(Roughly) Daily

Julian Fellowes (with his wife Emma Joy Kitchener)

Julian Fellowes is a man of many talents:  after a career as an actor, he lifted his pen to write plays (including the book for the West End/Broadway production of Mary Poppins), films (e.g., Gosford Park, for which he won an Oscar), novels (including the wonderful Past Imperfect), and television series (among them, Downton Abbey, now running on Masterpiece Theater).

Fellowes, who has been married since 1990 to the great-great-niece of the 1st Earl Kitchener, a Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Michael of Kent, was recently elevated in the Queen’s Honors List to Baron Fellowes of West Stafford.

But surely he will be remembered for this insight, quoted in the New York Times [January 7, 2011]:

… there are times when a sincere imitation is not only better than nothing – it’s nearly as good.

[TotH to World Wide Words for the lead to the quote]

As we deliberate over Debrett’s, we might recall that it was on this date in 1935 that Coopers Inc. sold the world’s first “briefs” (at the Marshall Field’s State Street store in downtown Chicago).  Designed by apparel engineer Arthur Kneibler, who’d been inspired by a postcard he’d received in 1934 from the French Riviera (featuring a man in bikini trunks), briefs dispensed with leg sections of traditional men’s underpants and had a Y-shaped overlapping fly.  The company dubbed the design “the Jockey,” as it offered a degree of support that had previously only been available from a jockstrap.  Jockey briefs proved so popular that over 30,000 pairs were sold within three months of their introduction; shortly thereafter, Coopers changed its corporate name to Jockey.

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