Can we talk about clothing brands and target demographics?

[CrkdLttrCrkdLttr]

Because I’m thinking about the brands that form the core of my ‘going out to meet other grown ups’ wardrobe, and laughing at the Margaret Howell mail shot I’ve just opened. (Socks and sandals photo.) Beautiful young model, and each garment will be wonderfully well made - but I know no one under fifty who wears MH. That’s fine - but I wish the marketing acknowledged the fact.

When a brand does make an effort to engage with the real buyers of its clothes I’m full of awe and gratitude - Raey at Matches is usually great at this.

Studio Nicholson hovers somewhere in between. Again, everyone I know (in the UK) who wears their clothes is older and richer than me, probably in a creative profession. Not a wispy 20 year old.

I never used to care. But I’m wondering if marketing is the reason 99% of the middle aged and older women on MN exclaim that there are no decent clothes for them. There are - but not every brand tells you so.

Gah! Posting on phone, please forgive the duplicates

They could have used the latin name, but I'm not sure it is any more attractive.
The bird isn't a cream colour

I wore proper army fatigues as a teenager too. I still do, and quite a lot of things in a similar style, but that's possibly not a good thing.
My grandmother told me to wear the same colour as my eyes.

Enheduenna, very much NOT a paramilitary, I’m far too soft for that despite the wannabe capers of my teen years. I think bo mentioned a dress upthread that made her look like a Kurdish paramilitary, when we were discussing Bruar capes.

Clothes that inspire that kind of amazing tactile reaction are to be enjoyed and treasured, so brava to wearing it riding.

Being generous to the LP copywriter, could they
mean the bird’s throat? It does have a mottled creamy breast… better than the alternative 😐

I wish I could look like a Peshmerga, they are scarily bad ass women, alas I never claimed to look like one I value my life. I do have a cape from the 1940s from the British military, apparently if you have two you can make it into a tent and it also functions as a ground sheet.

Spooky, I just looked up translations of thrush into Italian, I doubt they were translating Candida for my amusement, but aside from the bird, it's also mughetto which means <drumroll> lily of the valley.

My life is enriched by your posts @Enheduanna . I often laugh reading them. Please don't stop! This thread must be running near to capacity... will it continue?

There should be a Ministry of Gentle Nonsense, the world would be a better place.

I suppose Shangpie is somewhat right in that I'd end up in the military because I wanted some of their clothes. I'm not Kurdish but otherwise on the basis of the trousers alone... <Off to eBay to source some Peshmerga uniforms>

Apologies for the inadvertent military tangent. I scrolled back and found nothing, so I’m not quite sure what my brain has done there. Still, if you get some badass trousers bo then it’ll have been worth it.

Demographics and the Ministry of Gentle Nonsense sounds like the basis of a great follow-on thread title

I googled Maddy and Comfort and Joy which reminded me I've been channeling Aunt Sylvia's coat, boots and scarf from Bill Forsyth's Housekeeping for almost 40 years.

Belts or waist ties... whatever, they are beautiful. Without wanting to provoke, the officers of HMS Ashanti, which was the UK first anti-slaving ship patrolling the West African slaving coast from about 1808, still wear kente cummerbunds on full dress dinner nights.

We have to love the threads that dodge the thought polis.

Ha! I’m definitely not an ornithologist, on any level. (Though mating rituals form much of the stuff of my legitimate occupation.

As for the thread … I was about to proffer an (admittedly less accessible but nowhere approaching LP) alternative to ça va de soie, but, well - Gollum. There are still places I’m reluctant to share with the entire Internet (even though they’re on the Internet). I know …

Also, I’m about to be much busier (not Joey Maynard code for up the duff!) and really need to spend less time on MN. So I’ll be perfectly delighted if someone else cares to start another thread when this one is full - but you may all have had enough by then. (Not actually leaving - just trying to force myself into expending more energy elsewhere. No flowers or speeches necessary!)

Thank you for a new film to check out @NatashaDancing 😊

Hmm, all suddenly needing to work, work? Shangpie, pull up that work flow infographic for me again 🤔 There's a thread for normal people now who like normal not high fashion things now, I hope you all realise this is who you'll be abandoning us to, and every other answer to any S&B query will be about some influencer who wears their money <-- not envy. And who am I to consult on all manner of class and etiquette without your Dcat Enheduanna?

For anyone interested, turns out the Peshmerga are not corrupt assholes like the Russians who happily sell off uniforms to fill their own pockets. I might need to settle for a cool patch instead <humph>

Absolutely. Your thread is always a fascinating read, @botemp. (And you’re enviably restrained - I haven’t hesitated to recommend this thread elsewhere on MN!)

I saw this breathtaking skirt on the Egg site today. (It’s below knee length - but their styling is too gob smackingly spiteful to merit further exposure.)

@CrkdLttrCrkdLttr , what do you mean by but their styling is too gob smackingly spiteful?
I have to ask as it will bother me otherwise.

Styling of that particular skirt on the website. Horrible objectively. Horrible on the poor model. Pointlessly, weirdly, inexplicably horrible.