is this a Northern thing - Saturday nights out

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

We're staying in Leeds for the weekend, visiting DS who recently moved here. Fabulous city, loads going on.

We went out for a meal last night and I was amazed at what people were (or weren't!) wearing. The women were all amazingly made up and wearing incredibly skimpy outfits. I'm not criticising, but I was amazed that they weren't frozen (no jackets). They all looked incredibly glamorous.

The cities I'm used to are Cambridge, Nottingham, Bristol and London. My dc, now in their 20s, and their friends are in jeans, t-shirts, maybe a pretty top on a Saturday night. These women looked like they were going to a cocktail party but were only going to the pub.

The men also looked a lot smarter than I'm used to - they were in shirts rather than t shirts - but not as dressed up as the women.

I've got a friend who lives in Liverpool who is always talking about her daughters taking 4 hours to get ready for a Saturday night out, but I thought that was just confined to Liverpool. However, the women in Leeds look like they have spent hours getting ready. Lots of them also had a fake tan and their nails done beautifully.

So are northern lasses much more glamorous than us scruffy southerners? And if so, why?

Yes, the lasses up here do get glammed up and wear as little as possible. There’s a saying, whenever there’s a weather warning..
“For those in the South. Take a survival blanket, shovel, emergency ration pack, bottled water and a compass.
For lasses in the North: You’ll need your big coat”.

I think that takes the prize for the most massive sweeping generalisation I've ever read on Mumsnet.

I’m in Sheffield and working class. It really does depend on where you’re going and who you’re going with. I’m happier in casual clothes with a decent pint than I am dolled up, but sometimes it’s nice to look a bit dressier and look a bit different. As long as it’s not an enforced dress code and I don’t feel pressured to conform then I’m happy to just wear what I fancy. Once you’ve got a couple of drinks down your neck I don’t think anyone cares about who’s wearing what. Although I once saw a woman in Corporation in them big daft pole dancer shoes that looked really out of place.

No not at all, just interested. I may well be wrong and I only speak for my own experience, but I think this is the fundemental misunderstanding. Southern ( ok London) women ( I by this I mean young women out for the night) don't " not make an effort" or " just throw on any old thing". They have carefully considered how to dress attractively, but also practically and part of this is not too much flesh on dispaly and as my DM would have said "shoes you can run in". I think there is genuine bafflement when we visit places where this ( to us) basic premise apears to have been completely disregarded and women apear to have just dressed in the most obviously sexually provocative way they can.

Definitely even on the coldest of winter nights out no coats 😂

When we were dropping DD at uni last week, I saw a girl in a lot of tan, makeup and curlers in town in Newcastle last Friday daytime: I assumed she was getting married later 😂

My username will probably give this away, but I grew up in the north and left for London when I was mid-twenties. I absolutely used to ‘doll up’ for Friday or Saturdays because it was just the done thing. The weekend was like a party and I miss those heady days, looking back.
I was doing it to attract attention, it was good for my confidence, but also enjoyed the bonding with friends doing the planning and getting ready together.
That said, I don’t think the beauty and hair routines were anything like they are now, what with extensions, nails etc….
I was up in the town I grew up in recently and I was blown away by the pubs being packed at 3/4pm on a Sat afternoon, but happy the old traditions are continuing….its fun! Life is short!

We ourselves went out on a mini-pub crawl and to a club in Newcastle that night and were surprised how many people had coats (very wet night)…but when we were in the club, the people with coats had nowhere to put them as there was no cloakroom!

Do you know what?

'Work hard, play hard' doesn't seem like a bad philosophy to me. 'Work hard' is something I've had a habit of doing to my own and others' detriment. Despite valiant efforts to the contrary, I've always ended up sliding back into my old habits. I work much too much.

I've lost sight of the 'play hard' bit as I've grown older. Albeit these days that wouldn't involve pub crawling, it's something I think I could do a lot worse than bring back into my life.

This thread has likely taken a turn the OP didn't anticipate, but I for one am happy it's been posted. Food for thought...

As an outsider to the region who now lives here, it seems that it's OK to have a coat if it's actually raining when you go out, but a mere forecast isn't enough to change that. (The NE is less rainy than the NW due to the rain shadow of the Pennines and Cheviots, I once heard someone call that 'Cuthbert's Umbrella' after a local saint!)

Pin curly now, why would any one walk round in rollers or curlers. Go for a curly blow & get you hair pinned then unpin it before you go out. Makes sense

**pin curls

You’re putting your own spin on what I said. This would be in summer. The guys were wearing t-shirts. You would never see me out on a Saturday evening in winter.

Work hard, play hard was a MOD thing. Sharp suits and haircuts for the weekend.

I agree with you, but that wasn't the part of the pp's post I was referring to as an overgeneralisation. It was the stuff about northerners having less money and feeling more need to put on a show versus southerners being more likely to have money and not feel they needed to try so hard.

I’m an older Londoner and in my younger days would not have gone out dressed to the nines in skimpy outfits because I had to get the night bus and walk home - it just wasn’t safe clothing. That said, we dressed up a lot more in the early 2000s than young people do now and you certainly didn’t go clubbing in trainers!

Yes, that's quite obviously nuts.

I read your post, and my train of thought took me off in quite a different direction. Apologies that this reads as a misinterpretation of what you're saying, with which I quite agree.

I live on the outskirts of Cambridge and there are some absolute states on a Saturday night on St Andrews Street. Men and women, students and townies, done up to the nines. It's definitely not just a northern thing. Although they do tend to have yheir coats with them. Not as hard as us northerners.

This comment is interesting. I was rather baffled by your opinion that natural nails are a 'signifier' until I realised that you simply don't mix in truly wealthy circles (and by that I mean generational wealth). I guess we all speak from our perceived 'place' in society.

Not sure if she went out much in Cov but I do know a few bars that were there! Near Spon Street?

As I said Birmingham and Miss Moneypennys were her favoured nights out before moving to London, shopping at Owen Owen.

And for the PP re clothes in mid 90s etc being obvious labels. Some of us wore them but no way Ted Baker etc for clubbing.

We wore FCUK and some obvious labels, more the men as I recall, but it was more clubbers gear from Cyber Dog, Camden Market and a shop in Seven Dials, Karen Millen, Coast and Morgan de Toi, Joseph, Vivienne Westwood etc and another brand Peter something who did skimpy clubbing dresses. Portobello Road had some great unusual fashion labels. Patrick Cox etc for shoes.

This has been going on for generations. Yes in the north you get dressed up if you're going out anywhere on a Saturday night.

Tends to be more apparent in working class towns. Not really Manchester anymore. I would have thought Leeds would be similar to Manchester.

Definitely about a work hard, play hard thing.

@EmmaGrundyForPM Funnily enough if you're from Essex I would have thought you would know about this. Didn't a load of working class East End Londoners who had done well for themselves move out to Essex? Probably why people from Essex have a reputation for getting glammed up.

Yes I was musing on this as I cleaned my kitchen floor. The only girls of my generation who would or could have dressed like that would have been the Kate Moss/ Catherine Middletons where they had taxis/drivers door to door. No one was going to think that was my background at the Camden Round House or the Brixton Academy no matter how tiny my dress was.

Yeah, I don't think Glasgow has anything approaching the commitment to glam as places like Liverpool.

As you travel north through England the amount of clothing worn in winter steadily declines.
In Newcastle (by law) you have to say “I’m going to be a total granny and bring a jacket” if you go into town on a Saturday night in a coat.

FWIW I would have described my background as lower middle class, DM was a teacher, DH worked for local goverment. State educated, saturday job @ 14.