British style, or lack of it

[Sarcelle]

I haven’t been abroad for a while (annoyed with the whole palaver of flying and just been holidaying in UK.)

Recently went to Mallorca and spent a day in Palma. What struck me is that compared to a lot of Europeans, with exceptions, we dressed so badly compared to them. And we are less fit. Since I got back I have been really noticing, it’s like we don’t care, yet in the main we have a lot of the same shops as them.

This is an observation for both men and women and when I say British I mean every age and demographic that makes up modern Britain. We seem to wear a lot of easy clothes - sportswear, stretchy stuff. In Palma they were wearing great shirts, dresses, fitted trousers, great accessories. I was sitting next to a Spanish guy at lunch, plain blue shirt, well cut trousers, clutching a book - he just seemed to exude style in an effortless way.

I know there are exceptions but it just strikes me that the average British person just does not dress that stylishly. I include myself in that btw. Sometimes I do dress well, but never with the same casual elan, and it always gets a comment along the lines of - ooh, you look smart, where are you going, even if what I am wearing is very simple. Like I S this be doing something extraordinary to warrent dressing a bit more smartly.

We buy a lot of clothes in UK but perhaps that is the problem. We buy a lot of cheap clothes and don’t accessorise well. I don’t think money or lack of it is the reason. Lack of will and perhaps a bit of self-respect?

I am sure I am going to get flamed for this post but what do you think?

Totally agree with you, OP.

I think several factors are involved :

Weight - people look better slimmer.
Good diet tends to equal good hair, skin etc. The average British diet is cheap, let's face it.
Money, but only to a certain extent. If you're slim chances are you will look good, even in cheap clothes.

In the UK we seem to have this obsession with showing skin. Spaghetti straps only look good on a pubescent teen with size 8 arms. You need to dress for your shape.

I love how some folks have taken offence at this thread and turned it into a bun fight. Its the Style and beauty thread ffs!

The average British diet is cheap, let's face it.

^^

Meant to say crap. The average British diet is crap.

Anyone walked down Bond Street and looked in Gucci's window lately? It looks like a fancy dress shop. If that's high end French style, I'll stick with looking like a Brit.

^^

Haute couture vs high street. Not the same thing.

It's not haute couture, though. It's off the peg, top of high street. I suspect all that tasteless tat is aimed at the far Eastern market which seems to be where the money is now.

I'm kind of on the fence with this one. Those bloody spaghetti strap vests are dreadful, along with ripped jeans and many of the other dreadful examples already quoted. But in London particularly I see people who I think are pretty stylish. My gripe with the way a lot of people dress is that it's so boring and predictable.

Loads of Brits seem to live in sports/leisure wear, especially the ones whose bodies look like they do not do much sports. After all, we are a country where some people will do the school run in their pjs or onesie, so the obsession with comfy, elasticated clothes obviously runs deep with many. Even a slight structure to clothes looks better, regardless of shape. Chubby people in trackies will never look stylish.

@flexoset - That is a really good point about school uniform. My own was a baggy T-shirt and even baggier jumper by Fruit of the Loom (well before I moved to a non-uniform ex grammar that just let people be people. That in itself is interesting as the student body while very eclectic and individually minded was very much a single group. There wasn't really bullying or similar issues like my former school and I do wonder how much the uniform or lack of it was part of that issue ) Anyway tiny digression aside that original school uniform has given me a lifelong hatred of that type of clothing. I don't own polo shirts at all. Everything is fitted and tailored (and I'm certain probably cheaper than that folks clad out from Sports Direct).

I also think that those who are different to you will stick out more. So if you're dressed in chinos with a button down etc you're going to notice someone dressed head to toe in Adidas, partly out of worry that maybe we chose the wrong clothes ourselves.

I'm just back from Rome, where I had a fantastic time people watching. There were tourists of every nationality there, in every type of clothing imaginable. And all just as likely to look stylish - or not - as each other. You couldn't say for sure who was from where, not really. (I obviously looked fabulous, dahlinks ).

I was actually staying in a small town twenty miles or so away from Rome, which was far less touristy and I can't say that I found the people there to be universally stylish. There were some beautifully dressed people, or course, but there were also plenty of white bra straps under black tops, and heaven forfend, even leggings. Quick, someone tell that extremely Italian lady that she's actually a Brit and never realised.... or alternatively, that she was doing a Saturday supermarket run, just as I was, and was dressed accordingly. I saw plenty of builders in holey old mucky t-shirts as well! People are just people at the end of the day - different cultures place different values on clothing and appearance, and fashions differ, but still people.

I agree it's a v interesting point about school uniforms.

I always think you can spot the groups of French exchange children by how they kind of all have the same gear.

So I suppose the theory is that when you are all forced to look the same so much (school uniform) you rebel by wanting to look deifferent in your down time, and this approach sticks.
While if you can wear whatever you want to school, there is not the same effect (and in fact from what I have observed, groups of schoolkids from non uniform european countries often seem to have pretty similar stuff on! But it's a choice for them, and so looking similar is fine, and of course, they aren't exactly the same).

As we're having a binfest , I resent the implication that stylishness is automatically commensurate with size. I am plus size and, of course, a dress is going to look far better on a size 12 than it is on me.

However, I have two extremely slim sisters-in-law (both of whom I love dearly I hasten to add). One could commit murder right under your nose and you would miss it, she is entirely invisible. I honestly couldn't tell you what she wears. You'd spot the other one though. A mile off. She once went to a party in a very pretty vintage tea dress. And stripey socks. She's, shall we say, quirky.

I may be several sizes bigger but I can tell you I am considerably more stylish than the two of them put together, precisely because of my size and I want to look as good as my wretched metabolism will permit.

However, I do agree that the athleisure/activewear style is hideous on almost every one and even the very expression "jogging bottoms" brings me out in hives.

I would agree with you. Size does not equal style but it is easier to dress a smaller frame. I have been bigger too. And it was easy to fall into elasticated waists and stretchy materials for sheer comfort.

I have found my people. I completely agree with you OP.

I don’t think we necessarily buy minors but we tend to buy a mush mash. I have family in Spain and they dress completely differently to us. The colours match, they wear good shoes, they accessories, they don’t tend to wear so many oversized clothes, they layer but they also don’t have four seasons in one day and nine months of wet and cold weather.

More not minors!!
Mish mash.

I have a friend who always looks incredibly stylish. Yesterday she was wearing a white grandad shirt, dark skinny jeans, tan belt and tan brogues. All from Primark, except the shoes, which were second hand from Ebay. It's about style, not money. The way you put things together and your choices of colour and fabric are key.

Agree with the OP. I think the reasoning is that Brits simply don't prioritise style over comfort, in the main. I dress carefully as it makes me feel more confident (and comfortable, as I think this is important in style too). To the poster with the stylist friend dressed in Primark, it may be possible but in the main, cheap clothes look cheap when viewed up close. Synthetic fabrics, faux leather etc are less durable, comfortable, stylish and hard wearing than natural fibres.

And it was easy to fall into elasticated waists and stretchy materials for sheer comfort.

That's very true and I agree it's a mistake (one of the very few I don't
usually make ). I try to ensure I wear the correct size and I actually think that goes a long way to looking better. A size 10 person is still going to look crap in a stretchy size 8.

I was in Portugal recently, in a rural area and in a more cosmopolitan area. Tbh, people were dressed very similarly to at home. Teens in stretchy Lycra and sportswear. Lots of high street fashion, Zara/H&M type thing. Some a bit smarter, others a bit rougher around the edges. Same as home.

Agree that slim doesn't = stylish always. My SIL is a conventional size 10 but isn't remotely stylish to be honest. She seems to always priorities comfort over style so wears Sketchers and stuff from brands like Cotton Traders.

I'm a fraction taller than her but a good 1.5 stone heavier, and I dress a lot more stylishly.

No size does not equal style, but agree it's easier to find well-fitting clothes if you are slimmer. Clothes that fit you well and flatter you are always going to look more stylish than things that don't. I think with fast fashion we are losing the idea of looking after your clothes, too.

As it has been said on here before, we all get up and put clothes on, it takes no more effort to put on clothes that look good than don't. Though, the effort goes into choosing clothes that look good in the first place. I think the British are generally (and this is a generalisation) not very good at choosing what looks good in the first place.

In my home town, I feel there is a real distinction between everyday clothes and "dressed up" clothes. People put a lot of effort in if it's a special occasion, but the vast majority of the time they don't see the point. And certainly if you wear anything more glam than jeans and a t shirt you'll get asked if you're going somewhere special. Even work, people don't see the point in wearing nice clothes and will only wear plain black trousers and a few tops or something.

Possibly related to this - nobody seems to iron anything anymore. I'm the only one of my friends who irons everyday clothes and not just the odd shirt for a job interview or something.

I realise that's a huge generalisation and not saying it applies to all brits. It's just something I've observed.

I used to work in central London and everyone looked pretty good. Lots of sharp dressers on the Victoria line at rush hour. I know Italians go quite liked the fact that in the UK it’s fine to go out in your leggings as it was more relaxed. In general though I agree that the British high street is about churning out clothes rather than quality.

I think the British reputation for inventive eccentricity has worn thin. I enjoy a bit of ridiculous fashion and wish there was more of it around. I’m also not a fan of the highly groomed look. However what the op spoke of to me was the British epidemic of badly made, badly fitting clothes in shoddy fabrics.

I think the golden age of the British high street is well and truly over and that we’re now overrun with cheap tat, and increasingly, expensive tat too as many threads will testify.

And of course many of these high street brands are multinationals, however European cities seem to have done better than we have at hanging on to their independent shops - so far at least.

I take the point that I’m basing this largely on visits to big, fairly swanky European cities.

I was born in central London and lived there for years. I also work in central London. I had a day off today and went into central London and in the main people did not look stylish. Lots of leisurewear, though to be fair I was in a lot of tourist areas so there were lots of overseas visitors so not necessarily British. I work in Westminster, there is a 50/50 split - some people dress well, others look dowdy/scruffy. Go somewhere like Clerkenwell or the City - in the main people look sharp and stylish - but not necessarily with that easy European style that I mentioned in the OP.

I work in an office, not public facing but lots of contact with external visitors and yet a lot of my colleagues look a mess - the men being worse than the women. Trousers that are shiny of seat, shoes unpolished, stains (food I think!), yellow sweat stains in the armpit region. A couple of the ones I am thinking of earn over 100k so it is not lack of funds. It is kind of disrespectful to colleagues, employers and visitors and seems peculiarly British not to care about looking at least clean and tidy if stylish is beyond them. One of them had a briefcase that dropped to bits and is now carrying papers around in an Asda carrier bag. All very odd and from where I was sitting in Palma, seemed inconceivable that would happen there.

@Floisme - good point about independent shops. Palma had its chains but lots of smaller clothes shops. You are right about the demise of the British High Street.

But lots of people don't want to look like spanish style or italian style

This is a different country.

If you aspire to 2easy european style" then by all means purchase the clothes and rock the look

I don't understand why you think others out and about should adopt that style? If they wanted to they would. They don't.

" in the main people look sharp and stylish - but not necessarily with that easy European style that I mentioned in the OP. "

Sharp and stylish isn't enough?

Why don't you just go around feeling fabulous and stop worrying about the butter stain on dave from accounts shirt?

For example.

I don't really understand the thing about not dressing up = disrespecting people TBH so I expect I'm not going to understand where you're coming from! I like people to look comfy TBH whether that's in jeans and a tshirt or a full retro rockabilly outfit, because then they generally look a bit happier.