These are images more invasive than any Victoria's Secret spread, because they don't inspire lust. This is a pornography of regret, and the longer you stare, the more seductive it becomes. These sixty pages are a self-pity trap; any sane lonely man would do well to avoid them.
But there it waits in the mailbox — two copies, in fact — waiting to snap its poisoned jaws. Why am I receiving this? you might ask. Then you remember that she bought products from this company, and on first glance it's easy to see why: this is Spiegel-light, clothing for the multi-tasking young mom when she's not wearing Petite Sophisticate at the office.
These women have long green fields waiting fuzzily in the background. They gaze into the distance; they smile ruminatively downward; they hold confident eye contact with the camera. These are women who aren't afraid to wear flannel pajamas. They are comfortable in their roles as accomplished, sexy everything-women.
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You have to look closer to see what truly makes the models special, though, what elevates them above Victoria's Secret: they have wrinkles around their eyes. These women have laugh lines, taut necks, and that slight tummy that can be so, so sexy. These are not the airbrushed dolls of ignorant fantasy. These women are real.
And their eyes: Is it pain in their eyes? Are there any illusions left there — about life, about men?
Recognizing this, the astute porn addict pages through and counts men. Pages with males only number ten out of sixty. In three of those pictorials, the heads are cut off. In the fifty remaining pages of pictures, all the women are alone.
These women don't need you. These are careerists in full ownership of what they have cut loose.
For the lonely man, staring at these women is gazing into bitter, beautiful loss.
It's addictive.
For a second, studying the supposedly idealized images of men in the catalog — the ideal man for these uber-women? Your replacement? — the old anger flashes: These guys are dorks! They're wearing clothes chosen by their women - turtlenecks and non-Levi's jeans, monogrammed, $50 button-down shirts with matching ties. . . khakis.
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These are men who deserve to have their faces cropped out, emasculated by the inability to even choose their own clothing. Men pictured holding babies as if it's some kind of rare event. What self-respecting, self-dressing man wears a black turtleneck — with corduroys, no less?
Just as the old self-affirming anger rises up, turn the page to find a gorgeous, short-haired mom in fleece jacket and matching hat and gloves, and all the actualization turns into bile.
Let her dress me. I should have agreed to everything.
Wanting these women. Not wanting these women. Wishing you hadn't said flannel pajamas made her look like her mother — this is mental quicksand. This catalog is the new Playboy, and nothing else will satisfy. The thought of even talking to someone who hasn't felt the pain, who doesn't have the crow's feet and those eyes — it's just not the same.
Everything you want, every mistake you can't change, stands two feet away behind a glass wall. Every man she might be fucking is the headless male model. Each page of Lands' End fantasy is a perfect scene in the wonder of her new life without you. But these aren't plastic dolls; the model's eyes won't allow you to reduce their reality. She is still the woman you loved.
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Maybe she even still loves you; she just can't live with you anymore. In the same way these pages hold you at a distance, wanting her turns the mistakes of your life into pornography.
So can you masturbate to this? What's your new porn good for but leading to alcoholism and sobbing? These are forms of release but they aren't going to do your prostate any good. Don't worry — Lands' End is looking out for you. Toward the back, just before the comfortable sandal section, waits the swimsuit spread.
Now, these are special swimsuits, for real women. They slim and wrap. They emphasize and detract. These are the suits that populate the memories of men who know. These are the patterns and shapes of all-inclusive vacations and honeymoons. These are the suits of vibrant, sandy memories, of salt on skin and the unexpected pleasure of peeling back spaghetti straps to rub lotion into her exposed back, her head turned to the side, drifting asleep beneath your warm hands.
I hate you, Lands' End. n°
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
| James Stegall is the publisher of the small press So New Media. His work has appeared in Flak Magazine, Eyeshot and Bookslut, among others. |
Comments ( 37 )
Is there seriously no feedback on this article yet? Bitterly beautiful. To the author: Please write more! Thank you for sharing this.
Very good. I hope you don't really feel this bad, and have this many regrets, about your last relationship. I hope it was meant with a sense of humor. Either way, I liked the piece.
That was great!!!
You know... Land's End also has a swimsuit issue! ROFL!!
John Parry Barlow you are definitely not. Can someone get this guy a Strunk & White? Grammar, grammar, grammar...
Finally! Someone who got away from obsessing about the wealthy and wrote about true pain!
that made me laugh. and feel bad at the same time.
i laughed, i cried... because i identified. too funny, loved it.
this is great
I just had my heart ripped out by a guy who's used to dating the Vic. Sec.-aged, and my Land's End self just wasn't cutting it. He said the most craven things to get out of an entanglement with someone who had her shit together, and admitted as much. This article was the first thing that really made me feel better.
If this was supposed to be serious...I had an adverse reaction. It made me laugh for it's unique take and over-the-top emotions it evoked for the author. Chin-up, bud :)
I really liked this article.
That's all.
Thanks.
I never would have thought that I would read a good article about Land's End catalogs. It was like a combination between Updike and Bukowski.
Beautifully insightful with subtle dark humor.
Nicely done.
I love this article. Holy shit! it was absolutely fabulous. It also goes both ways though...perhaps one written about the real men who have slight love handles, and thinning hair, but hearts full of love. Damn, I think I am swooning.
seriously? genius. friggin genius.
It's such a relief that someone else out there is being cut off at the knees by seemingly innocuous, everyday items (in my case CD's). I search for a song or album I want to hear, and am crushed to discover it split when he did. And thus the spiral starteth...
Awesome, beautiful, heartbreaking. Thank you!
Do the art directors at Land's End know how deeply they affected you? Great piece.
-Chris Thompson
eagleapex.com
Even if this was written tongue in cheek, there's a lot of truth in it. Very bittersweet. To a lonely old man of forty-something like me, it rings utterly true.
Concerning the new pornography - Land's End...
This is one of the best things I've ever read. Absolutely amazing! If I start typing anymore I'll go on for paragraphs, so I'll just leave it at that - Amazing.
you nailed this. i have thought similar things looking at similar catalogs. the funny things is that the catalogs are trying to create a fantasy for women of their serious no-nonsense lands end selves ... the effect on us is just collatoral damage.
Since moving to the West Coast, I don't receive the Lands End catalog that much anymore. Thankfully, the pornography that is the Crate and Barrel catalog is one that I can handle.
Great article.
This story made me feel sexy just reading it.
That was an incredible piece of writing. As a thirty-something ,divorced, single male...it really hit home. It was melancholy in that warm way that reminds you of walking alone on a fall day, thinking of love lost and age-old regrets. So I don't know whether to thank you for it or not, but I must complement you on a brilliantly, terribly worded piece of exquisite writing.
Thank you Richard Ford
Richard Ford indeed! I just got the chance to read this thanks to a link on "Blog of a Bookslut". I thought I might be reading a lost section of "The Sportwriter" - then checked out the feedback posts and discovered (creepily) that I was not alone. Yeah, it owes something to Ford, but it's seriously good writing on its own. A brilliant analysis of how we engage with the representation of lifestyles in catalogs. Check out "The Territory Ahead" catalog for more material: overwritten fantasy projections of desired lifestyles which would make Peterman blush.
Great essay. I am still laughing/sobbing
cheers,
Oh how true it is. The catalog is a great read with the pictures and how life could be. Do you really want it like that?
Lest we not forget the truth, beauty fades, companionship in ones old age is the key.
I am still young, mid 40's, divorced with kids and far from bitter.
If she is tired of putting up with your shit, by all means, tell her to the hell out!
Oh, and I really do love those swimsuit pix...
Well, thank you for writing what for me marks a return to the Hooksexup I knew and loved, years ago, before they nixed Jack's naughty Bits, aesthetically challenging photo shoots, and other more intelligent curiosities. Keep it up! -Ms. Writer
yes, some of the women in Lands End catalogs look more real..inviting..than the ones in Victoria's Secret. I must admit to being in love with one of the models myself..hope they show her more in future catalogs!!
I loved it. A great read. Sent it to my husband and my book group. I'm a happily married women in my mid fifties.
have you tried the Boden catalogue - very real women, with mimi biogs :-)
I just happened on this piece (I was looking for the Land's End Catalogue . . .)
I was married to one of these beautiful, thirtysomething, omnicompetent professional women fifteen years ago. Still am, but she's a grandmother now (recently she got pulled over by an airport security guard who thought she was trying to impersonate a woman of the age printed in her passport. Really).
What bothers me is how the author treats pictures of women like the woman he lost as porn. Is that how you saw her? Did you appreciate her competence? Her dedication? Her integrity? Did you let her know? When you complimented her on her appearance, or made suggestions, did you do it because you wanted her to look her best, or to suit yourself? Did she know which? Did she relate to you as a hunk or as a person with with integrity? Were your souls big enough to love and be loved, or just your bodies--maybe you both damned each other?
My love is perfectly competent enough to handle her life, her career, her kids without me. For some reason she seems emotionally dependent on my presence, which I can't figure out. I respect her life choices deeply, and it seems I'm one. Go figure.
Last night, when we went to bed, I told her about this article. Her skeptical comment: "yeah, that's the way Land's End tries to get their [women] customers to see themselves." We made quiet, gentle love.
I loved this article. My daughter does research in communication studies and had mentionned porn & advertising with women's heads and/or hands cut off (which I hadn't noticed before). This article is a counter-piece to all that discussion. Well-written, hilarious & honest, poignant/moving. Bravo!
She's probably reading what you wrote, bewildered still as to why you didn't want to create that future with her. Why, no matter how hard she tried, you struggled against walking together in a peaceful healthy supportive life and family path. Why she had to go out into the world alone to create a tiny fractured version of what you could have been together.
Bad taste.
Come to think of it, as yet another fantasy catalog tumbles from my mailbox, some of the ladies in the Pendleton Catalogs are definitely heart-throb generators... Of the country-club set, but oh, those warm smiles and slender figures... One wonders if they hold out their pinkies whilst having their afternoon tea? Or perhaps they might overindulge in one too many Veuve Clicquot in their "High Society" world and end up in my arms after a late night Tracy Lords like swim? No Jimmy Stewart am I but a modern day Walter Mitty...
Hello boys, I am Sandra and I want to write my little commentary. I am want to place your text at my personal blog, with link to your blog. Is it normal for your? give to me your answer, please.
And the fall Boden Catalog, as DN mentioned above, was recently snuck into my copy of the Sunday New York Times and I am smitten yet again! She of the berry red Chiffon Ruffle Dress and disarming smile on page six reminds me of someone from long ago and everything stops. It calls to mind something Fred Astaire said in the movie "Swingtime" to Edward Everett Horton about his feelings for Ginger Rogers, "Women pine. Men just suffer..."
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