Why are those bright young things walking about in dreary, uniform black trousers?
It struck me with force as I stood at a London railway station looking at the crowd on the platform opposite: the uniform. No, not the railway staff – the passengers. Practically every single person was wearing tightly-fitting black or blue casual trousers. A few men – very few, about six or seven out of a couple of hundred people, I would say – were in suits. Three or four women wore skirts. But everyone else was in the standard uniform. What has happened to us? Anyone arriving from the Britain of fifty years ago would think we had been invaded by a conquering army and forbidden from dressing attractively. Girls don’t even refer to shirts or blouses any more – everything is just a “top”. And, of course, often not very much of a top – the correct form for today is that it shouldn’t meet the trousers and there must be a bulge of flesh in between. For the seriously fashionable, the bulge should include a nasty glimpse of inadequate underwear, and of the body beneath. No, this isn’t a gri
