Mhe English writer Stephen Fry owned forty ties for fourteen years. The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami owns so many t-shirts today that he could wear a different one any day of the year. Both men have now made books out of their clothes. One, “Murakami T” (Dumont, 24 euros), began as a series of articles that Murakami wrote for the Japanese fashion magazine “Popeye”.
The other, “Fry’s Ties” (penguin, 14 pounds), in the first corona lockdown, when Fry inventoried his tie collection (the forty must have become hundreds) on Instagram: If he did not post photos of his ties between March and June 2020 every day , then from home-baked bread.
You have to love this writer, comedian, actor, presenter and Harry Potter reader very much (and you can too) in order not to find this project as monomaniacal as possible. In fact, Fry pretends to do it himself.
But, as Murakami notes on the second page of his t-shirt book: “Obviously you only have to do something for a long time and you can turn it into a book. Quite amazing. ”That is the Murakami tone of hardened naivete, and here too it probably helps to be a fan to enjoy the surfer shirts from Murakami’s warehouse (he has a t-shirt warehouse), the shirts from Bands, animals, companies or record stores – like the one Murakami wears in the photo on this page.
But please don’t ask what all the symbols and animals are about, because Murakami is wondering that too. He’s always wondering something. How is surfer Dick Brewer doing today? Do the people of Hanalei still play ukulele on the beach at sunset? How old is Bruce Springsteen?
“I think T-Shirt 64 represents Iron Man. I’m not quite sure, because the face is graphically deformed. The label says ‘Marvel Comics’ so it’s probably a character from that company. Should anyone know something, I ask for clarification. “
The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami has a whole warehouse for his t-shirts.
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Image: AKG
First you want to give Murakami Internet access as a gift, then you realize that it is a technique of self-exaggeration: To ask a blown question into nowhere, which seems all the more important, the more famous the writer is who asks it – as if it automatically became a question of meaning, Eternity and final things, like having to ponder how old Bruce Springsteen is instead of googling it.
You can tell how famous Haruki Murakami (born 1949) is from this pose, but also from the fact that there are T-shirts with his name printed on them. Murakami has included one of them in the book. Even if, he claims, he doesn’t even wear it.
Stephen Fry doesn’t wear some of his ties either. And just as much likes to talk about himself, this Stephen Fry, it is even the last two words of his tie book. Fry doesn’t ask any questions, on the contrary he talks about how he got stuck with googling the fashion brand Blazer, his tie book is a bit more ambitious, including instructions for binding.
Or maybe that’s just residual shame, sublimated through research. There is one and a half knowledge: that ties (Fry has wonderful ones from Lacroix and ugly ones from Paul Smith) are “miniature theater” – and they are one of the few items of clothing that you don’t have to try on. Which is why they age well. But dude, what books.
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