catch-phrase in my circle.
Um, which circle, precisely?
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