By NADIA PFLAUM

It was a shitty, rainy day. Or it was, until I met 38-year-old Mondaine striding down Westport Road. Meeting him was like finding $20 bucks on the sidewalk.

See?
While everyone else was complaining about the rain, Mondaine just sees it as his first opportunity this season to break out the wool.

"I love clothes in fall and winter," Mondaine said. In the summer, everyone dresses so sloppy around here, he said. He's studying fashion design at Penn Valley after a 6-year stint in the military. "My style is Old World with a little pizazz."

I interpreted his pink shirt, under a wool tie and a wool sweater vest, as "pizazz."

"Not too much," he said of the pizazz, "or it becomes faddish, trendy. But I hate conservative. Banana Republic, all that, I can't stand. But I do have to be classic at all times."

And with a very classic handshake, Mondaine continued on his way to catch the MAX bus to his River Market loft.