“The chic thing is to dress in expensive tailor-made rags and all the queens are camping about in wild-boy drag. There are Bowery suits that appear to be stained with urine and vomit which on closer inspection turn out to be intricate embroideries of fi ne gold thread. There are clochard suits of the fi nest linen, shabby-gentility suits, Graham Greene outfi ts for seedy agents who are had Catholics on a mission they don’t really believe in, felt hats seasoned by old junkies, dungarees faded on farm boys, coolie clothes of yellow pongee silk, loud cheap pimp suits that tum out to he not so cheap the loudness is a subtle harmony of colors only the very best Poor Boy Shops can turn out tailored to your way of walking sitting down bending over the color of your hair and eyes your house and backdrop.”
William Burroughs, The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead, New York, Grove Press, 1971.