Penurial appropriation.
Penurial – newly formed adjective; pertaining to the state of penury.
| synonyms: | poor, as poor as a church mouse, poverty-stricken, destitute, necessitous, in penury, impecunious, impoverished, indigent, needy, in need/want, badly off, in reduced circumstances,in straitened circumstances, hard up, on one’s beam-ends, unable to make ends meet, underprivileged, penniless, without a sou, moneyless, bankrupt, bust, insolvent; |
I have written before regarding the curious desire amongst the ultra-wealthy left wing intelligentsia to dress as though the only warp or weft between them and God given nakedness was a snatched item from the Sally Army bin outside their local Tesco.
Asymmetrical hems, with an oversized pocket or a missing sleeve for the women, shapeless jackets for the men, but all in a variety of ‘dyed in the sludge of the Ganges’ muddy hues. Those faded vegetable dyed numbers that can only be bought from ‘dear little shops’ on the Amalfi coast – or perhaps Highgate High Street – for a small fortune. There were strange asymmetrical haircuts to match the asymmetrical hems that could have been fashioned by the landscape gardener, with flashes of colour that God had never intended to burden the human race with. Several of the women, as if to emphasis their emancipated credentials, had bound their feet Roman slave style.
Geldof’s tailored Levi jeans with jagged gaping holes that a hardworking plumber personally wore through on unforgiving floors before they were ‘upcycled’ to grace a multi-millionaires latest example of private funded keyhole surgery. Corbyn’s assertion that he only wore the finest 50p t-shirts from an Islington street market – ‘he buys them all the time’ – probably because he can afford to wear them once and throw them away…the ubiquitous Palestinian keffiyah, wound round swan like necks that have an expensive weekly Moroccan mud wrap ‘for re-hydration’. Camila Batmanghelidjh’s insane belief that we would swallow the tale of how her ridiculous garments were made from scraps of fabric that her devoted fans had plucked from the streets.
All sure signs that you are not looking at genuine poverty, which would be far too proud to advertise itself so, but left wing intelligentsia desperate to appropriate the visible threads of a poverty that they are further removed from than Croesus.
This morning, ‘Woolly Wraps’ were happily sending out press releases of their latest coup. It seems that that grammar school educated guardian of the poor, Jeremy Corbyn, was not studying the latest speeches from the Conservative Party Conference yesterday to see how he could best protect his momentous followers from the rigors of a Tory administration.
He was out shopping, kitting out his latest ‘Jezzabelle’ with suitable threadbare rags for a millionaires wife to appear in public in.
Sue Reed, bespoke designer to those who wish to appear impoverished, takes garments donated to Oxfam and not fit to grace the back of a refugee, cuts them up, stitches them together again and flogs them, for a not inconsiderable sum, to the sort of aristocracy that likes to buy their Barbour jackets pre-worn…
Expect Jezza to be sporting this outfit soon….
A mere £79. If you’re really on benefits, you probably can’t afford it.
Cultural appropriation is heartily frowned upon by the right-on social justice warriors; can anyone explain why impecunious appropriation is acceptable? tdf? Sean Coleman?
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 11:07 am -
Not quite sure why I’m being singled out for a response here. I am a conservative communist, and would ideally abolish the free market entirely.
- Sean Coleman
October 7, 2016 at 10:04 pm -
tdf
No, I’m not kicking off another Friday night of aggro, but what is a conservative communist? I have never heard of it. That has to be a contradiction in terms surely? Do you know of any others?
- tdf
October 8, 2016 at 6:35 am -
My first post wasn’t entirely serious. I think Anna’s reply was intended to be to my second one, the one referencing conspicious consumption.
- tdf
October 8, 2016 at 12:39 pm -
@Sean
Although, mind you….there was at least one person who was described as a ‘conservative communist’….
- tdf
- tdf
- DP
October 8, 2016 at 1:59 pm -
Dear tdf
” …and would ideally abolish the free market entirely.”
The biggest single cause of mass starvation in the known universe.
DP
- Sean Coleman
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 11:21 am -
To attempt a semi-serious response, I think Veblen’s theories on conspicious consumption may be of interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption
The modern day middle class hipster buys expensive but worn-looking jeans and so on as a means of ‘virtue signalling’. But really it’s not much different to the Ferrari driving plutocrat.
That said, not quite sure why you have it in for Corbyn. He seems to be more or less what he presents himself as. A sincere old-fashioned socialist with ideas deemed by the oligarch-owned press to be old-fashioned. But with Teresa May apparently given the nod of approval to worker directors and making a bid for the working class vote (there is after all such a thing as community, says Teresa), maybe their time has come around again. These things tend to go in cycles, I reckon.
- The Bestes Dwarf In The World
October 6, 2016 at 12:28 pm -
but worn-looking jeans and so on as a means of ‘virtue signalling’
I wear patched 2nd hand stuff or Army Surplus neither to signal my virtuosity nor because I am poor. I’m just too tight fisted to spend money on clothes. As long as they do the job they were intended for and don’t make me look ‘gay’ (sorry Windy but that’s the best description I can think of this morning )then that’s all that interests me. If they scream “1980s drop out” then that’s an added bonus.
If anyone has some German Army shirts in XXL (almost impossible to find these days) they want to get rid of then….
- The BLOCKED Dwarf
October 6, 2016 at 12:37 pm -
Sorry, no idea how I managed to mix ‘The Bestes Wife’ and ‘The Blocked Dwarf’ in my previous comments. Vanity, thy name is vanity.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 12:42 pm -
I can think of an entrepreneurial idea in line with some of the examples Anna has quoted in her OP.
Rugby in Ireland traditionally was a sport (excepting Limerick, for some reason) of the upper middle professional classes. But, of late, in the last 15 years or so, the sport has enjoyed something of a Last year, I think for the first time, a non-fee paying school won the senior schools cup. It is now acceptable to discuss and even watch rugby matches in pubs in working class areas of Dublin and not risk a hiding. Some of the top Irish rugby players these days hail from comparatively plebian backgrounds.
Now, I have the impression not all of these developments were necessarily welcomed by some of the old guard.
So my idea is for some enterprising trader to produce a brand of old style 1970s/1980s Irish rugby shirts, like those worn by the players here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCUSSudrMsY
A process somewhat akin to that applied to Mr Geldof’s jeans would be necessary to give the shirts the worn, aged look. I suggest charging say €150 for each one. Wearing such an item would mark one out as a true ‘old school’, old money rugby supporter, from the ‘amateur’ era of the game.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 12:46 pm -
^ “something of a renaissance” is what I meant to say in second line of second para above.
- The Blocked Dwarf
October 6, 2016 at 12:58 pm -
I once heard tell of someone who made good money by shooting 501s with a hand gun. A bullet hole though the arse pocket and the spent cartridge case hanging from the belt loop. After i heard that I ceased to wonder why younger Brer Dwarf would hitch hike many miles to the city to buy 501s so worn they were an arrestable offence…even in freedom loving Thatchers Britain…at prices for which i could get two pairs or more of ‘no names’.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 3:20 pm -
^ seeing as Bros are apparently in the news having announced a new tour (absent the drummer), allow me to relate an anecdote from the late ’80s.
My cousin was briefly a ‘Brossette’ circa 1988/89. One Sunday my cousins and my own family happened to visit our grandmother on the same day. My cousin and a friend she had brought along, both around 15 years old or so, were wearing the standard issue Brossette uniform of the faded or stonewashed jeans with cut out knee-pads. My grandmother was shocked by this, and remonstrated with the mother (both my cousin’s mother, my aunt, and her husband were university lecturers, so the family weren’t on the breadline) as to why she was letting her daughter go around in such shabby clothes!
- tdf
- tdf
- Henry Wood
October 6, 2016 at 5:19 pm -
I used them a couple of times when I was in my Windows “Silent Hunter” phase many, many years ago. They always supplied reasonably priced and decent quality products. (I needed a Kaleun’s cap when I returned from a very succesful patrol!)
[I’m not sure if I should really post such “sensitive” information! ;-/
- Mrs Grimble
October 6, 2016 at 8:50 pm -
I see they sell ‘Camo Hipster Boxer Shorts’. I am now trying to imagine the circumstances in which a military man might need to wear them….
- Mrs Grimble
- JimBob McGinty
October 6, 2016 at 9:43 pm -
I used to live in those German army shirts n my teens, along with old patched jeans and german para boots. £10 for a pair of boots that lasted as many years till they got lost in a house move. With the shirts mind, I never could get my clumsy brain and cack-handed digits around the horizontal button slots! But they kept you toasty out on the hills
- The BLOCKED Dwarf
- The Bestes Dwarf In The World
- Whyaxye
October 6, 2016 at 12:08 pm -
It’s not just the money, it’s the time and effort involved. If you are relatively poor but work in an office, you get a cheap suit from one of the big stores. Unless you are lucky, they don’t fit very well, and some fashion snobs might exchange a wry glance behind your back. So what? You can go to work, and save money for more important stuff. But where does Corbyn get those extraordinary old-fashioned 1970s trendy-geography-teacher jackets? Is there a little shop in Islington?
- The Bestes Dwarf In The World
October 6, 2016 at 12:21 pm -
A mere £79. If you’re really on benefits, you probably can’t afford it.
Strangely enough that is almost exactly the sum that The Bestes Frau In The World’s (from some ’boutique’ called ‘Hotters’ in the expensive bit of Norwich) new shoes cost me last week. So some of us poor people, us on Benefits, probably could afford it. Fortunately, as you know, I am very frugal with the house keeping and tend to wear either Army surplus or 2nd hand ‘quality’ gear like Rohans denoted by a close friend who lives in Charity Shop Heaven or ‘Diss’…and the The Bestes Frau In The World was brought up ‘Amish’, to believe all ‘finery’ in female clothes both sinful and ‘hochmütig’ (‘Prideful’). Even when she had hair she only went to the hairdressers once every couple of months, and I think she has maybe 2 pairs of shoes-including those expensive ones, to her name.
The question is however, why would any one, be they rich or poor, want to wear a medieval jester’s custom fashioned out of offcuts of 1970’s pullovers? (says the man who turned up at the Landlady’s wearing jeans with more patches made out of an old red tshirt than denim).
- Mrs Grimble
October 6, 2016 at 1:38 pm -
I have three pairs of footwear – a cheap pair of sandals for summer wear, plain black flatties for weddings and funerals, and a pair of big walking boots for – yes! – general walking around in. They’re German-made, seven or eight years old and coming up for their second re-heeling. Yes, I’m usually too broke to buy shoes but my precious footsies are most comfortable in walking boots; if I had money, I’d still wear boots. However, I’d support some craftsperson and have them all hand-made. Many years ago, I spent some birthday money on a pair of hand-made boots – they were bright blue suede with rainbow laces, and incredibly comfy. I loved them and wore them to death!
That goes for the rest of my clothing. Not too bothered with appearence, I try to buy well-made, hardwearing practical stuff that will last.- The Blocked Dwarf
October 6, 2016 at 1:58 pm -
I am , no doubt, not only a groat pinching Dwarf but a sad and old one too, so for reasons of my OCD compelling me, after posting my above comment I went and checked on The Bestes Frau In The Whole Wide World’s shoe-age. I am pleased to report she has infact 2 pairs of shoes, one pair of sandal-things and one pair boots. Mind you neither the sandal-thingys not the trainers are really in state of wearableness. However had I known she was so well be-soled I might not have been quite so quick to open my wallet when she spied the Hotters in the window.
As to boots I wore almost nothing but 2nd hand German Para boots, as befitted an 80’s reject, for most of my adult life until I discovered they were making my varicose veins ache- JimBob McGinty
October 6, 2016 at 9:45 pm -
Hadn’t seen this before I posted about German para boots!
- JimBob McGinty
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Mrs Grimble
- English Pensioner
October 6, 2016 at 12:46 pm -
I’ve never, during my whole working life, managed to wear through a pair of jeans or have them fade in the manner of many worn by those who could afford decent clothes. Those that I see which are frayed at the edges with tears at the knees are so obviously false when viewed by someone who actually wore jeans for work.
- Bandini
October 6, 2016 at 3:11 pm -
When I was young I’d cycle to college and upon returning home each day I’d rub the knees of my jeans vigourously against the brickwork of the garage for a minute or so; I wanted the frayed-effect – but it had to look ‘real’ and ‘natural’. (I think this was probably about the time that shops started selling pre-damaged clothes which I could never quite bring myself to purchase.)
One day my father ‘caught’ me, a look of total incomprehension upon his face… I felt a little ashamed to be honest (as he’d have paid for them!).
From a generation that had to save up for & covet an almost-out-of-reach new pair of ‘strides’ – sort of ‘Saturday Night & Sunday Morning Fever’ – to one wilfully ruining pristine items, all in the twinkling of an eye.Still, the establishment of ‘shabby chic’ lets some of us gain entrance to what would otherwise be out of bounds. (Ha! I just remembered being turned away from bloody Harrods precisely because I was wearing holey-kneed jeans! At Christmas time & I needed an ‘exclusive’ perfume for a demanding sweetheart… I’d forgotten all about that. Just went in another entrance. Wonder if they are so strict these days…)
- Major Bonkers
October 6, 2016 at 7:14 pm -
No, they let anyone in nowadays.
It has really gone downhill, though. Hardly any white English in there – I remember that it used to be packed for Christmas shopping, and one year Gerry Adams’ merry men let off a bomb in a rubbish bin outside to catch the Christmas shoppers. Nowadays one gets held up by foreign rubberneckers – presumably told to go there by their guidebooks – and a few Russian or Arab vulgarians actually buying something.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 7:24 pm -
I hate to disappoint you, Major Bonkers, but Harrods has been owned by an Arab for decades now.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 7:34 pm -
Talk of Gerry Adams’ merry men letting off bombs in rubbish bins to catch Christmas shoppers outside Harrods puts me in mind of Alan Clark’s observation, in his diaries, after the Brighton Hotel bombing:
“quite a coup by the Paddies! It has the whiff of the Tet Offensive about it. If they’d had the wit to press their advantage, they would have been outside with a bunch of machine guns to pick off the survivors.”
- tdf
- Bandini
October 6, 2016 at 9:04 pm -
From Wikipedia:
“From 1989, Harrods has had a dress code policy and has turned away several people who it believed were not dressed appropriately. These included a soldier in uniform, a scout troop, a woman with a mohican hair cut, a 15 stone (95 kg) woman and FC Shakhtar Donetsk’s first team for wearing tracksuits.”
The big-boned lady caught my eye – the BBC ran with it December 1997 as “‘Too fat for Harrods’ woman to sue” (note the future tense as she was only “preparing to issue a defamation writ” & her lawyers were going to pull their fingers out and “issue the writ after Christmas”). I was curious to see how it turned out but wasn’t particularly surprised to find absolutely nothing more about the matter.
Why the BBC went with the non-story is anyone’s guess as it had all kicked off over six months previously. According to Time: “The security guard who first spotted Kadden’s garb thought that her stretched-to-the-breaking-point leggings were actually panty hose”. Did he heroically flinging himself upon her thinking that a lard-bomb was about to go off? Only to bounce clean off!
Maybe she got a Christmas hamper out of it.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,8173,00.html
- tdf
- Mudplugger
October 6, 2016 at 8:28 pm -
.”..I needed an ‘exclusive’ perfume for a demanding sweetheart… I’d forgotten all about that. Just went in another entrance.”
I fear that may count as too much information.
- Bandini
October 6, 2016 at 9:23 pm -
I popped in round the back!
- Mudplugger
October 7, 2016 at 9:03 am -
As I thought.
- Mudplugger
- Bandini
- Major Bonkers
- Bandini
- Reason
October 6, 2016 at 12:55 pm -
The emperor’s new clothes.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 1:05 pm -
Btw, Bob Geldof is not and has never been left wing.
Yes, he originally came from punk, but his ethos wasn’t that of The Clash. His only really political song ‘Banana Republic’ was no socialist manifesto but rather a rant about political corruption and the influence of the church in his native country.
After Band Aid/Live Aid, he accepted the knighthood without the slightest hesitation (no Benjamin Zephaniah he.)
He has been an entrepreneur and investor in many successful businesses and like him or loathe him, he is essentially a self-made man. If I had to guess, I’d say he votes Tory.
- Joannie
October 6, 2016 at 3:26 pm -
Agreed. Bob Geldof is so far up the British establishment’s ass its unbelievable. And like a typical West Brit he has nothing good to say ever about his own country.
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 3:37 pm -
He turned his back on his own country a long time ago. Occasionally returns to do interviews, that’s about it.
- tdf
- Joannie
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 1:20 pm -
Completely off-topic, but bloomin heck…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/06/ukip-leadership-favourite-steven-woolfe–in-serious-condition-af/Politics is getting really fractious of late.
- DeplorableBritInMontreal
October 6, 2016 at 2:08 pm -
Since Zeller’s turned into Target and then went t*ts up, I tend to shop at the Sally Army and Giant Tiger for clothes & shoes.
- Wigner’s Friend
October 6, 2016 at 4:06 pm -
I think you could call them hypocrats. Abbot and public school, Hodge and tax dodging, two jags, etc etc.
- Oi you
October 6, 2016 at 6:46 pm -
I’ve often wondered why lefties are like this. I wonder whether it’s a guilt thing, over the vast sums they earn (usually out of the public purse). Perhaps they sublimate it, projecting it onto this caricuture of real life?
Long ago, in the deep mists of time, I used to go out with a leftie (yes, I know it seems hard to believe) and though he had a million in the bank inherited from family, he lived like a church mouse, sewing up holes in his clothes and living on baked beans. He never once touched the money, even though his house needed quite a lot spending on it. I could never figure out why and eventually plumped for ‘guilt’. He’d never earned the inheritence, you see, didn’t feel as if he was worthy, so….
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 7:17 pm - JimBob McGinty
October 6, 2016 at 9:51 pm -
I resent that. I’m a lefty, and neither myself, nor any of the other southpaws I know, has ever had a whopping sum from either unearned inheritance or the public purse. However, hope springs eternal!
- tdf
- Sean Coleman
October 6, 2016 at 7:58 pm -
I am honoured to be named in an official Raccoon Arms post. I can’t say many people seek my advice about clothes, so someone is having a larf. But I have a duty to try. Shirt (never short sleeves and one of them dates back to M&S c1982), trousers and a V-neck pullover, no tie. Accessory: plastic bag. I wore a balaclava through an entire summer when I was nine. I have hated jeans since my student days as everyone had to wear them by law. The trendy ones wore check donkey jackets and cowboy boots. Having said that I look fondly back at second-hand pair of straight jeans I got when I was thirteen, when this fashion was neither profitable nor popular, and they never showed any wear. I also had a pair of platform shoes which were the same. I bought two pairs of flares just before they went out of fashion – even I dared not wear them. I wear shoes or trainers until the soles fall off and then hang on to them just in case. (Fashion tip: buy one size too big to make room for the odour eaters.) I used to wear boots when I cycled to work in Dublin because there was a motorist who I had exchanged words with one morning (he was trying to pull out into a yellow box while I cycled through and he got out after me) and I wanted to be ready to kick him hard if I saw him again. Casual and practical. I think of the boots, subliminally, looking at the picture of the slouch with a blanket on his head. Is this the refugee look?
As for designer jeans with holes, these date from 1976 and Punk. I think I mentioned already that in August 1976, as an eighteen year-old, I was coming back with friends from holidays in Ireland, down the A1, when I read in the evening paper that a group of trendy ‘businessmen’ who hung around a Kings Road clothes shop were planning a new fashion happening. That’s your spontaneous youth movement. I will remind everyone again in a few months. An excited friend dragged me up to the Roundhouse later to see them spitting at each other. He used to wear a leather jacket in the 6th form, *over* his blazer, which stuck out six inches below.
The goings on in Tariq Ali’s gaff reminded me of Petronius. And the Bat woman story is hilarious. If I had to spend any time in that part of London I think I’d burst out crying. As for cultural appropriation I wouldn’t know where to start as their baffling rules of etiquette, and their repellent cultural artefacts, are from an alien civilization. What I do know is that I don’t like them and they don’t like me. And they are insane. And I hate the way they pronounce the word ‘good’ as ‘gyd’, as if it was Swedish.
Before anyone says it, I’ll get there first: ‘I sense a lot of anger in your post.’
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 8:18 pm -
“I wore a balaclava through an entire summer when I was nine.”
Balaclavas – incidentally, the Yanks call them ‘ski-masks’. I only discovered that recently. I have never skied, and have no great ambitions ever to do so, but I had mistakenly thought until recently that a ‘ski-mask’ was a helmet type device.
- Bandini
October 6, 2016 at 9:52 pm -
Where in God’s name is this land where the “trendy ones wore check donkey jackets and cowboy boots”?!? What would Windsock say?
On the subject of cyclist’s kicking motorists – or as in my case ‘kicking a motorist’s motor’ – I once took a running swing at the door of a car that had moments earlier nearly killed me, only to realise – alas, too late! – that I was only wearing ‘karate shoes’… ouch! Not even with socks to cushion the blow! (I wasn’t a martial artist – just skint & they only cost £3 a pop.)
My one ‘subjectively good’ jacket was bought in 1991, but in a fantastic secondhand store so no idea of its true age. Testifying to the (former) quality of M&S is a wool-blend shirt inherited from my grandad; every year or two dyed with a pack of Dyson and it comes up like new.
- windsock
October 7, 2016 at 9:39 am -
One man’s “fashion forward” is another man’s “dressed by a blind person going through the bin bags thrown away by a charity shop”.
- Sean Coleman
October 7, 2016 at 10:17 pm -
Hull University 1977-8. It wasn’t a bad place. They called them donkey jackets although they were lighter and more stylish than what you’d think of as donkey jackets. The boots were light brown and looked quite good, but weren’t for me obviously. I forgot to mention that the number one rule for dressing well is not to have any writing on your clothes, or logos if you can rip them off. M&S shirts weren’t cheap but, as you say, they were made to last.
- windsock
- tdf
- Mudplugger
October 6, 2016 at 9:02 pm -
As one who has absolutely no interest in clothes, I find myself partnered to a woman whose disturbing shoe-fetish could give Imelda Marcos a good run for her money – trouble is it’s my money she spends on them.
To compensate, I take apparel parsimony to its ultimate with my regular attire – for around 360 days each year, whatever the weather, I wear a lightweight, nylon jacket acquired from that splendid, but sadly missed, emporium called C&A back in 1970, priced at 25 shillings (that’s £1.25 for younger readers). It’s my trademark, my uniform, folk don’t recognise me without it, it has travelled the world with me and will probably go to the crematorium with me too – true, some folk do take the piss about it, but that only serves to heighten my resolve not to become a slave to their fashion. Although, to be fair, it has probably been ‘in fashion’ half a dozen times since I first bought it and it will surely be again as the fatuous circle of fashion keeps on turning.
What’s perhaps more significant is that it’s the very last garment I ever bought as, almost immediately after its acquisition, the aspirant Imelda Marcos-clone appeared on my scene and assumed responsibility for all such turgid trade on my behalf, since which time clothes and shoes just appear, are worn and discarded, to be replaced by others just as irrelevant: I neither notice them nor care about them. The trusty old C&A jacket sees them all off every time, as it will me in due course. A subconscious signal back to my earlier days of independence perhaps, or maybe they just built things to last in those days.
I do know that ‘Imelda’ hates it with a passion, which further enhances the pleasure it continues to give me from the sheer mischief of flaunting it almost every day. What fun for a mere 25 shillings.- Bandini
October 6, 2016 at 10:10 pm -
I remember you mentioning the jacket before, Mudplugger! I’d always imagined nylon just… disintegrated or summat after 40 years, but no. (I’d ask what colour it is but wonder if it even still posesses one!)
- Mudplugger
October 7, 2016 at 9:10 am -
Known colloquially as ‘the red jacket’ may offer a clue – surprisingly, it retains most of that shade, although now moving towards a general level of pinkness which risks occasional misinterpretation.
- The Blocked Dwarf
October 7, 2016 at 10:01 am -
Allow me to be the first to retort: “Photo-or it didn’t happen!”
- Mudplugger
October 7, 2016 at 11:12 am -
Maybe I’ll get the Landlady to paint it as a ‘Still Live’ – just need a hunk to model it, where’s Windsock when you need him…… ?
- The Blocked Dwarf
October 7, 2016 at 11:27 am -
‘Still Live’
‘Still Live’ being the operative term…probably only the microbes holding hands…
(can’t imagine Windy as a ‘hunk’. Lithe? yes. Emaciated from years of illness? Maybe. Debonair and rakish even but ‘hunky’? So again I shall say ‘photos or it never happened’).
- windsock
October 7, 2016 at 1:09 pm -
Oi. Who are you to be casting aspersion on my “hunkiness”? And me and emaciated part4ed terms a few years ago. I will settle, however, for debonair and rakish (and fashion forward), but I’m not modelling it if it’s not fully fluorescent flamingo pink.
- Mudplugger
October 7, 2016 at 1:35 pm -
The way it’s going, it might soon get to that shade, so your kind offer will be gratefully held on file pending.
- windsock
October 7, 2016 at 1:46 pm -
You’ll need to co=ordinate the rest of the outfit accordingly…
- windsock
- Mudplugger
- windsock
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Mudplugger
- The Blocked Dwarf
- Mudplugger
- Bandini
- tdf
October 6, 2016 at 10:07 pm -
Circa 2003, I spent €400 on a ridiculous bright blue suit that I used on no more than three occasions (Epsom Derby and similar racing occasions) And that I will almost certainly never use again. Uhm, yeh, it was the ‘Celtic Tiger’ era.
- binao
October 7, 2016 at 8:11 am -
Never understood the fascination with grungy clothes unless for gardening/decorating.
I think the problem is that today we have ridiculously cheap clothing available. It’s light weight so looks shabby quickly.
And none of it fits. At least the mens doesn’t.What happened to the days when we used to order suits two at a time, ‘made to measure’ from the High Street?
Sure it wasn’t bespoke, but the cut allowed that we aren’t all simply different sizes of S, M or L.
The good thing today is that a lot of clothes can be washed, so we don’t get that whiff of overused trousers. - Ho Hum
October 7, 2016 at 1:42 pm -
I’d have thought that Jeremy would have been an aficionado of the abe label
- Ho Hum
October 7, 2016 at 1:47 pm -
Although I doubt if even he could make a Bay City Rollers outfit look good
- Ho Hum
- Ho Hum
October 7, 2016 at 1:54 pm -
Anyway, to be succinct, ‘impecunious appropriation’ is perfectly acceptable to those who are ‘off their heads’, if they think that it’s being done by someone other than those who fit their worldview category of ‘off with their heads’
- arty farty
October 8, 2016 at 11:30 am -
When I was at art college we all wore jeans, and we all had stripes of different colours on the front of our thighs. Fashion trend? Nah, we simply wiped our paint brushes on the front of our jeans for speed (if not cleanliness). One got used to the feeling of slightly damp thighs — no sniggering in the back, please! — and possibly regarded is as a public sign we were art ‘students’, though possibly it was a sign that no one else cared about.
- Alcibiades
October 8, 2016 at 12:52 pm -
Corbyn can hardly be that flush given he has a lodger (who writes for the ‘Daily Mail’):
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jeremy-corbyn-mailonline-lodger-a6724896.html£79 is pretty mid-market, M&S level, for a garment. Who can blame him if he wants something with a touch of individuality at that price and also recycled, which counts in his worldview, if not the ones of most people here.
- Savim
October 8, 2016 at 2:42 pm -
My penurial gear was hand made in the fifties out of sheer failure to find adult clothes that would fit me plus nurses low pay. Dirndl skirt and duffle coat, in a cringe making photo I tore up recently. A short black and white tweed jacket. Pedal pusher pants for cycling. Knitteds of course, as most did in those far off days. My mum knit me a cozzie in childhood….you know the cliches about knitted cozzies….they sagged. My final farewells to handmade were two shirtwaster dresses in the early sixties. That was it, as all that kinky gear took over and a short flared skirt with tartan inserts and a short hipster skirt could be afforded. I had kitten heels too, very comfy. Then I got some weight on and saving money wearing 14 year old duds was no loner possible.
- Old Dog
October 13, 2016 at 12:22 am -
That German army surplus stuff: I used to live in it. It could survive the rigours of oil rig laundries and lasted forever. I wore the shirts and pants for work around the garden, hill walking,climbing etc – it was so damned comfortable. Sadly I am also looking for the XXXL sized options. If someone could source that green denim like material and produce regular clothes they might make a killing.
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