Wednesday 9 September 2009

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.

6 comments:

  1. Sporting a linen suit just signals that the weather is too hot for suits of any sort. Silk shirts are excellent, I'll agree. Personally, I like shorts and old-fashioned Aussie knee socks.

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  2. Hmmn, when the weather turns colder the only attire is surely an ikat robe from Central Asia. I'd be surprised if Nige didn't already have several in his wardrobe.

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  3. Mark, how did you know that?! Mind you, I reserve them for indoor use...

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  4. Good looking people can get away with anything -- a barrel, a burlap sack. The ugly ones need fashion.

    On the other hand, most people are ugly, so it does compound the problem for flaneurs such as yourself, Nigel, forced to walk around and look at their fashion faux pas.

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  5. Fashion makes ugly people look even more ridiculous and is thus a pointless waste of their money. They may as well be ugly and solvent.

    Only beautiful people - such as me and Nige - can justify the expense of fashion.

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