A somewhat dated article, but still relevant...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/01/27/rchic.t.php
A good read and all a part of what's been going on since... forever.
Tom Wolfe's 'Noonday Underground' has it, but it was old, old news even by then.
No-name nothing nebbish office boys in London have always dressed better than their bosses.
'Suss' is the local word for this.
The bosses may have the money (Even if they don't have the freedom to spend it as they might like) but it's the rest of the congregation who have the suss.
Here again in London we see that class & wealth don't count for anything like as much as they do in the U.S.
Taste and knowledge matter much, much more over here. Stuff you can't buy. Stuff you have to pick up by living the life, talking to everyone & going everywhere. All things that are inaccessable to the wrong people... And by 'the wrong people' I mean what the newspapers might think of as being 'the right people'.
And that's the key to London. We look down on our upper class.
t.
I like the (now archaic?) East London tailoring of the Krays, etc. Also loved the duds in the Clive Owen film <<I'll Sleep When I'm Dead>>. Great title too. There was a good thread over on Andy's site about East end tailoring guys who made for the gangsters. Darren participated in the thread. Back to the film: one of my favorite scenes was where the lead calls for the barber to pay him a visit. That's something I could get used to.
When did they ever not?