Sartor Resartus

At Brooks Brothers, Manhattan clothiers to men, there are things that one seldom hears mentioned. One of them is vests; Brooks Brothers calls them waistcoats. Another is ties; they're scarves. Still another is profits; they're vulgar.

But the one thing that nobody ever expected to hear at Brooks Brothers was heard last week. After 129 years in the Brooks family, the firm had been sold. The buyer: Julius Garfinckel & Co., Inc., Washington's top men's and women's specialty shop.

With characteristic reluctance to make unseemly details public, Brooks Brothers' President Winthrop Holly Brooks, fourth of the line, would discuss neither the price nor the reason for selling. (Reportedly, President Brooks has never liked the clothing business.) Garfinckel's President Clarence G. Sheffield would say only that there will be no change in traditional Brooks Brothers policies.

Those policies are a part of U.S. sartorial history. Brooks's famed trademark, the Golden Fleece, has long represented the height of stodgy male fashion. Brooks No. 1 Sack Coat has long been the high-buttoned, conservative uniform of the high-buttoned, conservative gentleman.

Snow & Flannels. The Brooks legend is based not only on its unflinching conservatism but on the longevity, resourcefulness and imperturbability of its clerks. Classic prototype of the store's salesmen was Frederick Webb, who, when he died in 1928 at the age of 84, had put in 65 years of service, during which he outfitted five generations of Morgans.

One day Webb was busy counting a pile of coats when J. P. Morgan, the younger, walked in. Said Morgan: "Good morning, Mr. Webb." Said Mr. Webb, looking up: "Oh, good morning, Jack."

In New York's great blizzard of March 12, 1888, only one customer was able to get to Brooks Brothers through the storm. Yet a clerk was on hand to greet him. He showed no surprise when the customer asked for a pair of white flannels. A customer once telephoned on the off chance that the store could sell him a nightcap. All the clerk asked was: "With or without tassel, sir?"

Male & Female? Winthrop Brooks's great grandfather, Henry Sand Brooks, founded the store in a frame building at Catherine and Cherry Streets in downtown Manhattan when James Monroe was president and the U.S. flag still had only 20 stars. By the time of the Civil War, the store (which had already moved part way uptown toward its present address at Madison Avenue and 44th Street) was "the largest establishment of its kind in the world." Naturally, Union Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Philip H. Sheridan, William Tecumseh Sherman and Joseph Hooker campaigned in Brooks Brothers' uniforms. Abraham Lincoln was wearing a Brooks Brothers coat when he was assassinated.

Latter-day wearers of the Golden Fleece have included Rudolph Valentino (who was not permitted to open a charge account because Brooks Brothers did not know his antecedents), Gene Tunney, Charles Evans Hughes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But the rich and notable are by no means Brooks's only customers. In recent years, it has sold suits for as little as $43, built up annual sales volume to an estimated $5 million. There was a horrid rumor last week that Garfinckel's considered this volume too low, might install a line of women's clothing. To the loyal wearers of the No. 1 Sack Coat this was not only unmentionable, it was unthinkable.

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