Men - Make an Effort!

The summer - which now seems to be moving into an Indian summer phase, hurrah! - brought another wave of the usual offences against taste and decency on the sartorial front. The British male is seldom much to look at, but in summer - clad in grubby shapeless t-shirts and various ugly forms of shorts and cut-off trousers - he plumbs new depths. While a few of us respond to summer weather with linen suits and silk shirts (which is anyway the most cooling way to dress), the rest of the male population - including the middle-aged and even elderly - seem content to slouch around in street urchin garb. Do they ever look in a mirror? Presumably not. Meanwhile, at least some sections of the gay population are keeping up standards. Yesterday at Victoria station, I saw a young fellow dressed in a manner that would not disgrace Marc in Ugly Betty, in a fitted white shirt with bow tie, gold cuff retainers holding up the sleeves and braces doing the same for a rather tightly cut pair of pinstripe trousers. The gold pumps and silver manbag were perhaps de trop, but dammit here was a man making an effort, and carrying it off with conviction - no slouching here. If most of the male population makes any effort at all when the sun comes out, I can only assume it is to look as dreadful as possible.