Fashionistas
Audrey Hepburn/xaldrant/flickr
It all started when my 15-year-old brother wanted a change from the usual tweed sports jacket that was prescription weekend wear. His cool guitar-playing role models wore black polo neck jumpers and brown cord jackets. Tentatively he broached the subject with our father. The response was, unfortunately, resoundingly negative.
“I’m not having my son looking like a BEATNIK” yelled the head of the family. And that, as they say, was that. And of course, for my father’s generation, casual clothing on a Saturday meant a sports jacket and trousers teamed with a shirt with button cuffs as opposed to cufflinks. On rare occasions an atmosphere of pure saturnalia would be generated when he chose not to wear a tie.
The house remained resolutely corduroy jacket-free.
All of which suggests that our sense of style and fashion preferences are developed in our youth, and we perfect them (in our own eyes) once we have reached a degree of financial independence and can buy our own clothes. Not surprisingly, as soon as my Saturday job was established I was stocking up on tiny pairs of shorts (then called ‘hot pants’ – how extremely un-PC!), airforce blue Biba boots, and bright red tights. As hippy fashions took over I wore flowery long skirts and kaftans, and a pair of crushed silver velvet flared trousers were my pride and joy.
This does not mean that I was immune to new fashion trends as time went on. Once flares morphed into straight-leg or skinny trousers I switched my affections and have never looked back. And, dear reader, I did indeed wear power-shoulder jackets in the 80s. I’ve still got one and I can’t believe how much it makes me look like something out of the cast of Dynasty. Quite what I thought I looked like at the time I have no idea, but it felt great when chairing meetings.
Of course, none of these various fashion phases would have been necessary if I had actually been Audrey Hepburn. In my view, style was not just her middle name, but also her first and last names too. She had the ability to look stunning whatever the circumstances, and I would argue that she more than anyone else took the little black dress (LBD) to perfection. Breakfast at Tiffany’s says it all.
Yet although I have admired, absorbed and adopted various styles over time, it is probably still the fashion images from my early teens that are embedded in my consciousness as to how I would like to look. I have often wondered whether that would hold if I had grown up in the mid-70s when punk rock was in full swing. Would it mean that I only felt properly dressed if I was in tartan and bondage gear with safety pins hanging from my ears?
men’s trousers/damesnet
One afterthought: can anyone explain how the current fashion for men’s trousers to hover two inches above the ankle is either desirable or attractive? Answers on a postcard please.
And while we’re on the subject, can we get rid of jackets that pull across the chest and do not cover the bum. You’d never catch Bill Nighy in a suit like that, and he is surely the best suit-wearer active in the UK today.