formby - you are going to have to provide a potted history/context for your "english" chappies - most of them I have never heard of.

Last edited by Dudley Clarke (2013-10-17 05:14:01)

My two-penn'orth - I guess that most people in England like to think of themselves as middle class in some vague way and it is easier and easier as Britons opt out of proper, hard graft. They don't want to be real toffs, as that takes a couple of generations, and they don't want to be as common as 'mook' either, so they end up being middle class at least in their own heads. Buying council houses added fuel to this fire.

It's probably a wise observation that breeding sinks and money rises - just like scum! That is a perennial problem and you are right that it is not of modern invention. But there used to be conventions to conform to as you rose through the class structure. There are exceptions - Robert Peel remained rough-and- ready; some women also kicked over the traces of convention in their rise through the ranks. But, generally, there were conventions to conform to and now money is the only thing - and enriched peasants rule the roost and impose their standards as those to be aspired to - and it isn't difficult to get there. To the lazy-slob masses, lying on their sofas dreaming of the Lotto, this is appealing.

Then we wonder where elegance and charm have gone. And some of us regret them too. But, as Don Quixote sagely tells us, 'look not for this year's birds in last year's nests'.

Last edited by Upstate (2013-10-17 07:51:31)

Last edited by TheExpandingMan (2013-10-17 10:42:54)

Sounds like a plan.

Last edited by Gilbert the Filbert (2013-10-18 06:49:40)

"Sensible men hang loose on the future and go with the best of the present. The past is whence we derive many things but not absolutes in anything to do with clothes."

Well said that man.



I'm not sure Saville Row has ever had it so good? I think the niche of having bespoke made now appeals to, and is done by, men from very different backgrounds.  In the past is was seen as a place only the wealthy could visit. Though of course price point is an issue for most of us but its not impossible.

They'll never be another Carnaby st. It was very much a creation of its time, a mix of European and American influence in clothing coupled with sexual liberation and a slightly bohemian attitude of a post war generation. The birth of teenage fashion. Thats been done, nothing like it will ever happen again and fashion is still as disposable today as it was then.