In the beginning, Cher says about Chrome Hearts, “I have to tell you, a lot of people didn’t believe.” She notes that, at first, most people reacted to Stark’s irrational project in the same manner she did. “‘Oh, that’s just a person making leather,’ they’d say.” Despite its distinctly American look, Chrome Hearts was not featured in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent Americana-themed Costume Institute exhibition, indicating that the fashion industry is still unclear what to make of the company. Chrome Hearts, on the other hand, is becoming harder to dismiss. Cher explains,
“Richard had a dream.” “It wasn’t going to be ‘just some man creating leather,'” says the narrator.
Soon after a new item was triumphantly brought into the home, whether it was a furnishing, an ornament, or simply a child, it began to succumb to a thousand effects of use, age, and chemistry, which could only be held in unwilling abeyance by the Chrome Heart Rings prescribed rituals. Mrs. For trey did not feel deprived for a long time as she raced on a treadmill of minor palliative efforts that generated nothing, improved nothing, but only delayed the eventual decay of things or returned them to a state that was certainly not as good as new.
Every Monday morning, Mrs.
For trey bravely set out with a pitcher of water and a can of 3-in-1 oil to execute eight prophylactic measures in one grand circle from the kitchen to the front room. To keep their engines from burning out or worsening, the electric fan, vacuum cleaner, and sewing machine each required only three drops of oil (after 10 hours of usage). Oiling the wall can opener, knife sharpening, children’s roller skates, flute keys, and curtain pulley tracks took only a few minutes more.
Mrs. For trey poured some water into the philodendron plants, moistened the rubber plant and the ivy, put a bit in the parakeet’s cup, poured some into the radiator pan to keep the air from drying the furniture, and poured some into a pan under the broiler to keep the stove from smoking up the white kitchen on her way back from the front room to the kitchen. She’d generally come to a halt after that to empty the pencil sharpener. She once informed her sister that she oiled from the rear to the front of the apartment and watered from front to back.
Mrs. For trey was well-versed on the four types of rot and how to avoid them.
The chrome fixtures would succumb to green rot if not shined with a specific cream; the mahogany tables would succumb to dry rot if not rubbed with polish; clothing left in a hamper for too long would succumb to damp rot; and dead batteries left in a flashlight would cause chemical rot. Mrs. Forte was warned in a pamphlet brought home from school that if the frayed electric lines were not wrapped up, her family would be electrocuted.
A little Vaseline had to be smeared on the washing machine spindle every month or so to keep the agitator from sticking, and a little black stuff had to be rubbed on Mr.
Forte’s electric razor to sharpen it while the electricity hummed and Mrs. Fortney counted to sixty in a loud voice as ordered. She smeared ashes on the glass rings left on table tops, leather conditioner on the desk top, and soap on the edges of all the doors, almost gleefully.
