Dapper Days at the Historical Society By Gary Shapiro The New York Sun, 12/2/04 A visitor who strolls into New York Historical Society's gift shop might do a double take upon meeting Anthony Reyes. The friendly 32-year-old sales associate wears Victorian and Edwardian clothing with panache ­ balanced with a nonchalance with which most people throw on a pair of jeans and sneakers. His splendiferous sartorial style extends to the accoutrements of a well heeled gentleman, from cravats to watch fobs, often carefully mixed with contemporary items. "I like antiques with functionality," he said. "I can use my walking sticks to get through a crowd in Midtown, I can tell time with my pocket watches, and I can keep my head warm and not wear a baseball cap." His favorite top hat once belonged to Cornelius Vanderbilt's younger brother, Jacob. Customers who see the cut of his turn of the century frock coat may not quite put their finger on its uniqueness, but they recognize that it's something special, Mr. Reyes said. He is often asked, "Are you an actor?" His standard response: "No, I'm just dramatic." One day this week he came to work wearing trousers from around 1900, a vest of myrtle green serge with blue steel suspender buttons, a double Albert English pocket watch chain, rose gold and garnet cufflinks from the 1860s, and an 1890s stick pin bearing a knot motif. At the recent NYHS gala, he held a silver capped walking stick made of oak. "I'm happiest in white tie and tails," he said. He owns eight white neckties. Mr. Reyes's interest in clothing started early. When he was about 4 or 5, his great uncle, who worked in publishing, gave him a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula illustrated with photos of Bela Lugosi. "That was the beginning of my interest in clothing that I didn't see in 1970s New York." He bought his first piece for the high school prom in 1990: a 1929 tailcoat. He discovered the date and the original owner's name on the inside and was hooked. His father, now semi-retired, once worked for Bank of New York in the microfilm department; his mother is a secretary at Taft High School in the Bronx. Born of Puerto Rican ancestry in a housing project in the Bronx, Mr. Reyes attended the borough's Harry S. Truman high school. He dropped out, but earned his GED in short order. He went on to help found a center for gay and lesbian youth called the Neutral Zone in 1992. Afterward, he worked as a receptionist at a company that made nylon sponges before finding a job at Caswell Massey, "America's Oldest Chemist and Perfumers." He joined the NYHS in August 1998. His interest in antique clothes is not just about external image. "What I wear represents my insides," a love of tradition and quality, and a sense of organization and civilization. He said, "I'm not going for a reaction." Even on the hottest days of the year, he wears at least one antique clothing article. "In the summer, I tend to wear more recent pieces" since summer clothing from the mid-19th century is often delicate. His collection consists of approximately 550 pieces. "My whole apartment ­ I consider it storage," he said of his two bedroom in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx. Most date from the 1870s to 1930s but go as far back as 1770s. He owns 10 overcoats, some with fur collars, some wool, some Chesterfields. He has a black opera cape that weighs about 15 pounds with a midnight blue velvet collar, which is very Bram Stoker, he said. Thirty of his day shirts boast detachable collars that he often steams and starches himself. His 50 or so vests range from black tuxedo to all white summer varieties. He outbid a fellow New Yorker in an eBay auction to purchase a silk satin and wool vest with glass buttons. But for the past eight years, he has been buying many of his garments from a Chelsea dealer named Quincy Kirsch. He calls her "my muse." His hat collection includes turbans, pith helmets, fezzes, boaters, panamas, bowlers, and dusters ­ plus top hats. "You can never have enough top hats." To round out his millinery selection there are homburgs, and a couple of seal fur Alaskan hats to boot. "These are now protected animals and rightly so," he added. Then there are driving goggles (the kind one might strap on while riding in an exposed automobile). He replaced the clear lenses of his two pair of pince nez with tinted ones to use as sunglasses. Walking sticks rest in an 1880s black walnut stand that can accommodate up to 30 canes of various diameters. This is very important, he said, because they vary with the season. In the summer, they are thin and lightweight. In the winter, one uses a heavier stick to trudge through snow and sleet. He said some of his best garments have come from attics in New Jersey; he cited a Civil War era gentlemen's frock coat as an example. A number of pristine finds have come from the desert states, where the dry climate preserves fragile fibers. Antique men's clothing can be rarer than women's clothing, he said. Men often didn't save clothing or wore their things until they were threadbare. Working class articles are often more difficult to find than upper class ones; they were even less frequently conserved. He does own an outfit worn by someone who worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad. A denim farm jacket he owns was even used in a NYHS exhibition about sewing in America, called, "Home Sewn." His ultimate find, he said, would be an 18th century men's waistcoat ­ a precursor of the modern vest. The most expensive item is a black wool dress coat with silk covered buttons. Its estimated value is about $1,500. Asked if wearing this clothing was impractical, he said he finds wearing the clothes more comfortable and practical. Wearing a frock coat and vest, he said, allows him more pockets for his cell phone, Palm Pilot, and other 21st century trappings. "I don't even have to carry a bag if I don't want to," he said. Dressing as though for a royal occasion comes naturally to him. His name, Reyes, means king, and he was born on January 6, which is Three Kings Day. Eventually he would like to do some consulting in costume and theater. How many New Yorkers carry a tape measure in their briefcase, "You never know when you'll bump into a piece that may fit."

A Dream Life Freud Would Have Envied By Jane Gross New York Times November 7, 2004 TUXEDO PARK, N.Y. CLOTAIRE RAPAILLE, a French-born medical anthropologist and psychiatrist, is paid top dollar by American corporations to tell them what consumers want from their coffee, toilet paper, artificial sweetener, luggage, cheese and political candidates — but most of all in their cars. It is Dr. Rapaille, best known as the "car shrink," who has persuaded chief executives from Chrysler to Procter & Gamble that Americans care more about the aroma of coffee than the taste, want their cheese refrigerated rather than runny and prefer automobiles that resemble armored tanks on the outside and cozy living rooms on the inside. Consumers make decisions from the gut, not the brain, Dr. Rapaille maintains, based on the earliest memories of home and happiness. Thus the way to understand their choices is not polls or focus groups, tools of more standard market research. Instead Dr. Rapaille says he prefers the psychoanalytic methods of Freud and Jung, which expose unconscious desires that transcend time and fashion. Dr. Rapaille, who charges $200,000 to conduct research and advise companies about a marketing strategy or product, calls these deeply held preferences archetypes. He uncovers them in a process similar to dream analysis, and practices what he preaches as founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide, his company in Boca Raton, Fla. "I want to live in a house that's an archetype," Dr. Rapaille said. "I want a car that's an archetype, a jacket that's an archetype." He has succeeded on all counts, playing the role of the archetypical French aristocrat. Dr. Rapaille, 63, wears a black velvet frock coat, starched collar and cravat rather than more standard daytime attire. He is doted upon by a white-gloved servant and a new bride half his age. His French accent makes his grandiose pronouncements sound whimsical and his hair flies every which way, mad-genius style. His hobbies, playing polo and painting portraits of his ancestors, signify privilege and mock it at the same time. His turn-of-the-last-century mansion here, in a gated community an hour north of New York City, is a stage set for his personal choices as a consumer. The circular drive out front is crowded with two Rolls-Royces, a PT Cruiser, a Chrysler Prowler and a Porsche 911 (when it isn't in the shop). If he had more garage space, Dr. Rapaille said, he would add a Mini Cooper and a '64 Mustang convertible. Also on his wish list are an old Rolls-Royce Phantom limousine and the new limited edition Morgan Aero 8. Inside the house, ground-floor parlors are decorated with gilt-framed portraits of Queen Victoria, Louis XIV and Pascal; alabaster busts of Thomas Jefferson, Apollo and Napoleon; and vintage armaments, including an original Winchester rifle and Colt pistol and gleaming sabers of all sizes and shapes. Mozart plays on an invisible sound system. There are no examples of modern technology visible in the public spaces: not a television, telephone or computer. Dr. Rapaille's taste, to put it mildly, is classical. "I'm not the trend expert," he said, summoning another log for the fire and a service of morning coffee. "I'm the expert in what doesn't change, from one generation to another." His house here, with its original Parisian fixtures and Italian marble, was built in 1890 by Warren & Wetmore, one of the architectural firms that designed Grand Central Terminal. It is situated deep in the woodsy confines of "the park," as this exclusive community is known to its 1,000 or so residents. The compound, on the National Register of Historic Places, was built in 1886 by Pierre Lorillard, the tobacco heir, as a fishing and hunting retreat for his friends. Tuxedo Park was a playground for millionaires from the turn of the century to the Great Depression, when a few mansions were said to have been abandoned or deliberately burned down by their suddenly impoverished owners. The house Dr. Rapaille bought here 15 years ago had been in foreclosure for so long that birds nested in its ruined rooms and real estate agents considered it a tear-down. But the spooky structure called his name, said Dr. Rapaille, who said he was guided by what he called the "reptilian brain," in which primitive urges trump flinty intellect. "It wasn't a rational choice," he said of the house. "It happened at a gut level. This is a love story. To me this house has a soul, like a real person. After a while I became the house and the house became me." Dr. Rapaille said that after living in more prosaic homes in Greenwich, Conn., and Beverly Hills, Calif., he "wanted a house with ghosts," a house that had "suffered and was left scarred." In that regard, it is an American version of the Rapaille family's ancestral castle in Normandy, circled by the Orne River as if by a moat, with turrets that date to the ninth century. That home was seized by the Nazis during World War II, Dr. Rapaille said, just as his father, an officer in the French Army, was captured and imprisoned by the Nazis. The remainder of the family - Dr. Rapaille, his mother and grandmother - spent the war in hiding in Paris. Already a devotee of cowboy movies, Dr. Rapaille said, he developed a love for all things American when tanks rolled into Paris and G.I.'s rained chocolate and chewing gum on children like himself. And so the United States became his beacon and his ultimate destination, where he arrived armed with advanced degrees in political science, medical anthropology and psychiatry, although not business. That did not stand in his way when he began selling his eclectic expertise to American corporations 20 years ago, eventually becoming successful enough to repurchase the Normandy castle and make it his second home. Clients have included Boeing, I.B.M. and Kellogg, his office said. A Renault minivan and a Corvette convertible occupy the driveway in Normandy, where Dr. Rapaille's mother-in-law now lives. And in another gated community in Boca Raton, home to Dr. Rapaille's former wife and teenage son, there are three additional cars, a Jeep Wrangler, a Hummer and a Ferrari. But the automobiles he loves best are here on Crowsnest Road, the address he gives when asked "Where are you from?" The Queen Mother of Dr. Rapaille's cars is a 1978 Rolls-Royce, mossy green with a cracked tan leather interior that proves that new-car smell is not limited to new cars. Dr. Rapaille said the old Rolls reminds him of Queen Victoria, square of build and elegant and detached in demeanor. The cellular telephone inside is prehistoric, big as a bread box. The other Rolls-Royce dates from 1994 and could be the last Rolls that Dr. Rapaille will buy, since the current German ownership of the make has tinkered with the flying lady hood ornament, making it smaller and retractable to discourage theft. Dr. Rapaille considers that heresy and, from a marketing standpoint, a foolish mistake. Nobody who buys a Rolls worries about such trifles, he said. Equally beloved is a 2000 Prowler, a Chrysler design car no longer in production but which Chrysler had made to add sex appeal to its image. Dr. Rapaille said the car, a "completely absurd" riff on a 50's hot rod, attracts more attention in parking lots than the old Rolls because nobody can guess its age or provenance. He talks about the Prowler as if it were human. "Look at the big butt," Dr. Rapaille said, pointing to the place where a trunk would be, if there were one. "And the face," he adds. "Eyes, a nose and that menacing chin." A broad gesture takes in the Prowler's front wheels, which move independently, each hooded with its own bumper, and the grill in between. Missing from the driveway on this particular autumn morning are Dr. Rapaille's PT Cruiser, the model he helped Chrysler design, with a masculine exterior fit for Al Capone and a feminine interior to satisfy any mom. His wife, Sophie, a student of French literature and editor of several of Dr. Rapaille's books, has taken it to run errands. Also absent - out for repair - is his 22-year-old Porsche 911, classic black inside and out, which he has raced in the mountains of Switzerland. "That's the car," Dr. Rapaille said, "that I never let anyone else drive."