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?

@ToWhomItMayEtc it really is not exhausting. It can be fun and a laugh. Often with women coming together to get ready and talking about clothes. That’s what you do when you’re young surely?

I love Leeds, DC went to uni there and still live there. It's a cool city with something for everyone.

Not all the women wear cocktail dresses and stilettoes, not all of them have fake tan/lashes/brows and lip filler. These are the women that stand out from the crowd because they do look gorgeous and like they have just stepped off the TV.

There's a wide range of Saturday night activities to do on Leeds, it's not just pubbing and clubbing. There's live music, comedy, theatre - same with Liverpool and Manchester.

"Come from momey" 😂

I’ve done plenty of nights out in both. What shocks me is that if you’re going out for a nice meal in the South, lots of people don’t seem to have bothered to change. People seem to make more effort up North. The OTT glam thing up North does hark back to a more patriarchal society however and is not great! In Leeds you see all different types of people out together though.

Come to Essex or Beckenham (SE London/Kent) they’ve both got lots of glam girls in short dresses, sometimes jackets, sometimes not. I’d be doing the same if I were their age!

No they’re all slim, they’re not from Leeds. 😆

Londoners have always dressed up for clubs. They just don’t dress up for pub/bar/restaurant unless they’re from Essex.

2 years ago my son moved from Midland to Hull and after he'd been living there about a month, I asked him if he noticed much difference. He laughed and told me Mum you'd have a fit the girls go out in winter to clubs with no coats on and very short dresses/skirts. He said they all look amazing but must be freezing. He's found a lovely girlfriend though.

Or bexlyheath, bromley, beckenham. Croydon and old Kent Road used to be the same.

The OTT glam thing up North does hark back to a more patriarchal society however and is not great!

Yes that's what bothers me about it. There's something old fashioned about it.

Though I think the younger generation I've mentioned, who are dressing more casually, and individually, are more aware or 'enlightened' if those are the right words to use.

Dressing up and doing hair and makeup is also very common in Ireland. I personally hate it, which is one of the reasons I don’t go on nights out much.

Liverpudlian men have a bit of flash about them, too. Especially the older generation. Bit of a pinky ring or a gold bracelet here and there, a smart suit and a haircut.

Makes me smile.

In Scotland it is the same, you wear your best on a Saturday night!

Yep all these areas! Not sure about Bromley or Croydon or old Kent road as not been out there in years but was out with an old friend in Bexleyheath recently and very glam.

I live in Leeds and it's always been a thing to dress up on a Friday and Saturday night if going into town. I'm nearly 40 and whilst I wear jeans on a night out now I always dress it up.

Every city I've visited for a night out ppl were always dressed up, down south or further north.

@EmmaGrundyForPM 2-3 x a year a middle aged middle class Southerner starts a thread about those dreadfully common working classes lasses getting dressed up on a night out all under the guise of being 'interested'. Then the "oh I like to be comfortable" crew arrive with their noses in the air. It's bigoted and boring. People dress differently everywhere. Would you do a thread about other races or cultures? No, just those dreadful Northern women who are ripe for ridicule. Bore off.

Google "mumsnet dressed up North" hundreds like this : https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/4287511-do-you-need-to-be-dressed-up-to-go-out-out-up-north

Wrong, see @Angelik‘s posts.

Beckenham which is near me and very glam. I go either way, can do glam on a good day or rock chick casual if the night calls for that too. But glam dressing up isn’t just consigned to London and Essex.

Yep we don't feel the cold up north 🤣 first sign that I was getting old was when I started to go out in my coat! And yes, even from mid afternoon (bottomless brunches are big here) you will see people dressed up to the nines.

Yes I think this is true. DD understands these “rules” but I have no clue.

Those photos are quite old, definitely pre covid as Cafe de Paris has been shut for years…

If I saw women dressed like that in London I’d just assume they were tourists, and hope they were having a good time.

Ha there are a lot of pyjamas in Asda and Tesco but that mostly links to the number of settled and visiting travellers. There are lots in Leeds but in particular areas.

I entirely get the comfort in ritual company, I’m just pointing out that your “comfort zone’ seems to involve physical discomfort.

Your cute little riposte about Lucy and Yak says a lot about your class-based assumptions, and could not be more wrong in my case.

I think part of the difference is that when you were in Leeds, you went to the popular venues rather than the ones where the "effortlessly cool" locals go, because in Leeds, you were the visiting out-of-towner rather than the cool local. And I'm fairly sure that plenty of young women in London dress up for a big night out, but you don't see them because they don't go to the places you do.

I do think there are some region differences in appropriate unspoken dress codes for various events, and middle-class Londoners tend to be more dressed down than people with otherwise similar lifestyles in other parts of the country. But I live in Yorkshire, and tend to have similar levels of dressed-up-ness to my London family and friends, but be far less dressed-up than my Hertfordshire commuter belt in-laws, so it's clearly not a hard and fast rule.

Having grown up in the SE and going to university in the north the thing which shocked me most was the blokes...

I had literally never met a bloke of my age who would dress up to go out, do his hair and wear a posh jacket etc until I was in my 20s.

In the town I grew up in that would have marked a man out as a bit effeminate: male uniform was to be scruffy. In the north it's absolutely normal. Also pink shirts? I literally never saw a man in a pink shirt before I went to the north. (Not saying that's right, btw).

It's weird how in a way the north in general has more traditional approaches to male/female roles in society and how men/women dress than the south but there's much higher tolerance for more "grooming" in men (which in the south is seen as a bit feminine).

Not me! I’m a middle aged southerner who’s been out up north a fair bit but not lived up there.

There can be a bit of snobbery and bitchiness between north and south girls but it’s silly!

My best mate when clubbing in mid 90s onwards was from Coventry! She’d moved to London which was where we met. She was very glam too as she went out in Birmingham then (Miss Moneypennys).

It depends on your tribe. I’m from Hull, and would enjoy getting dressed up in the 90s - but I’d be in DMs, leggings, alternative stuff, heavy on the eyeliner.

I wasn’t what could ever be called glam - but I’d never have gone out without a shower, hair wash, change of clothes and a full face of slap.

I'm from the outskirts of Liverpool and in the 90's we always got dressed up to go out but nothing overboard. Just nice dresses, skirts and tops, heels. I didn't realise it wasn't a thing down south. However I hate the over done look that some girls have now. Extensions, big false lashes and nails and eyebrows that look like slugs. It's all fake and horrible. People go and get their hair blown or make up done for a night out which we never used to do. I have noticed that people don't seem to get as dressed up these days as the used to and go for a more casual look.