Words: vines, n.

PUNNING NAMES for shops should be a capital offence. Hairdressers ("The Mane Event") and chiropodists ("Feetures") are particularly guilty. More stylish will be my new, upscale chain: Vines. No, this is not an entrant in the wine market, but a men's outfitters - and a tribute to Miles Davis. According to Amiri Baraki (the poet LeRoi Jones), "old-time Miles Davis worshippers have always dug Davis's vines" - that is, the clothes which hung impeccably upon him, those which he sported before they took as wild a turn as his music.

While "dubs" and "threads" continue in American usage, this evocative "vines" appears to have fallen from favour since its first recorded usage in the Baltimore Sun.