... or, why I respect fashion discipline but love black and white drawing... as told by Kirk Davis, a "lion in his winter."

1. “ Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” -- Helen Keller

2. kirkline.com ... a daring adventure begins.

4. When I began my search for a meaningful response, I reflected on a long-dormant, fashion-based retail concept I had created in 1993 called “BRAT.” Its brand strategy took aim at a Gen-X target audience that wanted to look “classy” at times but was fast becoming clueless as to how to achieve an authentically classy look seemingly without effort. BRAT would offer this franchise a variety of “ensemble” looks appropriate for important social occasions. After decades of lax dress codes, losing the art of appearing to “dress up” without mistake or pretense had become the price this generation was paying for its “free to be me” culture. Regardless, the “story” behind BRAT clearly reflected the influence my parents’ particular approach to dress codes and style had on me as an impressionable young lad...which also inspired my interest in fashion. The inspiration behind my passion for drawing would come later.

7. Mother and Dad were not obsessed with fashion for fashion ’s sake; rather, they approached personal appearance with a sense of duty, restraint, discipline and as something that should reflect favorably at all times on their position and/or office. I point out an important distinction between these honorable intentions and an obsession for fashion as a display or symbol of status.

10. Wedding Bells, June 1941

11. “ The Colonel’s Lady,” modeling at a Wives Club show c. 1954.

12. Dad in “dress blues” and Mother c.1968 wearing a Thai silk dress made for President Kennedy ’s Inaugural Gala in 1960.

13. Mother and my beautiful wife, Ruth, c. 2003. She is wearing the same dress Mother wore to President Kennedy ’s Gala having replaced the black shoulder straps with thin jeweled straps. Mother is wearing the dress she first wore to President Reagan’s Inaugural Gala in 1980.

14. In 1884, John Singer Sargent painted “Madame X,” one of his finest works. In her book “SARGENT'S ‘MADAME X’;OR, ASSERTION AND RETREAT IN WOMAN, ” Lynette Abel writes: “ Towards something is in the feminine mind importantly: the future as outward and to be visited and had. But how much retreat is in woman, too, the unseen sinking, the leaving for a previously chosen background. ” “ Aesthetic Realism teaches--that if a woman's conscious purpose is to know and like the world and have other persons like it, she will assert herself in a way that is graceful. ” What, then, becomes a fashion “classic?” Perhaps, it is what results when a woman and her dress appear as a single, inextricable entity. [Try to mentally wrest Madame X from her evening gown or vice-versa... a near impossible task.] So, what makes a “classic” a classic?

16. And, when I hesitate about my new “daring adventure” Into design worlds far removed from those I have experienced, I am inspired by the following bit of history [which, I am told, does repeat itself]: In 2008, Benetton had sales of about $3 billion. In the 1950s the four Benetton siblings started out making sweaters on their kitchen table with a borrowed knitting machine.

17. “ Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T. S. Elliot

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