Getting dolled up. North-South divide?

[Getabloominmoveon]

Hot on the (high) heels of the 'airport outfit' thread, I'm wondering if there is a real North/South divide when it comes to the average level of doneupness expected to leave the house. I'm from Liverpool, where a Sunday night at the local pub demands full regalia, but now live in the South where I rarely see Aintree Ladies Day levels of preparation in local bars and pubs. When we go back to Liverpool, my husband (posh, foreign) is amazed at the swishy hair, heels and eyebrows surrounding him. But maybe I just go to the wrong places in the South?

I'm moving down south then. I'm mid thirties & the effort made by some girls 10 years or more younger than me is ridiculous. It's more than I did on my wedding day!

Spray tans, eyelash extensions, blow dry, professional make up!!! Unbelievable and it would utterly put me off going out.

I'm talking about a certain type of girl though. My cousins in their early twenties They're beautiful & clever and at university - they like edgy music & books and basically having fun. They don't do it.

I'm talking about Manchester...

I had the misfortune to be in the toilets at a service station on the A1 yesterday with a Scouse Hen Party.

I was genuinely gobsmacked. I was judging more than a judge on judgement day.

Until DD shouted at me.

I give you a Sunday night in Liverpool and raise you a Saturday in Colchester.

Why on earth would the amount of make up other people wear put you off going out?

I live in a deprived village in the north east and when I go to the local salon for nails or waxing on a Saturday morning, there are always a few young women (early twenties mostly) in getting hd brows and professional make-up done just for a night out.

I absolutely agree that this distinction exists, but I think it's more London & environs vs the provinces, rather than north vs south. You almost never see signs banning trainers or jeans in London pubs and bars but this is commonplace in provincial towns and cities, and has caught DH out more than once when we have visited friends or family and he's just packed his usual London stuff.

We moved fairly recently from London to the Midlands. I don't think I'll ever forget the first work Christmas party that I went to here, about four months after we moved. It was a meal in a very nice but otherwise unremarkable gastropub, and I wore my usual London dressy outfit - smart, dark skinny jeans, nice top, good bag and shoes.

I have never been so underdressed in my life.

Not only was I the only woman not wearing a dress, several were in full-length gowns. They were all done up to the nines, and most had had some kind of professional treatment that evening - blow-dries, updos, manicures etc. Meanwhile the men were dressed very normally in jeans or chinos with shirts. It was bizarre.

I was brought up in the wc west Midlands and people would dress up for family tea!:) (on a Sunday)
My mum will change several times a day if on holiday, as does my mil. They are immaculate really, but of a different generation to what has been mentioned in previous posts.

I'm a slattern tbqh.

I see young ladies/ girls/ women much younger than me, however you want to call it, in a state of getting ready.
The best way to describe it really.
The beauty salons on Saturday round here are doing nails, tans, and they are dressed in long shirt type clothes so don't have to take over their heads etc.
Rollers are the in thing too, I give them credit it was the grannies wesring curlers and head scarves when I was growing up.

I am from the south. I recently went for a girls' weekend in Liverpool. I wore a dress, which I would never do to go to a bar in London, and what I thought was lots of make up, but I was completely underdressed compared to the local ladies. It was also freezing and nobody wore a coat! Everyone was very friendly though

Boo Why on earth would the amount of make up other people wear put you off going out?

It would put me off going out if I had to go through all that beforehand. Too much pressure, money & energy need. Red lippy & I'm out.

I grew up in London & when I moved to a house share in Oxford in 1986 was amazed by the outfits & effort put into going out by the girls from Derby, Warrington & Liverpool. Even 30 years ago they made far more effort than Londoners.

I'm in the north east - Sunday night pub night involves jeans and trainers, minimal makeup. Friday/Saturday night are much more dressed up - but people would also be welcome in most attires.
I thought Liverpool was well known for its 'dolled up-ness'

Jeans and ballet pumps/converse and a stripey top with a blazer for a night out on London here. Admittedly I don't go to clubs, so it'll be pub with live music normally, but anything other than that and if feel overdressed. Slightly more make up then I might wear for work and a bright lip colour at a push, but that would be it.

My lovely Manchester friend came down for my birthday night-out recently and she'd made a real effort, heels and dress and swishy hair and full make-up. She assumed people would dres up more in London, not less!

North east here too, very deprived area. I'm in the minority by not having a professional treatment before a night out/ meal out. Sunday night drinks.
For instance my friends are going for drinks tonight in a run down market town and full length gowns will be worn.
I cant keep up with that level of glamour.

What a horrible snobby thread.

London vs "the provinces", get over yourself love.

I live in Barnsley, and I don't go over the top when I go out, generally jeans, some people do, some people don't, but I've also seen some absolute sights in London. (And I don't mean Buckingham palace).

I think it is more a northern / privincial city thing.

I'm from fairly rural north west and whilst the coastal towns are 'proper dolled up' the rest of the place is fairly smart / jeans / nice frock kind of vibe.

We went to a first communion part in Liverpool a while back (colleague of dh's son) and I have never felt more dowdy in all my life - and I thought I'd made an effort for a 'party in a pub near garden on a Sunday afternoon'. Boy was I wrong.

Nah - son of dh's colleague! What I wrote up there is just weird!!!

Back in the 90s, I moved from an affluent village in the Thames Valley to a town in the Cheshire "golden triangle". It was a real culture shock for me. Southern friend stayed once and said she'd never seen so much gold this side of Jo'burg. After five years we moved back south and I felt much less out of place frumpy.

As a Londoner who lived in the North West for over ten years, I reckon it's about class, rather than geography. Rightly or wrongly, London's traditional working class has been pushed out to its fringes (Essex etc), and what has replaced it is predominantly middle-class/professional.

The tendency to get 'dressed up' is a long and proud working-class tradition. Look at 1940s Zoot Suits, or 1960s Mods; in cultures where you traditionally wore overalls all week, any event or night out is an opportunity to dress up. Conversely, in an office-based culture where heels, dresses, suits etc are traditionally the norm, dressing-down is the thing.

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (etc) is just an extreme example of the same.

Before anyone takes offence, I say this as a working class kid done good. I'm not passing judgment!

I moved from the Midlands to the South in the 90's. Admittedly I was just out of uni, and fully into 90's grunge, but the locals girls were all glamour and red lipstick, blowdried hair and heels. I was in DMs and rolled up jeans.

Get into your 50's, get a motorhome, visit the Lake District, or Northumberland and enjoy a night out is raucous company with no make up, hair barely brushed, wearing mud splattered jeans and a hoodie.

Bliss.

I am so glad I am old.......

Mutton, 'provinces' is a perfectly legitimate term to describe administrative centres outside of London. You can't deny that there are lots of ways in which London is different from other parts of the country, and this is one of them. It's possible to observe differences without judging them.

You're reading a negative or judgemental tone into my earlier post that I didn't put there. Perhaps you are projecting.

I agree with babycham to some extent. I'm a working class girl from yorkshire. Every single job I've ever had has required a uniform that I have no choice over. When I go out I do tend to get all dolled up because it makes a change from the utterly dowdy hideousNess I have to wear in my day to day life. Granted I don't do the whole professional makeup eyebrows etc thing but I do make more of.an effort because it's nice.

Oh absolutely, Londoners are SO much more sophisticated, except I used to work in the city and I know they aren't

Again, get over yourself love.