Friday, March 7, 2014

Fashion Business: Automotive Pioneers Versus Tech Giants




















Google's Sergey Brin, in jogging socks and mom jeans, just looks depressed in a faceoff with the dapper Alfred P. Sloan, who turned G.M. into the world's largest corporation.




Twitter's Jack Dorsey, with the collar pop and sunglasses, is no match for G.M. kingpin Charles Stewart Mott's eyebrows and lap dog combination.






















This one really isn't fair. G.M. founder Billy Durant, in his jaunty driving cap, can't help but laugh at Google founder Larry Page's unfortunate shirt.





















Louis Chevrolet shows Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg that a t-shirt and fleece is not how you do casual by opting for a suit, tie, goggles, and leather driving gloves. Mustache and cigarette are optional but highly recommended.


11 comments:

  1. Let's not forget that Larry Page is the son of a former Flintoid, or Greater Flintoid, being a graduate of Mandeville High School, just South of The Bronx subdivision.

    Possible captions for Charles Stewart Mott and his Chihauhau:

    "Drop the chalupa, Charlie."

    "Help, I'm being held captive by a one percenter."

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    Replies
    1. Queen Brooklyn StatenMarch 7, 2014 at 3:41 PM

      The Bronx?

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    2. Vest-Donning DandyMarch 7, 2014 at 3:44 PM

      Those stuffy old fuddy duddies may be dapper, but they must have been uncomfortable. The modern-day knobs are surely horrible people, but at least they appear moderately comfortable.

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    3. I'd certainly be uncomfortable in the old guys suits, but they seem pretty relaxed in all those layers. Check out Sloan, especially. The guy seems like he was born in a suit.

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    4. You date yourself there. Not many people know that that neighborhood is called The Bronx anymore. I only know because I had a high school friend in the late 70s who lived there. Even then hardly anybody knew that.

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    5. What were the cross streets of The Bronx? Was it across from the South Flint Plaza?

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    6. The Bronx was in place before the South Flint Plaza was built. There were about three streets that ran in from Fenton Rd. Ronald, Decamp, Mandeville in a westerly direction. They
      all intersected Hull which ran in a north to south direction. That was in the early fifties. There
      was changes that took place when Hemphill Rd. was continued through to Van Slyke Rd.
      Philip St. was one of those that entered from the newer extension of Hemphill Rd. It was a
      rather nice, well kept neighborhood back then with different home styles. This was before they built Mandeville HS a class C agricultural school. Yes, they had
      designations of that sort back then ie Flint Technical High a class B school and others in the county. Danny Paris' was the first house you passed when entering the sub-division. How do I remember this now? When I can't tell you what I had for breakfast.

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    7. There is also the extension of Tuxedo Ave. in The Bronx, which wasn't continuous with the part that went up past Atherton Rd.(about a block West of where H & D Tuxedo was, strangely enough), and ending at Remington near Lincoln Park and the crosswalk to Flint Southwestern.

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    8. You are correct. They probably did not want to build a bridge over Carmen Creek. My old
      swimming hole when I was a kid back in the forties. You could have rode your bike from
      Lincoln Park straight down to Hemphill Rd. imagine that.

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  2. I asked my dad one time how he and his fellow sit-downers managed the resolve to stay cooped up inside the factory for the duration of the strike, as I couldn't see my union peers doing the same in this day and age. He smiled and told me that we weren't the only ones that knew how to sneak out of(and back into) the plant. He also said that at times the number of strikers was dangerously low inside the factories, and the call would go out to get their butts back. When I said that the strike could have turned out differently then, he said "No.....there was still the booby traps to deal with"!

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  3. Sloan's raised claw is primed to scratch. "Well-dressed" is just another way of saying itchy.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.