Notebook: Got your Mao suit yet
1972China Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Title, by-line and extent checked against the scan: page 4, Notebook column; second half recovered from the Maude record; re-sorted 17 Oct 2026. The text is still machine-read, in the order the machine read the columns; for anything you quote, read the scan.
Got your suit yet THE BEST dressed blades in Manhattan are rushing to buy the very latest gear-Chairman Mao suits.
It's all part of the Mao-isreally-a-good-guy spirit which is sweeping America.
One large store in the exclusive end of New York has converted a whole department into catering for Chinese goods. The walls and ceiling have been done out in bamboo and piped Chinese music plays as the stockbrokers and bankers examine the wares.
There are some dangers in
Apparently thére have been one or two nasty instances in which the customer, after a hot day in the city, has arrived home, removed his suit and found he has turned a shade of green or blue.
The other danger is that a number of the older, hardcore customers haven't adapted to the love affair with Mao quite so readily.
They are boycotting shop which freely dvertise thei Chinese goods.
This means that some Chinese gear requires discreet doctoring: the labels from 'Made in Hong Kong'. Sometimes the labels are removed altogether.
A report from New York in this week's capitalist press also notes:
'Américan cosmetics manufacturers are already propagating "the Chinese look" to go with the clothes-a lot of dark eyeliner against a pale make-up, to Sworn with a "mysterious expression"?
The same 'mysterious expression' is also being worn by Maoist groups throughout the capitalist world who are watching the chairman prepare to meet Nixon in February in Peking.
Thé same Nixon, incidentally, s busy saughtering hundreds of innocent people in massive night bombing raids in which more bombs are being dropped than has been recorded since Hiroshima.