My small unitown - or the outbailing land of sausage, beer and autobahn in general -  has not anything great or new to offer considering style, but this years Mille Miglia and our following driving around to eat as much as humanly possible  confirmed two trends regarding how the Italians dress. First what I would call the ongoing berlusconisation of men. Less sharp suits, less understatement (which never was an Italian virtue), less concern for quality. Much more  of ordinary dress shoes, white pants or designerjeans with hideous usedlook, polos or shirts in bright colors with huge brandsigns, golden necklace, big watch and sunglasses. All rounded up with the ubiquitous short fat bodytype. Italia is going down, and the inducing mix of machismo, decadence, corruption and Bunga-Bunga needs a worthy style.

The contradirectional trend is the female shoestyle. Italien women used to wear high-heels as high as possible without orthopaedic surgery  and then packed one cm on top. This was highly practical for the typical northitalien cityground: cobblestones or wet stoneplates with creeklike chasms. And this in has gradually changed, expecially in the younger set with high education background. More ballerinas or kitten heels, overall a more conservative dressingstyle, less Velina.

Just saw a guy in full John Waters regalia - some rather shiny gray plaid wool trousers, a dark jacket, a different plaid shirt and a bowtie; possibly two-tone loafers. He  may have actually been John Waters. It's not something I would wear but if he was going for perverted nerd/jazz 78 collector then he nailed it.

I see a lot of athletic clothes around here (it's a college town), on both men and women, though the women always have their hair and makeup done, even if they're wearing pajamas. Men under the age of about forty tend to wear rather tragic solid shirts and ties when they have to dress up - usually very dark blue or celery, with black pants, often with no jacket. The few suits I've seen on younger men have been black. Occasionally I'll see older men in blazers, often looking rather natty, and as often paired with terribly unfortunate taupe pants, usually pleated at least twice and sized so that they billow majestically in the breeze. Now that I think about it men seem to wear ties without jackets more than with.

In the two and a half years that I've lived here I think I've seen three pairs of leather soled shoes, the rest have been black rubber soled shapeless things that look like they came in a discreet brown package from a prescription shoe warehouse. I did see a flock of frat boys the other day, all wearing pale blue dress shirts (untucked), khaki shorts and either boat shoes or penny loafers sans socks. It was like a trad wet dream.

As you can imagine I saunter around in my Northampton-made Goodyear welted shoes spitting in people's faces and blogging (from my Blackberry) about how sorry I feel for these stooped troglodytes with their cemented untermensch footwear. "Maybe SOME day," I tell them after I spit on them, "you'll be able to get some REAL shoes like mine, which I got from Pediwear.co.uk's discontinued styles and factory second range - don't forget the Ask Andy discount code!" Damn it feels good to be an igent.

The Indian in a hot desk the other day was wearing a button down shirt with the buttons unbuttoned. The was not some John Simons style extra cool fashion statement. He probably forgot to button them up.

A tall, older chap in High Holborn had a trilby, a moustache that was waxed and turned up, and some sort of country suit. He could be a minor character in some retro TV series from the 1950s - the gamekeeper perhaps.

Lots of truly dreadful shoes around and nobody wears a raincoat any more, even though it has been tipping down.
all week.

Lots of natural colour Baracutas - a pensioner in a G9 in Teddington and a younger chap on the Clerkenwell Road wearing the version that is not elasticated at the bottom.

A younger weather man on BBC national news wears a suit that is new but wrinkles just by putting it on. The arms are like somebody has been trying to wring water out of them - even his non-pointing arm, the arm that is at rest by his side.

There are two folds from his armpits to the top button, cloth just hangs over. From the side there are rows of horizontal creases. I wonder if you have to get a suit specially made to be so bad?

^FNB:-

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?q=ian+carmichael+as+bertie+wooster&hl=en&rlz=1T4SNYK_enBR355BR355&tbm=isch&tbnid=lbWDFdSM-sk55M:&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8502144.stm&docid=tF3nRrZwkpt28M&w=766&h=511&ei=leRpTu_xC8qgtwfsxLDdBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=357&vpy=101&dur=1628&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=139&ty=116&page=1&tbnh=146&tbnw=200&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1280&bih=633

Have seen two bow ties this morning - first guy wearing a brown houndstooth jacket with light gray slacks and burgundy bow.  Second guy, standard blazer w/ gold buttons and mid-gray pants, rep stripe bow.

Men who wear suits with no ties with pale-ish business shirts look like derelicts. If the man is good looking and well groomed or the shirt is too busy to wear with a tie and it's for a casual occasion, then it's alright.

Sometimes tie-less works with a sports jacket. I find the GLWG principle applies again. I think a lot of men see these things in movies or magazines and think they can pull it off...but they cannot. Frankly, most of the men I observed in both suits and ties today were awful enough.

What's wrong with a tie? The stick it to the man era of dress down is over. Women no longer think men who wear ties are jerks, they like ties now. So why is it hard to wear one?