It's hip to be square

I admit it. I used to wear bell-bottom trousers and platform shoes and yellow. Lots of yellow. No one in their right mind who looks like me wears yellow. My shirts had enormous uncomfortable collars and were as tight as could possible be. They were yellow also. Big cuffs that caught on everything. I had reddish curly hair that floated down to my waist. I had a multi-coloured unruly beard. I thought I was cool. I smoked a pipe at the tender age of 19, until the day I set my hair and beard on fire in the university cafeteria. That was not cool at all. Many people look back on those times in their youth with tenderness and pleasing nostalgia. I cringe.

Bill Bryson wrote: “For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom. Throughout many periods of history –perhaps most– it can seem as if the whole impulse of fashion has been to look maximally ridiculous.” I agree to a point. Here I am speaking of men but I do not feel that women face the same problem with fashion as men.

Fashion is by nature ephemeral, but this seems to pose few problems for women. Men tend to be aware that the transient nature of their poor taste and follow-the-leader stupidity will at some stage return to haunt us with ridicule. So, by and large, we avoid it. I generalise.

Shakespeare wrote, “Clothes maketh the man.” Fashion sociologists and philosophers see the concepts of male and female fashion as emanating from very differing starting points. Male fashion, they say, is “tribal, conformative, and anticipatory.” But what does that mean? Tribal? Men need to belong to easily identifiable groups because individual identity is established by the group/tribe a man belongs to. Think Johnny Rotten and The Sex Pistols. You can also think Hell's Angels, the Rotary Club, the 1st Parachute Regiment or the Board of Directors of la Caixa. Conformative? Within the group, men must conform, for fear of being expelled from the group. Codes are established. Think Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols and the fact that they were dressed by no other than Vivienne Westwood. Anticipatory? Men at some stage or other must show the promise of what is to come. In order to attract a mate and form a stable relationship, the promises a man makes start long before he meets his bride at the altar: stability, social acceptance, and bread on the table. Think Johnny Rotten and... or perhaps not. Of course all three concepts can and do apply to women, but there is also the issue of fecundity, which we will not, sadly, delve into here.

But why is it that fashion for women changes so often and for men, so little? The basic difference is the first issue, the tribal nature of fashion. Women find it far easier to jump ship and this causes few problems. Jumping ship for men (betraying the tribe) is not well looked upon. It definitely does not bode well in terms of the stability question.

So, poor fools that we are, we are trapped. Sadly, we find it difficult to take the plunge and move out of our comfort zone. Fashion for men suffers as a result.

Can you imagine a fashion lasting for 200 years? For men, that is not a problem.

Wigs, or “perukes” as they were known then (the type still worn in the British judiciary) were in fashion for nearly 200 years, from the end of the 16th century. There were practical aspects to their use, but there was definitely an element of fashion. They were not cheap, and wig-making was an extremely profitable enterprise. Wigs were made of horse-or goat hair, or human hair. Why were they so popular? Europe was not long over an outbreak of the plague but that had been replaced by a much slower, more painful and very visible killer: syphilis, which took the lives of kings and plebes alike. Covering up the sores on the body was one thing, but the head and face were another. To treat or contain the disease to even a minor degree required shaved heads, and baldness was assumed at the time to indicate impotence. The wig solved the problem; as well as head lice. A most practical recourse.

And fashion? Samuel Pepys thought so. He was one of the first to wear a wig and was concerned that the town-folk would laugh at him. He was much delighted when they instead cast admiring eyes in his direction. His other chilling doubt, the erroneous belief that the plague could be passed on by wearing a wig made of human hair, was vanquished by his own unfailing vanity. Fashion took the day.

What happened? The French revolution axed the wig, along with many of those who wore it. In Britain, William Pitt introduced a tax on talcum, used to powder wigs. In fashion, at times the price is just too high.

But if a fashion can happily last 200 years, how can I claim that men's fashion, especially, is ephemeral? When Vivienne Westwood lent her hand to inventing punk, I doubt she was out to change society. She was simply one more player on the British scene that gave us sub-cultures, such as Teddy Boys and the Mods and Rockers, and fashion-wise, these urban tribes were just another version of Christian Dior's New Look, albeit, with a twist. Democratic fashion for men. These extremes aside, a door was opening for men. The doubt was if men would accept the challenge. Various factors, sport, the cult of the image, homosexuality becoming more accepted, and huge amounts spent on advertising, a whopping 450% increase in just five years, said yes.