Logos, Lauren, and the GOP

In keeping with that promise I made to try to keep things current around here, I’m going to let go of a few oddments I’ve been saving or brooding about lately.

First, I want to share this logo, sent to me by my favorite graphic designer. When I tried to give him credit, he said, “’Tis a child of the interwebs.” And on the subject of credit,  he suggested using it at will, and if someone claims ownership. . . applause all around!

So, to mounting waves of applause from us here at Critic Quality Feed, we present the only possible logo for those irrepressible boy-os:

Has any graphic caught an essence more perfectly? What’s a little corporate restraining order. . . how quickly do you think we could get a few million of these printed and distributed, maybe with just the faintest spray of saddle leather and Chanel No. 5?  On such things do campaigns pivot.  Let’s get at it!!

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Now, on to that solid GOP platform plank that R&R have been trying to distance themselves from publicly, like something nasty clinging to the soles of their shoes.

Do you think a single one of those GOP warriors who stand so ardently for life have ever thought the whole matter through? I mean, really sunk their teeth into the idea and worried it down to the very nub?

You have to know that underlying their whole rape conceit is their absolute conviction that rape — real rape, that is — only happens Out There. To the Other. To women who secretly want it. To Democrats, welfare queens, children of the liberal elite.  Never, ever, to one of their own.

Let us just imagine that the worst should (God forbid!) suddenly happen to the wife of some stalwart young GOP leader: that she found herself pregnant after being raped – and that her unidentifiable attacker got away.

Now, let’s think about her husband, useless as he watches at her side throughout these seemingly endless months as she carries this baby to term and a little beyond. Do you see him staring down the whispers in, let’s say. the Congressional cloakroom?  Driving cross-town for that crazy pickle bagel she loves? Rubbing her back as she stands at the sink? Telling their already existing young children that mommy’s. . . . .ummm, what IS he telling them?  I would love to know.

Then finally, delivery day, and here, indeed, is a little stranger.  Is he (gotta be a boy, it’s such a macho fantasy) going to be folded right into the family, this kid with. . .red hair, who was born with a little baby tattoo?  Somehow, you don’t quite think so.

I tell you, carrying your rapist’s baby is a premise that needs a whole lot more thought before they foist it on the entire female population of this country. . .and their not-insignificant others. And we haven’t even touched the incest melodrama.

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Now: to drag you all the way back to the Olympics: reliable Ralph Lauren, “Proud Outfitter of Team USA” managed to bracket its Made in China  kerfuffle (a misstep made complete by those so-last-decade white cotton newsboy caps), with its very own Olympic-size email blunder the morning after the Games closed.

Lauren & Co sent “A Salute to Our Olympic Athletes,”  a picture and words list, into the email baskets of every Ralph Lauren follower Monday morning. (My email, too, of course. I live for this kind of stuff.)  Their blunder?

Michael Phelps and Gabby Douglas, with every one of their accumulated and groundbreaking honors, weren’t mentioned.  For all intents and purposes, they didn’t exist. (And yes, Missy Franklin was out in the cold with them.)

You see, Lauren & Co had hand-picked fifteen Olympian and Paralympians for online profiling well before the Games began. This was the Ralph Lauren private stock, and among them, the designated Lauren athletes carried off an impressive slew of medals, including multiple golds by the Games’ end.  Still, nothing could even approach Phelps’ final tally, and none were as significant as Douglas’s.

I do know about product endorsements.  I read somewhere that one sensible breakfast cereal maker had pounced on Gabby Douglas well before the opening ceremonies.  I suspect that Louis Vuitton’s passion for Michael Phelps may have been simmering for some time before Annie Leibovitz arrived to shoot this campaign, released August 16th. .

It’s just that Lauren’s money was so clearly on the up-and-comer, on jut-jawed Ryan Lochte. He’s so irretrieveably Ralph, and he did not disappoint — if you count medals, not gallantry under pressure.

You might think that if Gabby Douglas’ smile had penetrated the Polo grounds, she might have joined her fellow gymnasts, McKayla Maroney and Alexandra Raisman, among Lauren Olympic Athletes, peering out from under those dumb newsboy caps, without even a crinkle of irony in their eyes.

(You may have to search for her, but Maroney’s feisty, hilarious stance may be just one inch away from “Wipe that smart look off your face, young lady!” in some households.)

Ah well. All I’m saying is that it’s not very nimble when a company that likes to be seen as haute and a cut above, cannot work fast enough to add two  names, and perhaps even a picture of these Olympics’ record- and barrier-breakers in time for a lousy emailing.