Culture, Aesthetics and Fashion Discussion

[softgrey]

johnny - are you talking about the 18-35 age group mainly? Tealady - only much older people wear plus fours & wax jackets & green wellies - known as the Green Welly Brigade.

...do you guys make up these names or do people generally use them?...

 

[helena]

riders of rohan is made up! Green welly brigade is commonly used. LOL

 

[kit]

...do you guys make up these names or do people generally use them?...

Do you not remember the conversation we had some time ago with POC , about Hackett etc , Softie

' Hooray Henrys ' , ' Cheshire chinless wonders ' , 'Sloane Rangers ' , ' Mayfair Mercenaries ' ,

They are all stereotypes that have a bearing on the type of British dress that Tea mentions .

Have you not heard of ' The Sloane Ranger Handbook ' , over the pond , it's an essential if ever you get an invite to a house party at somewhere like Highgrove .

Yah !

 

[helena]

Maybe its us Brits who love to generalise & stereotype to our hearts content. We love boxes & pigeonholes we can store things away in.

Kit - Cheshire chinless wonders? what are they? they sound great! are they Hollyoaks-ers(sung to the riff of the hollyoaks tune)?

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Don't really know what you're getting at with that PoC (although I'd like you to explain)

We're a bunch of crazy, surreal, schizo hyper-assimilators...the only culture which assimilates everything to the same degree as us is possibly the USA. We just don't have that single, strong homogenous culture to be traditionally tasteful.

 

[kit]

Maybe its us Brits who love to generalise & stereotype to our hearts content. We love boxes & pigeonholes we can store things away in.

Kit - Cheshire chinless wonders? what are they? they sound great! are they Hollyoaks-ers(sung to the riff of the hollyoaks tune)?

It's another term for ' Hooray Henry ' , the inbred aristocrat with the braying voice who has a ' hice ' in London and another pile in the country . We're talking landed gentry here not the ' chavs ' , ' scallies ' or ' pikeys ' who inhabit that neverland of between Chester and Liverpool , where the average age seems to be 19/20 .

 

[faust]

Faust, I wasn't talking about religion either. I was talking about God. And I would appreciate not being talked down to about what journalists do. I'm not trying to argue about what is and is not Buddhism, merely saying, that you said that you see Buddha in excellence, beauty around you, and some people see God in that and yet I thought you mocked that. I was just trying for clarification.

Helena, I think you get slated for making generalizations because there are exceptions to everything and it's unfair to the people of a region to completely write them off? I'm not sure.

Ahh, no. God, as stated in the religion thread, is some entity clearly defined according to whatever organized religion one belongs to, and can not be any other way. Reread the religion thread and see who I argue with.

And I would appreciate if you wouldn't take things out of context, like you did in the previous post, than you wouldn't feel like I'm talking down to you (I don't know where you got that from).

To make generalizations is absolutely necessary to have any kind of a meaningful discussion. Isn't it obvious that there are exceptions to every rule? Isn't that a given?

 

[helena]

ok - where I grew up these people were the 'toffs' or the said green wellied ones! Thanks for the clarification.

Kit - do you think we Brits are a stylish bunch? I'd be interested to hear what you think.

 

[faust]

Don't really know what you're getting at with that PoC (although I'd like you to explain), but anyway, I agree that Brits are not at all aesthetically focussed, on the whole. We're definately influenced by the LA trash thing - except the bellies on display here tend to be rahter more substantial (if no less chemically brown)! There are "pockets of resistance", but they are, really, few and far between.

This would be my assesment of the current main movements in British notions of aesthetics:-

Vast Majority - chav/chavettes/chavlets (baby chavs) - you know the drill - gold chains, pink lippy, white shellsuits (tucked into sports socks), white running shoes, bra tops (but no bras), and burberry, burberry, burberry...

Followed by (although some degree of overlap with chavs) - mediocre high street style - girls wearing what sienna miller wore last year and guys wearing (a) white trainers (b) slightly flared washed out non-selveged jeans (d) cheap print tee shirt (usually red or pink or green, possibly with some kind of semi-offensive slogan directed at females so that females come up to them in bars to dicuss said slogans as a precursor to some kind of sexual activity) and either zip up top or cheap pinstripe blazer

Followed by - students (although some degree of overlap with mediocre high street style ("MHSS")) - almost the same as MHSS, but with converse trainers, and the occassional bit of more "high end" streetwear - Stussy etc.

Followed by - street stylee - (althogh, yep, same as before... ) vintage jeans, tsubi jeans, rogans, g-star etc, but always some kind of jeans, limited edition trainers, Nike, New Balance or Addidas, more abstract arty print tee shirt - by silas, tonite, bape, maybe even undercover

Followed by - rich b*tch/bloke designer - prada, gucci, loads of money, entirely no style

Followed by - London Trendy - shops in Browns, Koh Samui, Matches - marc jacobs, helmut lang, chloe, stella m, same amount of money as above, marginally more style

Followed by - the five or six indiviuals who are left, and not covered by the above, all of whom , I assume are members of tfs!

MHSS If you are not copyrighting this, I'd like to use the term.

 

[kit]

ok - where I grew up these people were the 'toffs' or the said green wellied ones! Thanks for the clarification.

Kit - do you think we Brits are a stylish bunch? I'd be interested to hear what you think.

Yes , but it's all bound up with class , as we are a class - ridden country where everything works by exclusion and privilege .

Incidentally , if you go to the site that I've left in the ' Ralph Lauren Question thread , there you will find afficionados of Savile Row bespoke tailoring and Jermyn Street bespoke shoes and all other nicities pertaining to ' correct ' British dress for ' Gentlemen ' . Every stereotype of the bowler hatted , hand tailored , umbrella-carrying British centleman will be confirmed there to the curious reader , and an AMERICAN gentleman runs the site .

Such irony !!!

Incidentally , I'd find it difficult to improve upon Johnny's categorisation , allowing for his omission of the tweedy Barbour wearing class , with or without a country estate .

 

[Johnny]

MHSS If you are not copyrighting this, I'd like to use the term.

Feel free. I hereby grant you an exclusive licence to use the term mediocre high street style and its related acronym in perpetuity!

 

[faust]

Feel free. I hereby grant you an exclusive licence to use the term mediocre high street style and its related acronym in perpetuity!

Thanks!

And, kit, I realized I didn't say it yet, but it's good to have you back. I hope all is well.

 

[kit]

Thanks!

And, kit, I realized I didn't say it yet, but it's good to have you back. I hope all is well.

Many thanks for your good wishes .

KITB)

 

[softgrey]

omg...invasion of the brits...

kit...i do remember that topic about hackett...but i confess it all went a bit over my head...i'm still trying to figure out what a sloaney is...

i've got a good undertanding of a chav though...

 

[kit]

omg...invasion of the brits...

kit...i do remember that topic about hackett...but i confess it all went a bit over my head...i'm still trying to figure out what a sloaney is...

i've got a good undertanding of a chav though...

Get hold of a copy of ' The Sloane Ranger Handbook ' , Honeybunch , it's years old but is absolutely relevant to today , unfortunately .

Amanda HARLECH could tell you ALL you need to know .
She married into the aristocracy .

I'm sure you will one day meet a Sloane , and you will KNOW IT when you DO .

 

[helena]

We're a bunch of crazy, surreal, schizo hyper-assimilators...the only culture which assimilates everything to the same degree as us is possibly the USA. We just don't have that single, strong homogenous culture to be traditionally tasteful.

PoC - but the scots do.... its sad because we have such a strong heritage in many repects only one of which is textiles/design/clothing yet our young people seem to have no enthusiasm for our culture or traditions. Think paisley pattern, scottish cashmere, kilts, tartan & plaid, fair isle knits, argyle patterns, harris tweed to name but a few. Yet we are populated by chavs. what is that all about? Kit - is it class or is it culture we lack (in general terms I mean)? I don't think the chav culture is restricted to a certain class - thats the scary thing - chavs seem to be across the board. I find it difficult to see where the chavs end & the MHSS's begin - they tend to merge into one a bit.

 

[softgrey]

ok...i've got a reading list started from this thread...so far there are three books that have been reommended...

maybe by the end of this thread we could publish our own book...or at least a thesis...


oh kit...thou speakest the name of my fair lady amand harlech...... (speaketh?)

 

[kit]

' The crassness of consumer capitalism ' is at the root of this .

It's ALL about money , and the flaunting of wealth , HOWEVER precarious it is .

Credit card debt ?

Forget ALL about it , as long as you can get on down to Selfridges' Louis Vuitton concession , or the BMW showrooms .

 

[helena]

softgrey - if you ever manage to scotland, I promise I'll take you to a place where it will all become clear. range rovers, blonde haired ponytailed women sporting wax jackets & jumpers with holes in the sleeves , men in yellow tight trousers, cravattes and tweed hacking jackets, black labradors & pukka voices. I promise - you'll love it!

where is utopia - she knows the type well.....

 

[faust]

' The crassness of consumer capitalism ' is at the root of this .

It's ALL about money , and the flaunting of wealth , HOWEVER precarious it is .

Credit card debt ?

Forget ALL about it , as long as you can get on down to Selfridges' Louis Vuitton concession , or the BMW showrooms .

I've been wondering about that recently. Everyone is hailing the american consumer for helping this economy ride out the recession. But, these purchases are mostly made on credit. I wonder how much can the economy handle, before the consumers start to default on their debt (and it may never happen on the big enough scale, of course). It seems that the consumer mentality shifted from "can i afford this" to "buy now, think later".