At the club

Dress Sense

A city street in main­land Bri­tain. It’s 11.15pm on a cold Fri­day night in the dead of win­ter. Two young women in crop tops sho­w­ing their bare waists and shoul­ders, and mini skirts with no tights un­der­ne­ath, are strol­ling arm in arm. “’Ello, dar­ling!” they shout, “where you from then?” And they run off down the road screa­m­ing with laugh­ter. “Good hea­vens!” won­ders the vi­si­tor, “aren’t they cold?” This is an ex­amp­le of our fa­mous Bri­tish tough­ness. On the other hand, in sum­mer the same vi­si­tor may ob­ser­ve Brits sit­ting on the beach wea­ring ja­ckets and pull­overs with long wool­len socks under their san­dals. The im­portant thing to re­mem­ber is that the Bri­tish dress to plea­se them­sel­ves and to show their in­de­pen­dence of fa­shion, wea­ther, so­ci­al con­ven­ti­on and co­lour theo­ry. For many for­eig­ners vi­sit­ing Bri­tain it’s a wel­co­me chan­ge to be able to dress wi­thout ha­ving to worry if their clo­thes are the wrong size, or don’t match, or are torn, or in­si­de out, or show off their fat legs.

Ex­pres­si­ons to learn
There’s no need to dress up.
Oh, it’s just an old thing I dug out.

Avoid say­ing
Oran­ge and pur­p­le don’t go.
Skirt? What skirt?

From: The How To Be Bri­tish Collec­tion, M. Ford & P. Legon, Brigh­ton 2003

At the club: Her­un­ter­la­den [doc] [230 KB]

At the club: Her­un­ter­la­den [pdf] [241 KB]