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"The clothes make the man," we have all so often been told. Utter nonsense, I say, as someone who has both worn tuxedos and been reduced to (borderline) rags, at one point or another. The truth, indeed, is the reverse: That how a man dresses is a reflection of who he is, or, at least, wishes people to perceive his person as. The clothes are but inanimate objects, and it is men (and women) who make them, and who ultimately make themselves as well. At one time or another most of us have probably known well-heeled slobs, sharp and fashionable frauds, and impoverished fellows who kept their boots shined and polished, even when the soles were cracked through-and-through with years of wear and tear. Many of us have also likely witnessed the first's haplessness with women, the complete absurdity and underlying desperation of the second's entire existence, and the third's eventual transcendence from his circumstances.
But what of a man's choice in pipes? No doubt these bits of briar, or morta, or meerschaum follow suit. There will always be those who collect the works of rarified pipemakers, because of their love for the art and the craftmanship which goes into their creation - and there will always be those who snatch them up only in the hope of impressing others. Adam can typically be seen smoking some light, unassuming English-classical number, which share a small stand with a number of clays - little surprise for a lover of colonial history. Ted, who holds a degree in poetry and who has been through more beards than I can count since he began working here, holds in a place of pride a couple of well-preserved 19th-century reed-stemmed pipes which were discovered hidden away in an attic, passing generations in obscurity. And who can look at a briar from the Pesaro school, without picturing their eventual owners as gregarious extroverts, or a Dunhill Shell Briar without thoughts of tweed-clad academics gathering over chess boards? Such pipes as these did not create the associations I have mentioned - it's the people who've favored them that did that.
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