Miami, 2024

FITTING BOOMERS INTO LULULEMON

Mr. Watson’s Canine View on Human Oddities, Vanity, and Spandex.

I've been thinking again.

You may have your doubts about the intellectual capacities of canines like me. But keep in mind that we observe you humans every moment of the day. Sharply.

So hear me out.

You are peculiar creatures. You think of your future all the time. You are so obsessed with it that you forget to live. You worry about what may or may not happen for an entire adult life and end up in a small room with a television set and a single wardrobe that is filled with clothes that once fit your shrinking frame.

Your future is history before it happened.

I'm glad I'm a dog; my future is what my nose claims to be around the corner.

So I've decided I'm going to make a killing. Just now, while I was snoozing on the couch in a ray of morning sun. I'll be the most successful dog in history. I swear. I came up with this new idea. It's going to be big. I'm all excited. Miami does this to me. I'm gung-ho, pumping my front paw as if a bullet had just clipped my ear.

I'm going into business.

Design District Miami - The Webster - Celine Miami Design District

Prada Design District - Rubell Museum, Nick Cave, Soundsuit (detail) - Rubell Museum, Kerry James Marshall, Carnet de Voyage (detail)

I don’t know if I should share this with you. Humans don’t normally share outstanding business ideas. So I have heard. I have been dragged along to business meetings often enough. Won't ask you to sign an NDA, though. It's just an idea. I have them all the time. They come easily and go just as fast.

Rent-a-Mutt was one of them. Tagline: Skip the hooch to get a smooch; just bring a pooch. Target audience: insecure men. That's most males capable of mating. I saw another pair of them walking in the Design District, their bellies tucked in and their pecs pushed forward, taking small steps while they squeezed their glutes for poise. Like peacocks without a feather. It must be hard for men to walk like that. I wonder how they breathe. If they had been walking a dog, they'd have had all the poise and attention they needed. Relax your butt: Rent-a-Mutt.

But today's big idea is different.

Superblue Miami, digital Art Installation, Teamlab - Moncler, Design District

Rubell Museum: Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Rooms and Narcissus Garden (detail) - Yoshitomo Nara, Dogs from Your Childhood (detail)- Mark Bradford, Whore in the Church House (detail)

It's all about the human fascination with spandex. Spandex keeps body parts trapped, whatever their size. I hate being trapped. It mostly happens when humans hug me so tight as if they're missing something. First, I'll start to squirm. Then I'll growl. That's when they let go.

So I know how bums and boobs in Lululemon bottoms and tops must be feeling. Too bad they can't growl. The South Beach Boardwalk would sound like a dog shelter during a rabies outbreak in Ouagadougou. From my vantage point, I have an unobstructed frog's-eye view of tightly contained body parts; the exposure can be rather conspicuous. Sometimes I feel like rounding up a gang of mongrels and starting a rescue mission. Mayday, mayday, mayday: blood circulation issue at three o'clock. Free the boobs!

Very seldom, there's a free willy call.

Superblue, mural, JR - Bacardi Buildings, Ignacio Carrera-Justiz & Enrique Gutierrez - Perez Art Museum, Gary Simmons, Public Enemy & Willy Cole, With a Heart of Gold (detail) - Rubell Museum, Neo Rauch (detail) & John Chamberlain (detail) & Zhu Jinshi (detail) & Noah Davis (detail)

Younger women adore spandex. They promptly wriggle into their leggings and crop tops at the mere thought of even the slightest physical activity. Fetching a take-out cappuccino at Cafe Flora around the corner: spandex. Taking their 12-year old blind and deaf labradoodle for its 100 meter stroll in front of their Bal Harbour condo: spandex. Meeting the Doordash man delivering a cold pollo a la Milanesa from Chug's: spandex.

Spandex must be the most freudian of tissues—it's the synthetic substitute for the hugs their boomer parents didn't give them, as they were too busy making money to buy houses that were too big, to fill up cars that slurped too much gas, and to overspend on private schools for degrees that their kids wouldn't end up using anyway.

But wasn't it all for the greater good?

For the greater good, just like my business.

Rubell Museum, Jeff Koons, New Hoover Deluxe Rug Shampooer - Dolce & Gabbana, Design District - Superblue, Es Devlin

Rubell Museum, Thomas Houseago

That's why I'm not into synthetics; I'm into soothing. I'm selling hugs to Millennials and compassion to Gen-Z. I'll set it up as a B-corp. I'll make up for all the affection they have sadly missed. With spandex. And as soon as I've got traction, I'll expand into the untapped market of the aging, locked-up boomers. They'll look sexy again in their skintight, pastel-colored bodysuits. And, at least, they'll shrink away in comfort.

I going to make hugging great again.

But first, I need a snooze. I'll deal with the future later.

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.