Mussolini's Fiat, parts 1803 - 1806

1803. There were four monks in all. They got on a tram and the tram drove off, and then they were gone. After they disappeared I actually felt that I had been hallucinating, and it hadn’t really happened. There robes were a thick kind of woolish material and a color brown I have never seen before. I felt that if you wanted to make yourself a robe like that you would have to begin with the herding of sheep.

1804. The fact is there are very few places in society where the prevailing conventions of fashion do not exert themselves as a relentless tyranny. Fashion, which we often think of as a superficial distraction from important matters, is actually a set of absolute laws, those laws are ever changing, and yet are enforced by relentless immediate unseen punishments, in the face of which there is no appeal.

1805. One’s entire life and history, ones accomplishments and accolades can be thrown out the window in fifteen seconds if one is wearing the wrong shirt and tie to a certain meeting. Lawyers know that their clients will go to prison or go free always as a result of a haircut and the choice of trousers, rather than a collection of evidence carefully presented.

1806. Worse than that, a client may be convicted even though he wears the correct slacks and sweater, if the lawyer himself has a hair style out of the sixties, or worse yet, out of the seventies. Let me ask you this. Would you trust your vast wealth, and the decisions about your investments to a man who is dressed in a checkered suit, and looks like one of the Three Stooges because of his hair.