Class and Moray Dalton: There's Death in the Cup

Moray Dalton (Katherine Renoir) wrote several mystery-thrillers that deserve more fans. They are very revealing about attitudes of the time. Other books include acrobats and failing private zoos, but this one is firmly placed in a stuffy little seaside town. The Armour family are beyond the pale of society. Though they have a big house and servants, the other middle class residents do not mix with them. The patriarch's second wife ran off with a French teacher, you see.

“What’s their social status?”
“Oh, middle class, I suppose. The father was a retired manufacturer from the Midlands. But they weren’t visited."
"One does not want to be censorious and Pharisaical, but they weren’t the sort of people we’re used to."

Mark Armour, our hero, is under a cloud for forging a cheque at school. He joined up and had a good war, but when peace broke out couldn't find a job. So he parlayed his startling good looks into a career as a gigolo. We get just a glimpse of this life in the first chapter.

He is forced to return home, where his bossy older sister Bertha inherited all the money. His half-siblings need looking after. George is clearly autistic, sympathetically portrayed, and is happy cutting pictures out of magazines. Winnie is "man mad". She was never very stable and is now about 40. As we've seen from other novels of the same vintage, there was a general idea that if a woman didn't get married she would start to go barmy by the age of about 30.

"One of the sisters is odd. Peculiar in her dress and so forth."
“There’s a taint of insanity then?”

As well as sewing finery out of old clothes, Winnie stalks the local doctor, sitting and crying on the kerb outside his house.

Yes, this is an other stiflingly inturned family, where everyone is forced to dance to Bertha's tune. If she dies, the inheritance is split between Winnie, Mark, George and Claire - the other child of the absconding French wife.

Mark has somehow met and fallen in love with Lucy, only child of what could be another repressive family unit. "I suppose you’ve seen to it that she met any eligibles that happen to be about?” asks her uncle, one of the subsidiary detectives. Oh no, woofles her father, coming up with some feeble excuse. "Lucy is a home bird" – the same phrase used by Joanna Cannan about the pathetic Nancy in They Rang Up the Police.

More about class: a servant going to give "evidence" to the police "was rather too smartly dressed in a bright blue coat lavishly trimmed with cheap fur, opening over a blue silk frock and ropes of pearls." And someone puts on "her high, affected company voice".
     
Though we barely leave the snobbish little resort, and nothing very dramatic happens (there isn't even a dispute about the will), it is a gripping read. Dalton is a good writer:

It was pitch dark in the drive and silent but for the crunching of the loose gravel under their feet and the steady drip drip of the rain on the laurels.
                
The car roared through the darkness. The hedgerows streamed by, every twig and blade of grass flashing out in the white glare of the headlights for a fraction of time to sink back again into the peaceful obscurity of the November night when they had passed.

I guessed the killer, mainly because they are the last person standing.

More Golden Age snobbery here, and links to the rest.
                


                

What to Wear 13

Upper Upwards wear a lot of cashmere in subtle colours. Samantha Upward buys her jerseys (never a "jumper" or "sweater") from ebay, and sometimes dyes them with Dylon or natural dyes like onion skins, tea and blackberries. The garments are old, and wear through quickly or get eaten by moths, but you can always buy more. You can even cut out squares from the uneaten bits, machine them together and turn them into another garment.

Here’s a list of very upmarket items you didn’t know you needed. 

Cashmere wash
Cashmere brush
Yacht varnish
Escargot tongs
Grape scissors
Mink storage closet
Marble polish
Silver champagne trug
Cordless hoover for your yurt
Curry comb for the alpacas

Per the Times, Nov 2022, middle-class parents dress and accessorise their children entirely in “sad beige”. This extends to dolls, toys and even mugs and plates. But as Jilly Cooper points out, “All little girls are lower middle class” (Class, 1975). Aged six, I wanted to wear a tutu all the time, and see-through plastic high heels, and wave a pink plastic miniature umbrella printed with ballerinas. Mum disdained shop-bought fancy dress – she always made ours, without consulting us, so we were forced to wear a humiliating cracker costume instead of what we wanted – something pretty.

Kate Long (@volewriter) is fighting the good fight against small boys’ clothes plastered with dinosaurs and spaceships, while girls’ clothes are pink and decorated with mottos like LOVE or PRINCESS. She’s right to be indignant, but this is also a class thing. Clothes covered in slogans, feathers, rhinestones, pink plastic beads and a unicorn appliqué are naff. But I always wanted organdie, gauze and net. And multiple flounces. And I still want to meet Prince Charming.

Again quoting Jilly Cooper: when working class men go tieless, they spread their shirt collar neatly over the lapels of their jacket. There was a fad a few years ago for middle-class men to lose the ties, but they were awkward and half-hearted about it. They just took the tie off and the shirt collar looked empty and untidy. I think the trend has passed.

Who was Liz Truss's stylist? Women politicians are going for dresses in block colours, rather than suits. It's a uniform: safe but dull, skirts to mid-calf, featuring the kind of drapery over the bust that used to be recommended to large ladies circa 1955. Truss has an hourglass figure, and nobody advised her to adopt the Bessie Braddock armoured corset. But in a short skirt her curtsey would have looked even more uncertain. 

Are Fair Isle jumpers a sign of frumpy nerdiness? Aran jumpers probably the same, though they had a moment in the 70s.

Sam buys an outfit for her daughter’s wedding, but shudders at the term “occasion wear”. Middle-class Jen Teale yearns for the days of the coffee lace two-piece – dress with matching coat. Caro Stow-Crat wears a short jacket with a fishtail midi skirt to hide her legs in the photographs. 

When Jen takes off her jersey, her T shirt never rises with it, exposing her midriff or still worse, bra. She has just learned and rehearsed a method – she probably tucks the shirt into her waistband. Or perhaps she shucks the arms first, rolls up the body then "pops" the neck over her head.

Sharon Definitely never wears the same designer outfit twice – she buys the garment, tucks in the labels, wears it once and returns it. (Dress hire companies still exist and flourish.)

Don’t tie your jumper or cardigan round your waist, or you’ll look like a child from the council estate – I was told by a girl from the council estate. And pushing up your sleeves "made you look like a washerwoman", said the nuns - especially if you then put your hands on your hips. Folding your arms was out too. (Any gesture that meant your hands touched your body were out – including putting your palms on your thighs when sitting down – these are injunctions that go back to the 18th century.)

Working-class people buy “name brands” to show they can afford them. This means the middle classes shun those brands and buy cheaper generic clothes – or expensive brands that don’t flash their identity. Boden-wearers like to pretend that they spend their entire lives on a deserted white-sand beach.

Caro asks: What happened to “country clothes” and “town clothes”? There was a moment in the 1920s when women could only wear black in town. So if you lived there year-round it would be rather funereal! The answer is that you didn’t live there all year round – you spent most of your time in the country, where you wore tweeds and emphatically no black unless someone had died. There are many restrictive rules about what you can’t wear in the country (high heels, black stockings), but what about the town? It’s full of visitors wearing hiking costume, though there’s still a dress code in the City.

From the 30s to the 50s, ankle-strap shoes were beyond the pale, especially with Cuban heels. But the most vulgar shoes ever are orange plastic kitten-heeled slingbacks with square toes from the mid-60s – worn with a touch of grime on your ankle bone, as Nell Dunn (Up the Junction) observed. Upwards could not wear sexy shoes back then, because they were “bad for your feet”. Probably true.

In the 70s, boots slid down the class ladder (became cheaper and more available), and were adopted by a secretary called Dawn. She had long hair parted in the middle, a vacant smile, a skinny jumper and an A line miniskirt. Her boots only reached mid-calf – Upward girls wore boots that came up to the knee (and were probably more expensive). Of course you needed to be slender and long-legged to pull off the Dawn look. She saved for a month to afford her boots. Upward girls never saved, they just ran up an overdraft.

Hercule Poirot’s patent leather shoes, that he thinks are smart and shiny, mark him out as “not one of us”. Yet he can tell that a client is not really a lady because her shoes are cheap and too new. A lady wears “good” (expensive) shoes but then gets a lot of wear out of them. Before patent leather was invented, the aim was to get black leather shoes and boots as shiny as possible – this took a lot of work. In a big house, a boy was employed to clean the household’s shoes. He was known as the “boots”. In the army, a lot of time was spent (wasted) on “bull” – polishing equipment including boots until everything shone. Shoeshine boys in the streets made a good living. But keeping patent leather shiny took hardly any work. Suddenly shiny black shoes were no longer a “sign” of being able to employ someone to spend hours on your appearance, or of having done the hard work yourself.

Upward women can’t dress too sexily – what they'd call "stereotypically feminine". They may wear a more relaxed version of current clothing – nothing too tight, skirts not too short, makeup discreet, hair not too processed, heels not too high. They aim for a natural, healthy, wholesome, practical look (see the Boden catalogue). When this cuts no ice, they may try too hard, but their tight jeans and exposed cleavage will only garner disapproving looks from their female friends. But at least the “natural look” is preferable to the academic bag lady look – layers of flapping garments that entirely conceal the figure. 

In the 70s, pretty girls were referred to as “pre-Raphaelite”. Lank hair, unmade-up face, absence of bra and cheesecloth top were supposed to be deliberately Unsexy, and it was galling when men found these girls attractive. This elfin, waiflike look was only available to the young, small and slight. And these girls didn’t have to be warm, friendly or outgoing, didn’t have to learn one subject of conversation really well, meet people halfway, or make any effort at all. They just had to BE. Lucky things. (Upward advice is always of the "work on yourself" variety – never "get a makeover". That would be far too practical.)

Unlike the British upper middle classes, well-heeled Europeans show off their wealth. They used to wear fur coats, and still sport expensive leather jackets, good handbags with gold chains, well-cut jeans, and leather boots. Their clothes look very new and clean. They go blonde, not grey – honey blonde, since they usually start out with dark hair. 

Labour Party leader Michael Foot did not wear a donkey jacket to the memorial service at the Cenotaph, it was an olive green duffel coat without shoulder protectors. Middle England still woofles that he was disrespectful not to wear the establishment uniform of black or navy Crombie overcoat. And as a Labour leader he just would have worn a donkey jacket, the uniform of the Irish navvy, wouldn't he? But so what if he had? 

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 12 (In Quotes)

New winter coat has arrived and I am delighted to officially look like I own a chain of 1970s bingo halls. (@GoldenVision90)

According to Twitter, the following are naff:

Babies or small children with their ears pierced.
Wedding and engagement rings in 9-carat gold.
Massive watches.
Gold jewellery on men.

Deck shoes.
White clothes unless T shirts or shirts.
Clothing with the labels on the outside.
Active wear if not actually exercising.

Ugg boots.
Sweet, sickly perfumes.
Men walking around with their tops off at the first sight of sun.
Any form of clothing with obtrusive logos.

Shoes without socks.
Builder’s bum.
A tartan to which you are not entitled.
Stiletto heels in the country.

Babies dressed as adults, especially in trainers.
Headbands on babies. 

Deliberately unbuttoning the first button on the sleeve of your jacket/coat is a sign of a bounder and a cad.

Janice Turner in The Times laments that this is the fifth summer of milkmaid cosplay. (2022-06-16)

The real decline of Western culture is pyjamas becoming outdoor clothing. (@VeteranGamerUK. He’s right – “athleisure” is pyjamas.)

All that money and power, yet the Queen dresses like a dinner lady at a country wedding. (@anon_opin)

The kind of holiday jewellery you would wear with a kaftan, somewhere hot and exotic: a tangle of necklaces or an armful of bracelets. (Jess Cartner Morley in the Guardian, Aug 2021)

I remember a time when everybody in the Liberties was wearing Burberry. Not realising it was, still is, very common. You would never see Burberry in Rathfarnham, Terenure or Rathgar. (@bluredfrank)

A writer-in to Points of View (Sept, 2020) complains that The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades wears a flat cap indoors – in front of ladies!

Does every academic have at least four stripy tops? (@DrMagennis)

Dressing slovenly is a super posh thing. See also driving an old banger. People from normal backgrounds don't have such luxuries. (@Otto_English)

My mother is urging me to have my ring ‘upgraded’ because a respectable American middle-class woman needs a bigger diamond. (Dear Prudie, slate.com)

High fashion dresses have more than a touch of Margot from The Good Life – in evening wine and cheese for the boss mode. (@Amanda_Vickery. Penelope Keith and her dresser used to raid Harrods.)

She had about nine bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse contortions. (William Makepeace Thackeray, A Book of Snobs)

In Hampstead, you must wear sports attire in the morning. Around lunchtime, change into something seasonally appropriate. Gay couples wear matching sunglasses. Gentlemen, if it’s warm then you may wear your jumper over your shoulders like an 80s catalog model. Jeans are acceptable as long as they are accompanied by either a Ralf Lauren Polo shirt or a long-sleeved shirt without a tie. Ladies, long coats in autumnal colours are more than acceptable over either a jersey dress or jeans and a shirt that coordinates with your partner...  No matter what the age of your small human their outfit must cost between £50 and £500, no exceptions. If your little human is not appropriately clothed then your family will be marched up to the tube station and sent to Edgware. (Via Facebook, paraphrase. Is this person really talking about Hampstead? Ralf Lauren? Catalog?)  

According to Drusilla Beyfus, in Lady Behave, 1956, when entertaining the Queen to lunch, women must wear white gloves. There was a complicated etiquette of when you took the gloves OFF (to eat finger food) and put them back ON... The Queen carried on wearing white gloves, probably because she had to shake a lot of hands. So that’s what she kept in her handbag – a spare pair!

I bought a cheap two-piece suit from the high street, hoping to make a good impression. Ten minutes before we sat down [for the client meeting, my boss] pulled me to the side, wanting to know if I could find anything more ‘relaxed’ for next time: 'the suit is a bit… pompous,' he added. So, at the next meeting, I took his advice. I showed up in the same jumper and chinos I wore clubbing the previous Saturday in the West End. But I felt shabby. 'I look underdressed,' I recall telling him, as the client strolled out in his immaculate navy jacket. And yet that was the point. As a representative of the advertising agency, I was told we couldn't be seen as old-fashioned. (Spectator)

Likewise, a woman worried that her clothes and hair didn’t “read as professional” on a Zoom call.

Her white blouse, fastened at the throat with a brooch depicting a couple of tennis rackets, was sprinkled with various bits of cheap jewellery which her means had permitted her recently to acquire. Under the rackets, a wish-bone, a turquoise horseshoe, and a bedizened safety-pin were followed by a pendant proclaiming that her Christian name began with a P. Westward, a watch hung. To the north east, a silver insect, with amethyst wings, would have been solitary but for a “Chaste design, set with fine quality pearls, at £1 10s.” A yard or two of chain encircling her neck became a loop line on a true-lover’s knot of red enamel before its terminus in a bunch of charms at her waist. (The Position of Peggy Harper by Leonard Merrick, set circa 1900. Like Jacky in Howards End, Peggy is not a lady. But Jacky is always good-humoured, and would never go back on a pal.)

I've told the tale of me wondering why it was that I could go to an exhibition dressed in jeans and no one would look at me, then go in a suit and everyone will talk to you. Then I got to be on a stand and had 20 people around wanting info and I just went straight to the guy in the suit. I've since seen this in academia where the secretary would tell everyone what to do because she dressed smarter than everyone else. And that's when I started to dress smarter as it sets expectations in people. (Matthew Jones)

Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides wrote about a crop-haired girl student who wears self-crafted grey felt clothes and calls herself "Moss". Everybody knows that when she graduates she will grow her hair, put on a blouse and skirt and get an ordinary job, and change her name back to "Susan". 

When we met, my girlfriend was finishing up grad school and dressed a little young for our age—clashing or mismatched colours, old and tattered clothing ... just not what a lot of other people our age are wearing... She’s pretty eco-conscious and doesn’t believe in throwing things away... clothing that’s faded and dirty is still a part of her daily wardrobe. (Dear Prudie. Note how students are expected to morph from Bohemian to preppy to office wear. I’m guessing the Bohemian look is just as much a uniform – when you’re 19.)

For some reason that I’ve never fully fathomed, parents in those days always tried to prevent their children wearing grown-up clothes as long as possible. In every family there was a stand-up fight before a boy had his first tall collars or a girl put her hair up. (George Orwell's Coming Up for Air, talking about the years before WWI. Teenage girls wore mid-calf skirts until they were 17 or 18, even though they might be working from the age of 14.)

"She's cleverer than she looks." I've had two exec producers say this about me. Assume it's because I wear makeup and dye my hair. I really hate the pressure to look 'bookish' if you want to be taken seriously. Each to their own, but wearing make-up and nice clothes, and dyeing your hair do not mean you're thick. (@RebeccaRideal )

You know what they tell you – appearance doesn't matter. They lie. You knew that.

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 11

WHAT NOT TO WEAR OVER 40
Don’t wear very small hats. (The Well-Dressed Woman’s Do’s and Don’ts, Elise Vallee, 1926)

Cardigans with mismatched “whacky” buttons.
Anything turquoise, unless it’s jewellery.
Anything machine-knitted.
Too many rings, khaki or blue nails.
Short dress, bare legs.
Floral fabric, lace and sequins.
Bracelet-sleeved jacket over a long-sleeved shirt.
High round neck.
Long hair.
Per the broadsheets: No all-beige outfits, no elasticated jeans, no wallet that closes with velcro.


WHAT TO WEAR
V-necks or an open shirt/jacket over a camisole.
Hats and fascinators need short hair or an updo.
Buy new bras every few months and shorten the straps.


I recently read a thread about young women in academia and what they should wear to be professional. Why, oh why, were the proposed solutions:
Don't wear colorful clothing.
Don't wear "too much" makeup.
Don't wear "flashy" jewelry. (@CallMeRichier)


Anna Murphy in the Times says the following rules should never be broken:
No navy and black together.
Don’t mix silver and gold jewellery.
No trainers with a tailored jacket.
Sleek clothes call for sleek hair.
Don’t mix the seasons “no chunky knit with summery silk skirt”.
No socks and heels.

An older woman always looks good when groomed, and wearing good quality clothing that is stylish, simple and well tailored. A well-cut blazer-style jacket, with slacks or skirt, can then be made modern and younger with T shirts, blouses and ONE new fashion item. This may be a belt in a bright colour or modern-style shoes and bag. Or team the blazer with a good pair of jeans. This will stop you from looking “like a Nana”, and be comfortable at the same time. Also, tone down your makeup if you have always worn it, or start wearing a little if you haven’t – you will need subtle colouring to stop you looking washed out and pale. (Top Tips for Girls)

She had about nine bracelets and bangles, consisting of chains and padlocks, the Major's miniature, and a variety of brass serpents with fiery ruby or tender turquoise eyes, writhing up to her elbow almost, in the most profuse contortions. (W.M. Thackeray, Snobs)


In my first few weeks at the convent, aged 10, we were supposed to follow the hunt, which “met” at the school. A notice went up telling us what to wear: “Jeans, not slacks, may be worn.” I remember thinking at the time that the nuns had got it the wrong way round – surely they wanted us to wear old-fashioned “slacks” – tapered, terylene and uncool – rather than working-class jeans? 

In the 50s we were dressed rather plainly, with an avoidance of overt femininity. Mum sneered at mothers who dressed their children in party dresses for every day – particularly very short black velvet with lace collars. Frilly white lace knickers probably went with these. And she would never get me an organza party dress like my friends had, with several layers in the skirt. Instead she made me a dress out of pale blue velvet, with a net overskirt. It was lovely, and a white rabbit cape went with it, but it wasn’t the real thing.

Stow Crats and Upper-Upwards were still changing for dinner in the 70s – men in DJs, women in a long tweed skirt (what Jilly Cooper called “horse-blanket skirts”), and either a white silk blouse or a cashmere jumper. This outfit was a long way from the evening dress that used to be de rigueur, but Upper-Upward houses were still freezing. When Agatha Christie first got married, everyone changed for dinner, but, she explains, you made one dress do for about five years.

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 10

The ladies are lunching in John Lewis again: Caro Stow Crat buys Rowan yarn and Samantha Upward purchases white baby wool – she’s going to dye it with natural substances like blackberries and beetroot. Eileen Weybridge and Jen Teale have acquired a jade two-piece and a pair of robust jeans on the womenswear floor – Eileen's off sailing again.

"Lovely!" shudders Sam, and boasts that she buys all her clothes in charity shops.

“I’m sure more people would, if the shops would only wash the clothes first,” says Eileen.

“It seems so obvious,” says Jen.

“I must admit I don’t appreciate odeur de charité!” says Caro, looking round her at the crowds. "Why is everybody wearing plimsolls? And how do they keep them so white?"

"They're trainers!" says Jen.

"Nothing but trainers on sale – even in Clarks!" bemoans Eileen.

"You spray them with Gleem-o-Brite!" says Jen.

"Oh for the days of Meltonian shoe cream!" sighs Caro. "Those happy evenings at boarding school whitening one's tennis shoes."

She is still wearing the Stow Crat hairstyle: blonde, layered, off the forehead, off the collar, and brushed behind the ears. Earrings and a silk scarf in the neck of her cashmere jersey go with it. When skin-tight jeans are in, her grand-daughters wear a more relaxed version, and Caro's heels are always slightly lower than the fashion. Thalia Upward wears the sexy/unsexy look, featuring bare legs and black ankle boots.

A Sloane in Cirencester? Short tweed skirt and riding boots if young, longer tweed suit if not, or jodhpurs, or good jeans. Expensive yoga wear if she's more on the New Age side. You see plenty of quilted gilets at the track, usually with that sort of heather-coloured hat that suggests someone has sat on it. (LW)

To lead her Qi Gong class, Arkana sports a blue and hot-pink block-coloured shirt, pink patterned leggings, and orange rubber shoes – with lifelike toes. Her hair is the same shade of orange, which makes her look somewhat haggard, but Sam finds the whole ensemble soothing to rest her eyes on as Arkana takes the class through a gruelling session.

She showed up in total nerdcore clothing, head to toe: bow tie, thick-rimmed specs, sweater vest, plaid buttondown... (via Twitter)

This month’s collection references the interiors of Charleston, the country home of Vanessa Bell, and also the wild gardens of her childhood home in St Ives. (Seasalt Cornwall. The clothes are slightly influenced by the colour palette, no Charleston designs are copied, anyone can have a wild garden – but the magic words “Vanessa Bell” may get middle-class buyers to bite. See also the Past Times catalogue and “inspired by”. Cardigans printed with a pattern a long way after a medieval manuscript are the height of frump, the depth of chic.)

It’s all in the detail! says the Damart catalogue. Oh dear, it’s the details – the embroidery, the applique’d flowers, the top stitching, the asymmetrical hems – that make the clothes frumpy. We want completely plain clothes, a bit like a school uniform, made of good materials, that fit. Thanks.

Update: In 2022, paper catalogues have all but disappeared, so there's no way of getting a feel for this season's look.


More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 9

"Sumptuary" laws forbade the wrong kind of people to wear sable or ermine, like the aristocracy. Elizabeth I proclaimed: None shall wear in his apparel: Any silk of the color of purple, cloth of gold tissued, nor fur of sables, but only the King, Queen, King's mother, children, brethren, and sisters, uncles and aunts; and except dukes, marquises, and earls, who may wear the same in doublets, jerkins, linings of cloaks, gowns, and hose; and those of the Garter, purple in mantles only. (And you couldn't wear pantofles of velvet unless you were the son and heir apparent of a Knight.)

In the medieval period,  “luxuria” – the temptation of fine clothes – was a sin. Don’t blame everything on the Puritans. Disdain of the wrong people buying too many luxury goods (materialism, consumerism, media-fuelled shopping frenzy) continues.

A lot of School of Oriental and African Studies students dress like they’re off on an episode of Time Team, fresh from private school. (Via FB)

Coco Chanel... proposed that her wealthy clients dress among other things like fishermen (in Breton tops), like male horse riders (in, shock, trousers), and like their maids (in, double shock, black dresses). Times Nov 2018 (See also espadrilles borrowed from sailors in the South of France, sailor trousers, gaucho hats, baseball caps, military caps, Basque berets, ballet skirts and ballet shoes.)

“This season’s tailoring” is always “softer”.

Judging by the Toast catalogue and others, a youngish Upward woman wears a baggy dress with a full skirt to below the knee, no tights or socks, and flat lace-up canvas shoes, probably in dark green. With it she wears no makeup, no smile, and her hair in a messy updo. If it’s cold, she puts on a droopy cardigan. The clothes are made of “good” materials like cotton, and cost rather a lot. She is trying so hard not to look as if she is trying to look sexy that she looks sexy, or that is the idea.

No Upward could wear sling-back shoes in the 60s – they were too sexy in a sluttish kind of way.

Hippy style in the 60s included necklaces made of dried melon and pumpkin seeds. You washed them in a colander, dried them in the oven and dyed them with food dye, before stringing them with a needle and thread. When times were hard, you could eat the necklace. It was a tremendous amount of work, and few people did it. The fashion came just before the full-blown hippy era – as teenagers we were desperate for finery, and our Upward parents looked down on children wearing jewellery. Fake pearls from Woolworths were beyond the pale. We learned how to make the seed necklaces from girls’ comics. It took up so much time, and you’d be doing something. And once hippy fashion got going, necklaces of dyed exotic seeds from stalls in Oxford Street were affordable, if not edible.

Blue collar, white collar – a working man couldn’t afford to wear a clean white shirt every day. Dark colours didn’t show the dirt.

Formal wear for women is physically restrictive. Wearing a skirt used to involve a tight girdle and stockings, and a tailored jacket in which you couldn't raise your arms or slump. Tailored jackets and blouses are still like this.

Samantha Upward might wear a tunic over jeans, especially if it’s flowery and from a wacky, bohemian Swedish designer. With it she wears boots over-decorated with tooling, flowers or coloured leather rosettes, that describe themselves as “vintage”. The ensemble makes her look like an elf. Mrs Definitely wears a tunic over leggings – it hides everything – but she’d look better dressed as an 1900s flower-seller in a blouse, skirt and hat.

Caro Stow-Crat only wears clothes that are recognisable garments with a long history: blouse, shirt, skirt, trousers, cardigan, jacket, jumper, coat. They may have changed their shape several times over the past century or so, but they have endured. She avoids the “detailing” that manufacturers love to add to clothes for the older lady. And she never wears a tunic.

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 8

Caro Stow-Crat says: “Please, no fancy dress after 40. Though Harry did once go to a fancy dress ball as a bishop...”

A welcome erosion of class structures has seen top hats relegated first to the top shelves of cupboards and wardrobes, and then donated to become a staple of Amateur Dramatic Club costume collections. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time) Thomas the Tank Engine’s Fat Controller (Sir Topham Hatt) was originally the “Fat Director” – a 20s caricature capitalist in a morning coat and top hat, grown fat on the profits of a private railway company. When the railways were reprivatised, why didn’t he revert to being a director? He's still an outdated stereotype.

Caro wonders when a bowtie became a “dicky bow”? A dicky is a fake blouse consisting of a Mao collar and enough material to show under a V-necked jumper. It's a useful way of using up remnants, and will delude your friends that you own more blouses than you actually do. A “dicky bird” is what vulgar people call a bird.

Samantha says “I refuse to buy my grandchildren clothes covered in writing and logos”. She buys them clothes at Muji and Uniqlo. Sharon Definitely buys her daughter (Madison) pink T shirts that read “Little Lady” but also “Girls Can Do Anything”. Her son Jayden dresses in scaled-down army uniform.

Lower middle-class Jen Teale uses shoe deodorisers, Caro chucks smelly trainers, but Samantha insists on wearing them out. She may Google for an old-fashioned (cheap) home remedy (baking soda) that doesn’t work. 

“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” This advice made sense in the days (80s and earlier) when a secretary wore a blouse and skirt, while the lady boss wore a suit.

I’m old enough to remember when we called face veils “yashmaks” and made jokes about them. Perhaps those old white men who moan about “political correctness” could cast their minds back. Nobody forced us to stop joking about yashmaks, we just stopped. We don’t give small children replica guns any more, either. Or sweet cigarettes.

Young people holiday in the far East and come back with batik sarongs. (In my day they went to India and came back with kurtas and kaftans – but not saris.) But no Upward goes to Whitechapel or Ridley Road market to buy a long flowery dress as worn by Muslim ladies, or a glittery shalwar kameez – or even a cotton shalwar kameez. They’re very cool in hot weather and are perfect for the office. Likewise, Boris is appalled by niqabs but not by a Carmelite nun’s outfit. The Times (August 2018) shows “manxi” dresses that are very like a Muslim woman’s dress, but no connection is made. Is this crossover? Cultural appropriation? Caro wears a genuine pashmina to the opera, over an oxblood taffeta evening dress with a wide skirt. Her great-grandmother wore a genuine Indian paisley shawl.

When I arrived at university in the 70s my sunglasses with pale pink frames puzzled other students. I seemed to be middle class – didn’t I know that the colour pink was common? And pink plastic! I also wore a pink mohair jumper – I was going through a 50s phase. I was ahead of the trend – lurid mohair jumpers were a punk fashion in the later 70s. And this was in a decade when we were supposed to be breaking down barriers of all kinds and creating an egalitarian society, free of all prejudice. They dressed entirely in blue denim or brown corduroy. (Can you still get brown denim? They never seemed to grasp what “prejudice” meant, either.)

In 2018 Teales wear 7/8 jeans, white T shirts and cardigans or jackets in a subdued, plain colour. Usually blue, navy, and grey. They look almost Boden. They achieve this look by buying cheap clothes and discarding them as soon as the material goes sad and shabby. They ruthlessly “edit” their wardrobes, and wash everything after one wearing. They iron their T shirts. Upwards, on the other hand, have “favourite” pieces they are sentimentally attached to and persist in wearing them however grey, bobbly and sagging. They fail to notice that modern fabrics don’t last like the old-fashioned kind. Teale clothes, being featureless, have no associations and are just replaced by more of the same.

More here, and links to the rest.

Canny Upwards in the 70s used Catherine Milinaire's Cheap Chic as a style bible.

What to Wear 7

The Daily Mail has some style rules for women at work, 2016:

Replace your droopy cardigan with a tailored jacket.
Update your scuffed handbag. They recommend something “structured” with panels of patent leather.
No scuffed shoes, trainers or flip-flops.
Avoid flashy, clanking jewellery, but don’t replace it with tiny, timid, conventional pendants and earrings.
Avoid too much animal print.
Keep updating your image, and get your teeth done.
Shoes and bags – invest in quality.
Don’t wear anything too tight (skinny jeans, or a pencil skirt that ends up as a concertina of wrinkles).
No ripped jeans.
Dark denim is classier than bleached.

Caroline Stow-Crat comments: "My 'scuffed' handbag was handmade for my grandmother and is still going strong, thank you very much. And I would ban animal print in offices – or anywhere! How about a nice velvet blazer with an antique brooch on the lapel?" 

In the US, people look down on jeans with rhinestones, writing or flowers on the back pockets – or without back pockets.

Two-buttoned sports jackets were naff, and “never brown in town”. (JP)

A lady would not go to a wedding in her riding clothes, and she would not go shopping in a ball gown. At a basic level, she shows her taste and decorum by dressing quietly. She does not seek to draw attention to herself through her dress. Elegance is found in understatement. A lady’s apparel should be neat and tidy. (Victorian etiquette manual)

In September 2017, John Lewis removed “boys” and “girls” labels from its children’s clothes. In response, a Catholic priest vowed never to visit the department store again, with or without a cassock. Caro wonders why small children are all dressed in pyjamas these days.

The piece of Burma jewellery worn glitteringly over one breast instead of in the centre where any sensible woman would have worn it. Or the shoes cut away so that the big toe was open to the weather. Or the clip-on ear-rings. (A character from London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins worries about his daughter’s choice of friend. The Burma company made Art Deco rhinestone brooches.)

"My dear! and got up regardless... one of those little hats with an eye-veil... three-inch diamanté heels... such bad taste with a semi-toilette... fish-net stockings and all...’ (In Murder Must Advertise, by Dorothy L. Sayers, two typists speculate about an unexpected visitor to the office. Another Sayers character, Miss Murchison, wears skirts that are “the regulation four inches below the knee” – in the 20s - and “not too much face powder”.)

"You won't mind Robert not wearing evening dress," she said. "He never will if he can help it. I shall just slip on a semi-toilette myself." (All Roads Lead to Calvary, Jerome K Jerome But what was it? A more restrained kind of evening dress?)

In the 1950s and 60s, there was a type of older lady who wore hot pink lipstick, a fur coat, magnificent faux jewellery, a Chanel-style suit over a corselette, long lacquered nails and lots of rings. She walked about in a cloud of expensive perfume. She had been elegant all her life. She pretended she’d heard what you’d said, and understood what you were talking about, and laughed rather desperately. She may have thought it common to keep saying “What did you say?”, associating deafness with lower-class ailments like adenoids. EM Forster in Howard’s End calls it “degraded deafness”. Poor Jacky is always saying “What?”, but she is “not respectable”.

The Times had a field day when Pippa Middleton married a hedge fund manager. Apparently HFMs are VERY rich. But the couple are new, not old Chelsea: “Pippa is a nouveau-Chelsea girl.” 

“To us Notting Hill dwellers, these ladies seem to live in a fashion time warp. ‘Frankly, Pippa often looks like she’s going to work in an office as a secretary,’ says a neighbour. ‘You have to understand that fundamentally Pippa and Kate’s style is English suburban,’ says a society friend. ‘They’re very plain and safe in their choices.’”

An interior designer speculates about the couple's new home: “There will be white sofas with pink and turquoise touches. Not too modern... Perhaps a Perspex table with some colour... There will be a Plain English kitchen and lots of Farrow & Ball."

The Times adds that “having been raised in a middle-class household”, Pippa probably won’t employ many staff, but for big dinners she may hire a sought-after Italian butler. Basically, concludes the Times, “She is a Home Counties girl at heart”. And what could be more damning?

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 6

Airport chic

Class is dead, long live class.

The Times (March 16 2017) says that being thrown off a plane for wearing leggings all depends on the class of the wearer. The piece unveils a world of brand names, over-priced athleisure and being “upgraded to business class”. “We dressed for the seats we wanted – smart, unfaded jeans, with a plain but reasonably expensive T shirt, blazer and pair of Gucci loafers. I was convinced the loafers would swing it.”
It’s clear that "cattle class" exists to make business class seem more desirable. “Airport chic – there is no dress code less clear... Context is everything – and that context is usually the class of the person wearing the clothes.”

Apparently Claridges forbids ripped jeans in its restaurant – unless you’re a fashion editor. And you can dress like an Essex boy on a flight as long as you’re a “millionaire model”. WAGs and models wear athleisure to travel but every item is a brand and their yoga pants cost £300. They are “all too easily confused with the underclass” but thanks to their height and slimness “this rarely happens”.
Those who normally fly business class for work wear “skinny jeans, blazer or leather jacket and big scarf”. Who knew travel was so complicated and exhausting?

Of course hipster fashion is “American blue-collar chic”, in the same way that hippies dressed up as pioneers and Native Americans. (American blue-collar chic really is chic, though, in that US “if it ain’t broke” way.) My smart designer denim jeans are based on the work clothes of an American miner in the Gold Rush, and are worn with a striped T shirt that references sailors’ garb of the same period. My woollen “cardigan jacket” was designed for sporty lady golfers of the 1900s. A very expensive dress in fake patchwork is even more decadent.

In the 70s, lower middle-class Teales did not wear pink, they wore brown and blue. They were very shocked when I turned up at university with short black punk hair, and pink-framed sunglasses.

It was quite a milestone when people of my generation started wearing suits. But it seemed like selling out. We thought we’d be wearing purple velvet loons for ever.

Posh Caro and Samantha are secretly rather pleased that the UKIP spokeswoman is wearing a purple acetate blouse. It just shows, doesn’t it?

The conservative clothes of those papist families who seem to conflate Catholicism with corduroy trousers. (Catherine Nixey, Times Feb 2017)

Most parents had to make do with generic kids clothing from the high street until... (The Times being staggeringly snobbish in July 2016.)

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear 5

A woman flaneuse in Paris in the 50s is wearing an authentic orange Mexican “rebozo” as a scarf. Her handbag is a horse’s feed bag. Is she “playing with codes” (Radio 4)? This is a certain kind of one-upmanship, also an “ain’t broke don’t fix it” attitude. According to Cheap Chic, you wear the actual prep school boy’s grey jersey from the school catalogue, not a copy. You carry a Woolworth’s satchel. You go to Mexico to get the scarf. It may cost a few pesos, but it also costs the price of the trip. It has to be a real horse's feed bag and you have to have the secret knowledge of where to get one. Asking the person with the bag where she got it like it would be lame, and she wouldn’t tell you. (I once admired a friend's scarf: she’d got it in Guatemala. So I went to South America to get one like it. Almost.)

In the 70s and 80s it was also a case of grab the generic thing that preserves a 70-year-old design before they stop making it or disastrously update it (Anello and Davide tap shoes). Black patent Mary Janes with a white or cream trim were popular with Teales in the 70s. Mrs Definitely had a wardrobe of plastic shoes (orange square toes with buckles were her favourites).

Upwards were too snobbish to be glamorous. We worked at entry-level media jobs and could only afford home-made and charity shop. And besides, fashion was a capitalist plot, high heels were patriarchal de da de da. We wore grandad vests from army surplus shops as jerseys.

The Teale version of “looks don’t matter” is “don’t pass personal remarks” (old-fashioned), or “don’t be uncharitable”. The Weybridge version is “avoid making comments”. Hippy Upwards would draw in their chins and stare unblinkingly if you commented amusingly on anyone’s clothes, hairstyle or behaviour, especially if you seemed to be “putting them in a box”, or implying that humans could be typed at all (because we’re all utterly original individuals, you see). Nobody could be as conformist or judgemental as a hippy, but it was always about falling short of the ideal in some way – like eating tinned tuna because it’s a) polluted with mercury and b) cruel to dolphins.

30s fashion crimesIn Georgette Heyer's Envious Casca, 1938, Mrs Dean is the vulgar mother of the common Valerie. She appears wearing “a Persian lamb coat and skittish hat, perched over elaborately curled golden hair”. She holds out a “tightly gloved hand” with an “arch smile”. Under her coat she is wearing “a tightly fitting lace blouse” and a “large paste brooch”. Her skirt is too short and tight. She smoothes out her gloves after taking them off. She has an enamelled cigarette case and smokes “fat” gold-tipped Egyptian cigarettes.

40s and 50s fashion crimes
In the late 40s and early 50s, teenage girls were dressed like bigger children, with little sailor hats on the back of the head, short hair, a jersey and skirt. In the late 50s and early 60s, girls dressed like their mothers, with tailored suits, hats and gloves.

In children’s books, the middle-class teenaged characters have nothing much to wear but school uniform or sports gear. Boys have a jacket, trousers and a few jerseys and shirts; girls a few skirts, shirts and jerseys. They mix and match these dull, drab clothes. (The girls have one party dress, the boys one best suit. The girls have one or two brooches they pin onto their tweed jackets.) Only working class teenagers wear red pedal-pusher jeans, ponytails, makeup and stripy T shirts.

60s fashion crimesNylon knickers were naff, and we just didn't see those nylon negligée sets (nightie and negligee, both with two layers and frills, in ice blue or peach).

Jo Grant in Dr Who (70s) is dressed as a Top Shop hippy. Homemade chokers and leather waistcoats quickly became assembly-line versions of themselves. Purple and brown, originally signifying magic and the earth, were just this season’s colours. How annoyed the hippies must have been.

80s fashion crimesGreen furry monster slippers.
Mullet haircuts.
Ties with piano keyboards running down them.
Stonewashed denim.
Giant headphones with a union jack design.
The sort of thing that’s been uncool and untrendy and slightly embarrassing for 30 years. (Victoria Coren Mitchell)

Fashion crimes
high-street jewellery (cheap, ugly, badly made, jumping on latest trend, e.g. big necklace of flat wooden rings)
filigree jewellery (not seen since about 1965)
glitter ball beads in different colours
It is not done to wear rings on the first and second fingers.
bottomless glasses (common in 50s, 60s and 70s, they made wearers look like librarians) They’re back 2014.

Winter, 2016 The current uniform is a padded jacket with a fur-trimmed hood or collar; navy, khaki, black, grey; skinny jeans and boots; plaid scarf. Sharon D wears her jacket fitted, and it stops at the waist. She wears knee-high black boots and walks with a wiggle. Thalia Upward wears a baggy jacket to the knee, and ankle boots. Christine Teale wears olive suede ankle boots with long fringes.

Scraped-back hair and a very tiny pompadour secured with hair grips is very Definitely, especially when the hair is dyed black or dark brown. Eternal hipster Rowena has adopted a look from early 70s knitting patterns, and is even dyeing her hair grey. But whatever the trend, female Stow-Crats are inclined to wear flowery fabric and quilting, sometimes combined.

I spotted some young European dudes in Hackney wearing correct and very stylish hipster gear – but it was all expensive, good quality, clean, and quite new. Designer work clothes. Accessorised with very expensive, unmarked, new leather mini-rucksacks. No beards, but model looks.

Jilly Cooper described Mrs Thatcher as looking “trim”, and unable to achieve Shirley Williams’ bag lady look that identified her to some as an upper-middle-class intellectual. But when you reach a certain age, you need to look “trim”, and also your clothes need to look “good”, ie expensive, or people will think you really are a homeless person. They also call you dear and assume you are losing your marbles. You can’t carry off the vintage shabby chic look any more. I plan to wear a lot of jewellery, a fur hat, dark glasses, and lipstick at all times. Scent probably helps. And a knock-off designer bag.

You know as well as I do that spike heels are out as far as daytime dress is concerned. The look should be casual. No one goes in for heavy make-up or exaggerated hair styles... It is most easily explained as the absence of bad taste, the elimination of the tawdry, the tinselly, the tacky.... When skirts are short, her knees freeze in the breeze. (Betty Cornell Teen-Age Popularity Guide, Betty Cornell)

The unchanging sub-Sloane look that satisfied Nice Girls for about five decades faded away in the Nineties... (Middle Class Handbook)

The upper and middle classes, who had previously despised the ‘servile’ costume [the kilt], now picked up with enthusiasm the garb which its traditional wearers had finally discarded. (The Invention of Tradition)

Her flowing dress and shawl combined with a tangle of hanging beads to make her look like a bentwood hat stand. (Star Trap, Simon Brett)

The knee-high boot was a hot look until two or three years ago, when it fell out of fashion favour because the norms got hold of it. They wore it with skinny jeans, which was OK, but then they added fluffy gilets and – heaven help us – waterfall cardigans. The high-heeled knee boot went from Carine Roitfeld to Carole Middleton. (Jess Cartner-Morley in the Times Oct 2014-10-11)

All my life I’ve wanted to wear fishnet stockings and hang around dog-tracks eating peppermint creams and using frightful language. (West End People, Peter Wildeblood)

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear, Part 4

Working class young people will always create an over-the-top fashion, or version of the current fashion, and often look fabulous. (Which is why “advice to young people” always tells you to “avoid extremes”.)

Danielle Sheridan in the Times, 2 August, writes about tattoos almost entirely in terms of class:
"Tattoos were once the preserve of sailors, prostitutes and criminals: a warning as much as a decoration. Now they are most likely to be found daubed on to the skin of Britain’s middle class.
Over a quarter of the section of society once known for its love of pampas grass and teasmaids now sports some ink..." Tattoo parlours are now "stylish" rather than "dark and scary". Tattooist Mr Coppoletta says: "Coming through the door now is mainly professionals, aged between late 20s and 40s. They have careers."

Women’s magazines used to warn against baggy, grey, torn underwear. Were Upwards so poor that they couldn't afford new pants – or too miserly? Trouble was, sexy underwear in the 50s and early 60s was all made out of nylon (in red, trimmed with black lace), which the middle classes couldn't wear. And then Janet Reger happened (silk French knickers), and manmade fibres became more like silk. But in the 80s Upward women agonised over looking sexy – surely it was common?

Stow Crats say: "No rings during the day apart from wedding and engagement rings that you never take off." Presumably you can wear a “cocktail” ring at the cocktail hour – a large stone that can be either genuine and priceless or outrageously faux. In the 50s and 60s huge arty pottery rings were acceptable. (Presumably the women who wear all their valuable rings – engagement rings and eternity rings from several marriages – have nowhere safe to keep them.)

Hippies wore bells round their neck in 1967, sometimes attached to a string of beads. Indian traders immediately bought up all the budgie bells they could find (or are they temple bells?), attached them to beads, shipped them West and sold them to young people at a huge markup. They had been a spiritual aid. They became instant fashion and were sold off stalls in Oxford Street. They were bought by Teales in Pinner who wore them at a festival one weekend and then threw them away. They saturated the straight world almost immediately. And then you couldn’t giv’em awye.

From clogs to clogs... Shops like Fat Face take an ordinary jacket shape but make it in loose woven, unevenly dyed fabric and give it shell buttons. But then some cruisewear label does a knockoff with more polyester and fake coconut-shell buttons. And the topstitching creeps back.

Samantha Upward is amazed that Americans are still wearing plaid Bermuda shorts. (Americans have an admirable "if it ain't broke" attitude to clothes, and left their stylish 40s uniforms as they were while we Brits were creating frumpy 60s versions which then became fossilised.)

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear III

A fur coat - with a swimsuit?

Posh Caro Stow Crat always dresses appropriately – she would never wear a fur coat in Florida, or over a swimsuit, or appear on breakfast television in a gold lamé dress, like JK Rowling. Here’s her guide to necklaces (also not to be worn with a swimsuit):

An evening necklace is loosely round your neck (double or triple strand).
Matinee length reaches the first couple of ribs below the collar bone.
Opera length reaches your bust.
A riviere is more fancy, with dangly bits.
Rope length is longer than opera.

“Dangly earrings should never be longer than your hair; only wear hoops in the summer, and enormous hoops are vulgar at any time. furthermore, we are all too good to wear fake diamond studs: either we get the real thing, or we choose another, cheaper option.” Hilary Rose, Times June 2014

In the 60s and 70s, only lower-middle-class Teale men wore practical items of dress like plastic pocket protectors, sleeve restraints (elasticated armbands) and tie clips (in stainless steel and fake abalone). Upwards were supposed to wear gold and jewelled tie pins left over from the Edwardian age, but these too have disappeared.

In the 50s, ballet shoes were black, never pink or bronze. Plimsolls were white, never black. And middle-class Upwards never wore bronze party shoes. (Party shoes were white, black - but never patent leather - or coloured to match your outfit.) Those who let their daughters wear bronze party shoes would have shuddered with horror at silver or gold party shoes.

Virginia Woolf notes in her diary that Lady Abingdon described Princess Mary “dressed like the upper housemaid in peacock blue”. Vivid blue and green were common. If Woolf and her set wanted to put somebody down, they said they had “the mind of a housemaid”. (Mrs Woolf and the Servants, Alison Light)

There was a recent flap about a clothing trend called “normcore”: young people wearing generic downmarket clothing. Of course it’s shocking to Americans, because they are used to being able to tell who has “class”, ie money, and who hasn’t. They wear very conservative clothes, but of the right (expensive) brand. If middle class kids start dressing like common baseball fans, what are they to do? (In the 60s, people used to say “You can’t tell what class anyone is any more, because the young all wear jeans.”) The real snobbery of normcore is to source the perfect generic plain grey jersey from the hard-to-find, word-of-mouth, well-kept-secret prep school clothing catalogue (as we used to do in the 70s).

More here, and links to the rest.

What to Wear II

Clothes for a girl in a government job

At the time there was, in fact, a perfectly acceptable bourgeois female trouser in circulation – only none of us possessed a pair, of course. This was the knitted nylon taper trouser with a strap beneath the foot to keep the hem from rolling up. This garment, originally some form of skiing apparel, combined with a chunky Italian sweater and beehive hairdo, was standard lower-middle lounge bar gear. (Angela Carter, on the earnest discussions people used to have about what women should wear for sit-ins – protests where they might be carried off by the police and reveal their knickers, suspenders and stocking-tops).

She said it was common to wear silk stockings in the country. (Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, set in the 30s)

I would rather not wear all of these rings at once for fear that I may be inclined to start calling people “daahhling” and ordering them about. ( Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour)

And she much prefers wearing rings to gloves. Maybe she thinks they do not go together? (Etiquette guru Emily Post on the vulgar woman with an elaborate hat and fur coat who is always to be seen eating in restaurants.)

“From a long way away – a long way – she might have looked 30. Close at hand the result of make-up artlessly applied made her seem rather older than 50, but on the whole he put it at 50. Dark hair heavily hanging. No hat... a dark coat and skirt and a white blouse. Carrying a large tartan bag. A jingly bracelet or two, several rings…” (Agatha Christie, The Clocks This is a character who calls herself "Merlina Rival".)

What has become of the woman who had a small dog, a charm bracelet, pin heels and a fur coat? Plus hot pink lipstick that stained cigarette ends and teacups, and a cloud of choking perfume. She either wore a brocade dress over an obvious corselette, or a frilly white blouse and a very tight black pencil skirt. In early decades her high-heeled shoes had ankle straps. She shakes hands with her tight, coloured suede glove on, possibly saying “Excuse my glove!”, as it would take too long for her to peel the glove off. As well as the lipstick (that went over her lipline in a cupid’s bow and “bled” into the fine lines round her mouth), she wore thick, pale, chalky powder that smelled of Edinburgh Rock. (She’s the one who says “tata” for goodbye, or "Well, I must love you and leave you!" or "Be good!".)

In the 50s women were admonished not to wear “clanking” charm bracelets (a polite way of saying they were common). Sealskin jackets, frilly blouses and ankle-strap shoes were also nonos. A schoolfriend was forbidden by the headmistress to take a tartan bag on a day out. (The same nun forbade clip-on pearl earrings – which we had all got free by collecting special crisp packets.)

Upwards never wear 15-denier tights – they’re too sexy. They’re very puritanical about turning yourself into a sex object – or at least they were round about 1975. Even drab icon Emma Thompson (she used to dress entirely in unbleached linen shrouds) has become glamorous now.

In 2012 toffs took to wearing wearing red trousers - with tweed jackets. Hipsters are also wearing very, very tight red trousers.

Stow Crats match the clothes to the occasion. Caro wouldn’t wear a sunhat on a dull day, or in a town or to the theatre. She wouldn’t wear a cocktail dress at 9am, like a weather girl. When Sharon Definitely and her children go on breakfast telly, they all wear party frocks and hair ornaments and look fabulous.

Lower-middle class Jen Teale loves pleated necklines and cutwork (a lot of work for a hideous result). Bryan Teale hangs his jackets or spare shirt on a hanger in the car.

What do you do when it rains? Howard Weybridge and Harry Stow Crat carry black rolled-up brollies in town. Harry shudders discreetly when Howard turns up in an anorak over a city suit. In a sudden shower, Christine Teale buys a “tote” from a stall which breaks before she gets home. (A “tote” is a telescopic umbrella that comes in a little “pochette”.) Jen buys a clear plastic dome-shaped umbrella from a souvenir shop – well, the Queen's got one, though hers isn't printed “I heart London”. Otherwise Jen’s umbrellas are turquoise or fake tweed (but not Burberry). Caro grabs a city brolly, or maybe a huge golfing umbrella. Sharon Definitely has a brolly with cats’ ears, which she uses as a parasol.

In Jilly Cooper’s Class (written in the 70s), Jen memorably wore a plastic mac with a rainbonnet and rain boots. These days she wears a smart trench coat (she calls it a “trench”) and a hat from Accessorize. Caro is still wearing a Barbour jacket and a headscarf. Samantha Upward wears a strange assortment of garments and gets soaking wet because she can’t wear anything plastic or even rainproofed. And she's never "prepared", like a Boy Scout.

Definitelies wear sovereign rings and glitter ball beads (“berry” beads) and pavé diamond chips. The beads have moved up the classes and are now everywhere in 2013. Oddly, Teales have taken to nose studs – but very tiny diamond ones.

More here.
More jewellery here.

What to Wear

Wearing "ethnic" is sartorial code for, "I am much too serious to bother myself with fashion. I choose jewellery that looks a bit like something you'd find in an obscure gallery of the British museum to show how cultured I am. My female friends wear artisan scarves and consider themselves evolutionarily superior to women who wear diamanté." The tribal trend is an attempt by fashion designers to combat this. Good luck with that. Kate Muir ©Guardian News and Media 2010

Stow-Crats believe that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The upper classes don’t DO fashion. Harry wears his father’s indestructible tweed three-piece suits. Princess Anne’s style was fixed in the 60s, the Queen Mother’s in the 30s (those hats), and Queen Mary’s in the 1910s. Caro’s mother would get a tweed suit tailor made in a classic style so that it would last for years. One does not wear black in the country, one wears hunting clothes in camouflage colours – even one’s Wellington (rubber) boots are green. Sam used to call them “Wellingtons” but now finds herself calling them gumboots. Jen wears black “wellies”, Sam’s are flowery, and Sharon wears pink ones with a swirly pattern.

The same declension applies to trainers. Caro’s children wear white lace-up plimsolls (called after Mr. Plimsoll, who invented the Line). When Sam was a child, she wondered why she couldn’t have black plimsolls, or the elasticated ones that you didn’t have to lace up, like her friends. Eileen’s children wear “plimmies”. Jen and the Definitelies wear trainers. Jen’s are pink, blue or stone and look quite like shoes. The Definitelies’ trainers are big and have thick soles and cost a packet. Dave Definitely opens a shop selling them to collectors.

Eileen buys her clothes from Jacques Vert and thought Norma Major always looked well turned out. She and Jen purchase mother-of-the-bride outfits and occasion-wear from designers called Jesiré and Claudia Strater. (Sam thinks occasional gifts are what you give to people only sometimes. Eileen has a set of nesting occasional tables for when you have occasion to use them.)

Caroline wears a shirt with the collar turned up (in the 80s it was a piecrust). Before scarves disappeared from all heads but the Queen’s, she knotted hers on, not below, her chin. Both stratagems are designed to hide a double chin or wattles, which she doesn’t have.

Sharon Definitely’s clothes are trimmed with white fur. She wears white shoes with a white handbag (with fringes and rivets). Once the Definitelies adopted pink acryclic pseudo crochet ponchos nobody else could wear one (“Instant chav!” sighed Samantha). Definitelies dress their children as mini-adults. In the early 60s, everyday wear for little Definitely girls was a very short black velvet frock with a lace collar, accessorised by white pants, white knee socks and black patent T-bar shoes.

Jen’s clothes are always new, clean and ironed. She gives them to charity long before they’ve had a chance to get grey and bobbly. Sam wears Oxfam clothes, or a velvet jacket she’s had since university. She sticks with a hairstyle that she thinks suits her. If she lives in the country, she’s still wearing a long entrelac cardigan in muted French blue, jade and ochre.

When people wore slips, Sam would have called them “petticoats”. They’re now called “chemises”, according to the catalogues. Sam would never wear a "top" but a blouse, shirt, teeshirt or jersey. Or a shawl or stole. Eileen would wear a jersey or sweater, Jen and Mrs Definitely a top. Jen wears a “tee”, as the fashion press calls teeshirts. Sharon lives in sportswear. Sam looks down on people who don sports clothes without doing a sport, forgetting that men’s three-piece suits were based on 18th century hunting clobber.

Christine Teale saves up for a pair of expensive knee-high boots (Upwards never save up for anything, they just get a bigger overdraft). She has a smart work wardrobe, black and white if she works in the City (London’s financial district – translator’s note), and completely different weekend clothes. She wears strappy vest tops and cropped combats which make her bottom look large, but she doesn’t care, it’s just the thing for enjoying a barbecue in the back garden with friends. Her clothes become middle aged (or as she’d say, mumsy) far sooner than Thalia Upward’s. She’ll never meet Thalia in Wallis, but they might bump into each other in Gap or Next. Thalia goes to work in the same eccentric gear she wore as a student (Human Resources “have a word” with her about it).

Sam can't wear patent leather (the nuns used to say that if you wore patent leather shoes, boys could see your pants reflected in them). She can't wear faux leather either, even though she's a vegan. She is seen riding a sit-up-and-beg bike (with a basket) along the pavements of Bloomsbury, wearing a floral frock teamed with a cycling helmet.

No bare arms after 35, only pearls before dusk, says Caro’s mother. If she tells you in a marked manner “It’s snowing in Paris,” she means your petticoat is showing.

Don’t wear anything too jolly, says Mimi Spencer in The Times, 13 Nov 2010. This applies to patterned wellies, appliqué, decorative knitwear, “interesting” hosiery and witty handbags. … The same goes for slippers in the shape of cuddly toys, paisley, red and green together and over-accessorising (big earrings + big necklace).