Why are we such an unstylish bunch?

This week, the weather has been lovely. The sun has shone, the skies have been azure blue and cloudless, and the breeze has been gentle and southerly (ie warm!) in stead of the easterly or northerly blast we usually get from Siberia. It has almost been like being on holiday in the Med (but even this week it’s not quite warm enough!).

As soon as the sun shines, the British love to flash the flesh. All sorts of unsuitable clothing gets unearthed from the backs of our wardrobes where it moulders for fifty weeks of the year and we sally forth into the world wearing it no matter what it looks like. It is usually too tight, too short, and mostly too small. There is far too much mesh and lycra either for comfort or style, or if tight lycra isn’t your preferred style the tiered gypsy maxi dresses are so cavernous you could hide a small family of Bulgarians underneath them (or a large family of small Bulgarians - whichever). Mostly this clothing has been purchased in a moment of madness when we are wearing woollen stockings and a large pullover and the temperature has gone up unexpectedly by 20 degrees and we would do anything to be cooler (in the temperature sense naturally, not the sartorial one).

Why are we such an unstylish bunch? It isn’t the availability of stylish clothes, even for those on a budget. There are plenty of shops which whilst admittedly not being as cheap as Primarni, sell pretty good stuff at reasonable prices which don’t require you to take out a second mortgage to shop there. Yes, you can spend a fortune, but you don’t have to.

Perhaps it’s our desperation to be fashionable which makes us purchase these items regardless of weight or body shape just because some celebrity that is stick thin and lives on celery juice has been pictured wearing one in Hello or OK! magazine. Maybe we are just suckers for carefully targeted advertising? Or maybe we are just profligate with money? I don’t know, and I have a nasty suspicion that with me, it may be a little of each!

Each year I go shopping at about this time to refresh my summer wardrobe (I do the same in October for the winter stuff). Each year, I will have promised myself beforehand that I will have lost weight and be able to fit into at least one size smaller and have a greater choice of shops to go to (it’s amazing how many shops sell nothing over a size 16, and some a size 14, which is odd considering the average size of some of their customers!). Each year that doesn’t happen. Each year, I will promise myself that I will not purchase exclusively from Marks and Spencer but will shop until I drop and visit a range of establishments for a unique and exclusive range of outfits which will mark me out from the masses. Each year, because it’s the only place where I can guarantee to get something which fits, which covers up my ever expanding waistline and which stocks a range of colours and sizes, I end up going to Marks for the vast majority of stuff. 

Sadly, most of the UK populace seems not to give two hoots what they look like and consequently go out and buy the cheapest fashion look–a-like items they can, which is fine if, like my daughters, you are a skinny size six or size eight, but not if you are anything approaching a 14. I have seen some horrendous sights this week; girls dressed as though they were going to the beach but clearly heading for the office (if one of my staff had turned up wearing some of the outfits I have seen, I would have sent them home to get dressed), skirts which are basically wide belts, guys wearing cargo shorts so low slung they are virtually dangling from their crutch (have you ever had the urge to sneak up behind someone dressed like than and hoik their trousers up to waist level? I have!) and (usually) women wearing clothes that have been designed with someone 40 years younger and 4 dress sizes smaller in mind.

Don’t these people look in a mirror before they go out? Don’t they have any loved ones who will look at them and say “actually darling, that doesn’t look great”? Do they have any touch with reality at all? From looking at their outfits, you wouldn’t think so.

And you can’t blame the heat. You only have to go to France, Spain, Italy or even Greece to see the young women and men dress for a much hotter climate than ours with much less money but look much more stylish, and effortlessly so. To feel really inadequate, you go to Paris, where the women all look like they have just graced the front page of Vogue.

I think it must be the British desperation to catch some sun before it disappears behind a rain cloud again which makes us, quite simply, not care what we look like as long as we get a tan and the sunshine gives us much needed vitamin D. Did you know that 80% of the British population, and almost 100% of Scots, have vitamin D deficiency for nine months of the year because either they don’t get any sunshine, or when it does shine they are told to cover themselves up and protect themselves from it, in case it gives them cancer? That’s a scary statistic.

Now you will have to excuse me. The sun is shining, and I have a size 12 T-shirt I have been saving up for the last four years just waiting for such an occasion. I will need the rest of the day to squeeze into it!