My formal evening attire, for instance, is always impeccable. For one thing, Harvey, the guy over at the tux rental place, always sees to it any cummerbund I get has no soup stains on it from a previous wearing.

For a more casual look I prefer the seersucker jacket I bought in 1964 for fraternity rush, the khaki slacks I wore on the bus to Panama City, Fla., on my first honeymoon, and my faded blue Izod shirt - the one my third wife gave me for Christmas, the same year I gave her a new stepladder so she wouldn't have to borrow one from the neighbors when she cleaned the gutters.

Because I am such a slave to fashion I always look forward to Easter because I can don my white Gucci loafers again.

As anyone with taste knows, one should never, ever wear white until Easter. I've had my white Guccis for several years now. How I scrimped and saved to buy them.

Every extra dime went into my white Gucci account. When I finally had enough money I went to the Gucci store, accompanied by an armed Wells Fargo guard, to purchase them.

Desmondi, the Gucci footwear consultant, went back to the store safe and brought out the dazzling loafers.

You should have heard the "oooohs" and "aaaahs" when I placed them on my feet and went for a test walk.

"Bravo!" gushed Desmondi.

"Prego!" I said. "Prego" is Italian for "eat my dust." These weren't shoes I was wearing. These were a Ferrari tearing down the Appian Way.

I'd wanted white Guccis since I had seen a pair in the Gucci store in Florence during a European vacation.

I wasn't able to purchase them at the time, however, due to the fact my wife had already worn the writing off my credit card in previous stops in Paris and London.

I was also short of lira because the guy at the glass factory in Venice insisted on cash for the glass gondola my wife insisted I buy her or she wouldn't clean the gutters anymore.

But I vowed one day to own a pair of white Guccis and to wear them without socks, a trend I started at the University of Georgia in 1966 when I discovered black, over-the-calf men's hose had gone to $3 a pair.

White Guccis with no socks do make a rather bold fashion statement: casual, but elegant.

So I went through my clothes the other day and took out my white Guccis and made preparation to wear them to Easter brunch.

I removed a wad of fossilized gum from the sole of the left shoe. I apparently picked up the gum when I last wore my Guccis Labor Day eve at my club's End of Summer Dance, featuring Eddie Corn and the Cobs, who did a mixture of old favorites such as "Satin Doll," as well as modern tunes such as "The Theme From ABC News."

It came back to me. My companion for the evening - a young lady I had met in the hardware store who was shopping for a new stepladder for her gutter-cleaning business - had popped in a piece of Juicy Fruit just before the last dance to the band's romantic rendition of "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog."

Yes, the moment soon will be at hand when I can put on my white Guccis once more and become the envy of all the fashion-conscious.

Forget the Italian Stallion. The Gucci Kid rides again. 
 
Lewis Grizzard was a syndicated columnist, who took pride in his Southern roots and often wrote about them. This column is part of a collection of his work.