I don't know about 'down south', but there was a fashion around here - that has not entirely gone away - for postmen, football hooligans, supermarket shelf-stackers etc. etc, to grow huge bushy beards but not give up their previously vile habits (for example, chugging cheap lager from the 'tinnie', belching fruitily, crushing said 'tinnie' in the right hand to impress your equally stone-age mates before hurling it onto the pavement because 'somebody else is paid to pick it up).  No hand-crafted Weetabix breakfasts, no Red Wings, no graphic design, no finesse.

I once tried a 'goatee'.  I think I recall reading about some trad jazzer, a chum of George Melly and Mick Mulligan, who sported this look and was described as resembling 'a lecherous fawn'.  (Melly's 'Owning Up' by the way is a good read for anyone interested in the British jazz scene just around the time Tommy Steele was 'making his mark').  I probably looked worse: not unlike Ralphie from 'The Sopranos' only a good deal more dangerous to schoolchildren.  It had to go.  I'll leave that, I thought, to the likes of Dizzy Gillespie (or my mother-in-law). 
Just as New Yorkers head for New England, soft southern shandy drinkers head in our direction, unable to identify pork dripping in the butchers and mistaking mushy peas for Metropolitan North London Islington Dip.  Chap across the street is from Muswell Hill.  Crosses may well be ignited on his lawn.

Do not be too knowledgeable about coffee. Let's face it 'tis only a hot beverage.
Do not use the phrases artisan, craft, curated or body art.
Do not ape the style of farmers, gold diggers or cowboys when going to your office in Shoreditch.
Do not put on a mockney accent or pretend to know the ways of the working class when in truth you're called Tristan, went to Eton and live in Chipping Camden.
Do not roll jeans higher than the ankle, wear beanie hats upright (like a smurf) or own German Lesbian sandals sometimes referred to Birkenstocks.

Also avoid anything that's been "curated."

Yup, I’m with TRS - god forbid I end up looking conservative

The Birkenstock?  A line in the sand is thus drawn.  They're a 'design classic' I'm sure but I don't even like seeing them on women.  My next door neighbour wears some kind of rubber sandal get-up when he's firing up his barbecue (another of my pet hates). 
For Greta-adoring lizzies only.

I was nodding in agreement to TRS post and then he went and mentioned Birkenstock. Not for me. Many moons ago there was a phase of wearing Scholl sandals amongst school kids but that quickly passed. I had a couple of pairs.
Interesting the Ooni pizza oven is mentioned. I did an internet search a year ago for ovens and ever since I get pop ups for them. In a store yesterday I saw three different models. As I'm planning an outside pizza oven I did consider them but I'm going for a more rustic look. I just have to wait for spring and I can start to build one. (I've been saying this for 3 or 4 years)

Last edited by RobbieB (2021-12-24 03:34:34)

This forum is full of surprises.

Beards and coffee, yes.

Birkenstock sandals? Not in public. I once applied for a job there. Three-piece flannel suit and Shell Cordovan Longwings was too much, I guess.

Don’t have a problem with posting outfits on select sites, like here (if it worked). It’s nice to gain inspiration from others. Drink the odd coffee, more interested in tea these days. I might call in somewhere for coffee  if I’m out for a few hours in London or somewhere, but I don’t feel the need to walk around the street with a paper cup in my hand, still less to have cups of it brought to the house by Deliveroo. Beard - I’ve had a goatee for 30 years so don’t see that changing. Apart from Dickie’s shorts I don’t do workwear, although I like a bit of military e.g peacoat & M65   I have decided that for me the rolled jean look is over, it came in when the word ‘selvedge’ came to public attention and was always about letting everyone know that you weren’t just wearing ordinary jeans, you had paid the extra to have the coloured stitching inside. I suppose we will see lingering legacy hipsters in the future but thankfully the giant beards are on the wane. There’s going to be some tattoo regret in years to come.

The original posting: light-hearted pre-Christmas knockabout, intended to generate banter only: no offence intended to anyone - least of all Yuca.

I find Tom's use of the word 'conservative' highly interesting.  I once thought, with much 'Ivy League' dressing, that was largely the point. 
I wonder, though, going back to the 'Boom Years', how often some black jazz musician admired his dark suit, white shirt and neatly-knotted tie in the mirror and said to himself, 'Hey, man, I look just like one of those cats at Harvard'.  Did he think of himself as 'a conservative' dresser? 
As TRS said, Ivy is a mood.  I'd go further and say it's a pretty complex attitude.