'Pull over!' Cardigan actually, but thanks for noticing

I'm angry about a million things today, despite the good efforts of colleagues and new students to spread cheer and light about the place. How about the plan to abolish passport checks at UK airports for rich people? That's pretty symbolic of this government. Or Mitt Romney announcing that his 'job is not to care' about poor Americans who don't pay taxes (i.e. the unemployed, the old, the low-paid veterans and care-givers), despite refusing to release his own tax records, believed to reveal a concerted effort to hide his billions in mom-and-apple-pie American states like, er, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland?

But I'll leave all that for another day. The subject of this entry is… cardigans. My boss is a very funny and kind man. But he has a blind spot when it comes to cardigans. To him they are - for some unspecified reason - signifiers of all that's wrong with modern society. Or something. Today - and not for the first time - he introduced me to this year's student intake as 'the one with the dodgy cardigans. At least today's looks like it was bought in a shop'. Which is a bit odd coming from an (if you'll excuse the pun) dyed-in-the-wool socialist like him. Isn't hand-made a good thing? Especially when they're as beautifully made and personally tailored as mine.

As it happens, today's cardigan was bought off-the-peg. It's a lovely deep claret colour which goes well with my cherry-red DMs as part of my Smiths/Blur in the Modern Life is Rubbish era look. There are many reasons why cardigans are excellent. 

Firstly, there's this:

Morrissey was in the Smiths. Morrissey wore cardigans. Ergo, cardigans are cool. (We'll draw a discreet veil over Morrissey's statements on race and immigration because a judge agreed that they aren't at all racist. Not a bit). 

Secondly, there's this chap:

I fervently hope that Kurt Cobain didn't get gore on his cardigan during that whole unfortunate head/shotgun interface event. There's even a song about it. It's by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and it's called 'Kurt Cobain's Cardigan':

And then of course there's the groundswell of sartorial wisdom that says cardigans are cool. Hadley Freeman of the Guardian said so only today:

Male cardigans have been so popular in Fashion Land for so long that they are nigh on a basic at this point, so much so that they have been picked up by another similar kingdom, the Metrosexual World, and been donned by those masses accordingly.

Cardigans are about providing warmth without bulk (forbidden in Fashion Land); they give an element of quirk and Geek Chic. You are just indoctrinated with an anachronistic idea that cardigans don't suit men under the age of 70. Undoctrinate yourself, please. 

while the Independent also invokes Mr Cobain amidst a paean of praise to the cardigan. 

There's another reason why cardigans are cool. If like me you're a gentleman of a certain age (37), your physique is potentially becoming a little more plastic than it might be. My usual choice of attire is a v-neck jumper, but as my pectorals come to resemble the dreaded moobs and my once-taut stomach evokes images of an obese seal, a tight jumper becomes less flattering. A cardigan, however, releases us from the self-consciousness.

Finally, cardigans are cool because they enable further coolness. Being a fat indie bloke of 37, most of my T-shirts reference books, films and other cultural artefacts which are both too cool and too old for you. If I wore a jumper, I couldn't be recognised as cool by other cool blokes (of either sex) of the Indie Masonry. A cardigan affords the clued-in viewer a guide to the cultural perspective of the t-shirt flaunter. No cardigan, no appreciative grins at my 1994 Gorky's Zygotic Mynci shirt, my Green Lantern shirts, the Flash shirt, the Welsh-language one or the Braille one Ben gave me which looks like a New Order cover but actually reads 'Fuck The Tories'. 

Anyway, my boss is no style icon himself. Despite turning up to work on a series of stunning motorbikes, he had a lengthy mullet and drinks Carling… by choice. 

Work, work, work

(Image contains swearing)

I'm off on a field trip today - taking some students to Ironbridge, the World Heritage Site that was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, before coming back for my evening teaching. I recommend a visit: it's a dramatic river gorge with a ruined abbey (Buildwas) at one end and the most graceful Thomas Telford cast-iron bridge spanning the river. There's also an excellent Pie Shoppe. Here's one of Sabine's photographs. She's taken thousands of beautiful Shropshire: see them here.

Meanwhile - here's a comedy t-shirt I've just received, which will come in very useful should I ever dare wear it.

Smart, in so many ways.

Break out the black crepe armbands, McQueen is no more

Apparently a man named Lee who made clothes under the name of Alexander McQueen has died rather young. 


The Guardian marked his passing with a black-framed portrait of what they called an 'iconoclastic genius' with the legend 'The Darkness Has Won', an emotional trough it didn't plumb even for September 11th. The TV stations last night were incredibly obsequious. I know there's an art to fashion, but they really lost it. His couture clothes were deliberately unwearable and the 'ordinary' clothes were both ridiculous and ridiculously expensive. 


To be a genius, you have to make a positive and lasting contribution to society. Fashion surely fails the second of these criteria, given that six months is enough to make fashionistas despise what they used to wear. 


But let's see what the assorted pundits believed made McQueen a 'genius' shall we? These are assorted quotes from TV and radio last night:

'fashion publicist':  'he charged so much money for his stuff - it was so cool'

Bloke in stupid glasses: 'one of the most amazing artists of anyone's time'

Ridiculous. An egotistical capitalist who pretended to be rebellious while oiling the wheels is neither a genius nor a rebel. Perhaps unwearable clothes satirise the fashion world, but only if you aren't selling them and other slightly more wearable garments. 

The crowning moment of this unjustifiable outbreak of mourning was Jon Snow's conversation with some fashion maven. 'What was his lasting contribution to society?', asked the hapless hack. 'He invented the bumster jean', replied this self-regarding fool. 'Everyone now wears their jeans low now so you can see their underwear'. 

I stand corrected. I apologise unreservedly. I realise now that my respect for Darwin, Fleming, Dirac, Turing, Shakespeare, Byron and a lot of other dilettantes was merely callow and unsophisticated thinking. Clearly, persuading everyone that ill-fitting clothing is desirable outshines any mere scientific or artistic achievement. Truly, we are lost, cast out into the outer darkness, lost sheep with no sartorial shepherd. Whither the waistband now? How, O Master, shall we wear our trousers without thine divine inspiration? 

Oh yes: 'bumster' isn't a word. It's an excrescence. If there's a hell, McQueen belongs there simply for this. 

Fashion does its bit…

How does the fashion world react to the recession? By reducing its prices? By just shutting up?

No such luck. One designer bases a range of clothes on the homeless 'look'. Wonder if these clothes will be sent to Haiti. More pictures and discussion here.

Unforgivable

I've said some terrible things about my dear students. I've thought some worse things. Nothing, however, is as awful as what I'm about to say.

I just met one of them. He's had a makeover. He has deliberately made himself look like Jedward, shame of a nation.

Dante would no doubt have his compass out, preparing a fresh circle of hell.

This woman needs pies

This image has been circulating in fashion magazines recently - it was then picked up by bloggers interested in poor quality Photoshopping.

Don't worry: this woman doesn't have a head bigger than her pelvis, and hopefully isn't this thin. However, we should still worry: the image is used in global campaign to imply that this kind of shape and size constitutes beauty.

Not for me it doesn't. I'm not exactly picky (how could I be?), but physically fragile to this degree just doesn't do it for me. How could this young lady keep up with the Map Twats.

Ralph Lauren has been well and truly nicked for the terrible Photoshopping, but has responded to concern about the actual values encoded in this image by… sending legal letters to bloggers reproducing it, despite the legal standard of 'fair use' for comment. What happens when you threaten bloggers? Their friends reproduce it everywhere - I got it from here.

I'm not a Ralph Lauren-wearer and can't therefore boycott the company's products. But we could all mail them, and even ask them whether their 'philanthropy' is anything more than the usual corporate nonsense.

Sartorial crisis

Here's a little task for you.

I looked at my clothes yesterday, and realised that I'm in a bind. Most of my clothes would suit an accountant in his forties, apart from a smattering of t-shirts which announce my love of various obscure defunct bands, or fencing competitions I've competed in or refereed. I need casual clothes, avoiding both Alan Partridge and the billboard look, appropriate to a 34-year old lecturer about town.

I went out in search of clothing yesterday and came back angry and empty-handed. The shirts I have with text on them usually relate to an activity or group with which I have some connection. What happened to our culture? All the shops aren't just selling clothes festooned with the maker's names: most of them 'advertise' imaginary products or companies, as though being a walking billboard is the absolute pinnacle of style. I remove identifying marks from clothes - why on earth is it cool to proclaim labels, real or fictional?

So tell me - where the hell can I find some relaxed t-shirts lacking such things? Abstract designs, if muted, are fine.

Hair today, gone tomorrow…

Morning all. I've had a very pleasant start to the day - a swim with Neal, a walk in the rain (at last) and a decent breakfast at the Romanian-Italian place. I didn't get round to a haircut or ticket-buying, so they're on the list for today.

Did I ever mention that I divide the world into haircuts and hairstyles? Everybody needs a haircut at some point. It's just sensible management. However, hairstyles are the mark of a mind with too little to occupy it. Hairstyles are a desperate attempt to catch up with ephemerality, of a need to comply with the arbitrary whims of a soi-disant élite. I know that, like all matters of appearance, they consist of a complex social code (I've read my Barthes on movie hairstyles), but I just can't help thinking that anyone that bothered about their appearance has too much time on their hands.

I should probably confess to my hair history. I had a pudding bowl cut, thanks to my mother, as did all my siblings regardless of gender or wishes. After that, I grew my jet black hair nearly down to my waist, which at least distracted from my face and went well with the skinny frame, black DMs, black jeans, black shirt and black biker jacket. Yes, I was a student. After a while, however, the black became brown and the locks became sparse. I decided that the Francis Rossi look wasn't for me, and chopped it all off for a short-back-and-sides, which is sensible but just doesn't work when moshing.

Anyone else want to confess to particularly egregious choices?

Wisdom from the master

I went shopping recently, and reported to you that it was a dispiriting experience. I was right, and my instincts have been justified by an impeccable source. Who said this?

I look forward to an eco-friendly future where everyone wears drab and similar clothes until they wear out, just like I do. Obviously I don't do it out of environmental conscience, but laziness and the fear that, if I try to demonstrate taste, I'll be exposed as a twat.

But however puny my motives, I am basically right not to buy expensive yet flimsy new togs all the time.

That's right. My alter ego in his latest column, amongst many other pearls of wisdom.

Twitter this, you hairstyled chancers

Rather than mark essays, I spent the last hour at Alchemy (a pleasant café which turns into something less salubrious at night), attending a 'Black Country Social Media Café'. It was as revoltingly smug, self-congratulatory and self-regarding as it sounds. Lots of businessmen on the make and people with 'directional' haircuts preening themselves for having heard of various items of software. A local 'journalist' (' ' because she works for the Express and Swastika) was present, as was a gimp with a camera. Needless to say, I hovered around the edges, repressing rage.

I'm offering a remedial style consultation today. I would like to stress that a custom-made t-shirt bearing your Twitter address is NEVER, EVER ACCEPTABLE. You arrogant, narcissistic idiots.

What's 'in' this season: enquire within

I have a lot of marking to get on with today: I'll need some diversion.

So: for one day only, as I'm a suave, sophisticated gentleman-about-town, send me your fashion conundrums (conundra?) and I'll adjudicate on your sartorial problems! I plan to use words such as 'piece' and 'directional' to encapsulate my 'look' this season.

See? I'm a natural.

Scherma-chic

In Italy, fencing clothing has been given the seal of approval by Italian Vogue, no less. I shall be wearing my breeches to work in future…