Lake District Fashion. Come help deconstruct WTF is going on?

[nevergoogledragonbutter]

What is going on in the Lake District? Do these people always dress like this or just when they go on their holidays to the lake district?

I just can't quite put my finger on it. I understand that for those getting in a bit of hiking and climbing the technical gear is essential. But I notice alot of people wandering around the shops in ambleside and keswick in gators and camelbaks just shopping or having cups of coffee. None of the gear looks like it's taken a beating on a one-man/woman 3 day hike in rough conditions. They all have all their own fingers etc.

What's with the freaky everybody wears the same thing trend?

Is it like a gore-tex fetish?

Somebody help me understand.

What is worse is trying to get hold of nice quality old wax jackets for motorcycle use.

Since Brad wore one in Benjamin thing all the blokes want them, they are going for £300 quid on ebay, and the new ones are even more (made in Italy, now, see - they have become a 'fashion brand')

It makes me really cross. Most of these people have never been NEAR a motorbike let alone needed something really heavy and waterproof.

Oh and Kate Moss in a Roadmaster? Don't make me laugh. She looks AWFUL in it, but that's the point of a Belstaff, you're supposed to look bloody awful but it keeps you dry!!!

Gahhhhh

Maybe there's a road sign on the way in they've seen and you've missed?

Welcome to the Lake District

Drive Safely

You Are Entering A Mandatory GoreTex Zone.

...

I lived their for a few years and lived in jeans a fleece and a water proof. Even on nights out, it was brilliant to not have to give a shit about what you look like. I go back regularly and can never bring myself to wear my normal day to day clothes as I would stick out like a sore thumb so its back on with the jeans and a hoody.

I always wondered why dh's family have never really taken to me - they live in the Lakes. I thought it was because I am very loud and opinionated, but actually, it's due to the lack of GoreTex in my wardrobe.

MIL is always offering me fleeces to wear in case I'm cold. I politely decline.

The thing about the lake district is that it's made up of people who live there and people who go there. People who go there are under the impression that it rains all the time, and that they need full-on hiking gear to go for a coffee because it's so terribly rural. People who live there know that it only rains 90% of the time and we have to buy our clothes on annual trips out of the county, in search of fashion. The local economy works round tourists, who don't come to the Lakes to buy Coast and Brora, they come to buy protective raingear.

On the whole though, I'd rather tourists went for the mandatory Everest Lite kit than clamber up Scawfell in trainers and jeans and then expect the mountain rescue to collect them in the manner of Street Cars. It can get nasty very quickly, even when it's looking beautiful from ground level. It's when I see 'walkers' in Malvern, tackling the Sunday stroll ridge with gaiters and sticks and snow goggles, I get a bit

I used to regularly see people on the towpath near Richmond (the london one not the yorkshire one) in gore-tex and gaiters - on nice sunny days. oooo but the weather can close in on you in minutes, people can get disoriented and lost so easily, you can die of exposure before the mountain rescue even know you're missing...

haha - I think like someone else said, it'a almost like you'd stand out like a sore thumb if you wore something other than walking trousers/fleece/goretex/hiking boots

When I first went to the lake district with my new boyfriend as a 20-something, I only brought my usual 'towny' stuff. I felt like an idiot and people looked at me like I was mad

We went to Windermere last year, and I went into town (for a coffee and mooch round the shops) in skinny jeans and converse. Did I ever feel out of place! And I was dressed, IMO, rather casually. You don't need to wear waterproofs to go round the shop. It rains everywhere in Britain too and nobody Gore-Texes up to go to bloody Lakeland.

I detest wearing fleece jackets.
Makes me feel like my mother.

They're all so shapeless and drab, even the ones in aggressively 'cheery' colours, which make it worse, somehow.

I have one waterproof jacket which I wear only under duress. I wore it to work on day in a complete downpour, took it off as I stepped through the door and hid it. I tried to put it on in secret at the end of the day but my colleagues caught me, and they laughed and laughed. I'm not surprised, it made me look like Hayley from Coronation Street.

Wildfig's fears are all too real.

The reason the streets are filled with goretex gaiter-wearers is because all the mini-skirted boob-tube-ballet-flat wearers are slogging up Helvellyn on the path out of Grisedale. With a small bottle of water between 4 of them, instead of the camelback.