Do Sloane Rangers still exist

[Arbesque]

There used to be a lot of talk about them in the early 80s. Young people from wealthy families living rent free in expensive parts of London. The girls often worked in easy going jobs- helping out in a friend's gallery or somesuch, to pass the time until they married some Rupert or Hugo and moved back down to the country. The men walked into high paying jobs in banking because of their connections.

Jilly Cooper used to write brilliantly about them. Do they still exist or are they an extinct breed?

Sure they do although they are more likely to have a degree and less likely to sport a pie crust collar (although lots of us non Sloanes wore the frilly blouses, TBF)

There was a thread recently about jokes being acceptable providing they were ‘punching up’?
Is this thread an example of it being ok to sneer, denigrate and stereotype people as they are posh and therefore it’s ‘punching up’?

Princess Diana started her career as a Sloane Ranger. She was a classic case , living in a ritzy Knightsbridge flat given to her as an 18th birthday present, and "helping" at a friend's kindergarten.

Yah. Still around.

I’m staying with my mother and just found my stripy Puffa jacket and Barbour c. 1984. The Puffa jacket is size 14, and DD1, who is a size 8-10 can’t even do it up.

‘Cabin crew doors ‘ …that was actually Camilla, our gracious queen.

Yes!
I also love the epithet 'clatteringly posh'

At university we used to call them the ‘rahs’ rather than Sloane though and not always blonde. Most of that cohort do have careers now though I’d say and pretty serious ones.

They also feel pretty prevalent in baby/child activities as more likely to have the cash to be a sahm.

It sounds like a really lovely life. Plenty of money, dogs, house in the country.

What does the ‘Cabin Crew Doors’ thing mean?

Yes, I thought the same. It's OK to laugh about one side of so many coins. Laugh at wealthy fine, laugh at poor not so fine. Same with underweight and overweight. OK to laugh about men, not about women. I notice the inequality of these and others all the time.

@FrontRowSeat it’s sneering at Carole Middleton, who used to be cabin crew.

The raaarhs I was at university with all walked straight into city jobs then tended to move into small high end consultancies and charities due to having the right accent and contacts. A couple worked for that children's charity that got investigated for fraud basically for being run by rich do-gooders with no idea of the real world. They do tend to work hard though. Most of them founded a side hustle on maternity leave, leveraging all their newspaper contacts to get good coverage of their organic baby food and tea pot cosies.

The new flat in Kensington is parental insurance to take career risks! Much better for the economy but makes me equally green

They do own the world. They are married to men who control the banks, big business, Government and Judiciary.

I was at Uni with a few. One was very down to earth and a great laugh. I think she was the daughter of an Earl. We once hitchhiked to Glasgow. The others didn't mix with the plebs and had their own social scene.

I am very, very loosely connected to this social circle via a friend. At times it really was like meeting illustrations from the Sloane Ranger Handbook, including men on private incomes who spent their nights at London members’ clubs, Alice bands (in the noughties) and self-described ‘husband hunters’. It was not uncommon to hear the question: ‘Do you need to work?’

Meeting the group in our mid-to-late twenties, their confidence was incredible. They were the rightful inheritors of, well, everything. And even that was the more ‘ordinary’ amongst them, not the private income holders.

Meeting some of the same people again in our mid-to-late thirties was quite interesting. That upward career trajectory hadn’t been quite as smooth as anticipated, due to that pesky meritocracy, and the reality of house prices and school fees on one income had begun to bite. Several were a bit more humble and far nicer for it.

The Made in Chelsea lot seem like modern day Sloane Rangers

Alive and well at Durham University! Saw many while visiting DD there. Then they migrate to areas of Clapham and islington. Likely these days to have cool side hustles like being a breath work tutor or yoga instructor, though make very little money from these endeavours bc they don't need to. They've become more diluted and aware that they need to look a bit edgy. Actually many went to Bristol because, you know, it's edgy, but errr.. safe! And mummy and daddy can buy a flat for them there ver ver easily

I work in Clapham and the new generation of twenty somethings are all called Max and Olivia and talk too loudly in their drawling gap yah voices while wandering around wearing yoga leggings and clutching takeaway coffees.

I know it's unreasonable of me but they make me absolutely murderous.

Do you know what, though? Good for them. Sounds bloody brilliant.

I was on the periphery of Sloane Ranger land in the 1980s, through flat mates. I had never met girls before who saw work as just something to do in the few short years between university and marriage either to a rich farmer, army or RAF officer, solicitor or accountant. The City was seen as the domain of barrow boys. They all achieved their goals, and are, on the surface at least, quite happy. The offspring, Alex, Eliza, Charlie and Sophie all went to minor public schools, then Warwick, Durham or Bristol, and it seems like their lives will follow the same path as their parents.

One thing I did find, with the Sloaney men that I knew, is that many didn’t marry until their late 40s or early 50s. Obviously to another Sloane, albeit one 20 years younger.

Do the big auction houses still ‘intern’ those who work for no salary? There were plenty there re: this stereotype in 80s & 90s . When salaries given often not enough to support a life in London without a trust fund.

My dad and his family used to describe my mum as a Sloane Ranger 😁
She wasn’t but once popped into Peter Jones in the 80’s and the reputation stuck

@TraceyGerbil interestingly the ‘Sloaney’ men I knew, or certainly Euro toff & transatlantic bankers, began to ‘commit’ much later in 40s & even early 50s.

When they did, curiously it was to strong women who could carry them financially if needed & who they likely wouldn’t have dated in their 20s.

@starrynight21 although I’d have loved it, Lady Di’s London flat, modest and not in best place compared to similar contemporaries, small house off Kings Rd.

Urgh, that’s aged about as well as Enfield himself.

The women appearing in Country Living magazine with their business (cupcakes, furniture upcycling, bunting) with their honeysuckle fronted Queen Anne rectory ( she oversaw the reno - it was so dilapidated), two scruffy kids in striped t-shirts and bare feet, a spaniel named something Monty or Bunty (or maybe that's the kids). Lovely - her business must be doing well.

Then you find out her DH is a hedge fund manager/world famous architect/heart surgeon to the stars.