Watching the English

EMBARRASSMENT RULES

I had a hunch that the rest of us, whether we admit it or not, share these concerns, and that observing the affected-indifference rule helps us to hide a deep-seated insecurity about dress, a desperate need to 'fit in' and an acute fear of embarrassment. My most perceptive informant on matters of dress was the fashion 'agony-aunt' Annalisa Barbieri, whose 'Dear Annie' column in the Independent on Sunday attracted hundreds of anxious letters every week from the sartorially challenged English. She had interviewed me a few times for features she was writing on a variety of subjects, and when I found out that she was 'Dear Annie', I jumped at the chance to interrogate an expert on the real, usually hidden, dress concerns and problems of the English - particularly as her international background meant that she could compare these with other cultures' preoccupations.

She confirmed that the English are much more worried about our clothes and appearance than the affected-indifference rule allows us to admit. And her postbag indicates that our main concern is indeed about 'fitting in', being acceptably dressed and, above all, that perennial English preoccupation: avoiding embarrassment. Yes, we want to look attractive, to make the most of our physical assets and disguise our flaws, but we do not, like other nations, want to stand out or show off - quite the opposite: most of us are scared of any form of ostentation, or even of seeming to make too much effort, to care too obviously. We just want to fit in. The overwhelming majority of the questions addressed to Dear Annie are not about whether a certain garment or outfit is beautiful or glamorous, but whether it is socially acceptable, suitable, appropriate. 'It's all "Is it OK to wear X with Y?" "Can I wear such-and-such to a wedding?" "Is this suitable for the office?" "Is that too tarty?"' Annalisa told me. 'Up to the 1950s, there were lots of official rules about dress - there were uniforms, really - and the English dressed well. Since the 1960s, there have been fewer formal rules, and lots of confusion and embarrassment, and the English dress very badly, but there is still an obsession with etiquette. What they really want is more rules.'

Ironically, this desperate desire to fit in and conform can often, particularly among the most fashion-conscious, lead to the most dramatic and ludicrous of our sartorial mistakes. Edina, the ridiculously overdressed character in the television sit-com Absolutely Fabulous, is a caricature of a certain type of English fashion-victim. She combines a burning need to be fashionable with a typically English lack of any natural taste or sense of style - decking herself out indiscriminately in all the most outlandish of the latest designer catwalk creations, and invariably ending up looking like an over-decorated Christmas tree. Edina is a caricature, a deliberate comic exaggeration, but the caricature is based on features and behaviours that are all too familiar and recognizable among English females. There are plenty of Edinas among our pop-stars and other celebrities, and you can see down-market, chain-store versions of Edina-like bad taste walking around on every high street.

Women of most other nations can watch Absolutely Fabulous and just laugh at Edina's sartorial absurdities. English women may laugh at Edina, but we also wince with vicarious embarrassment, and our amusement is tinged with a little frisson of fear, a little anxiety about our own fashion-victim errors of judgement. Edina's mistakes may be more extreme than most, but English women do seem to be particularly susceptible to the more preposterous products of designers' fevered imaginations: almost every English female had a ludicrous puffball skirt in her wardrobe in the 1980s; we wear micro-minis every time they come into fashion, whether we have the legs for them or not; ditto thigh-boots, leg-warmers, hot pants and other inventions which are unflattering on all but the skinniest, and often look remarkably silly even on them.

We are not entirely alone in these unfortunate habits - our American and Australian cousins can be equally tasteless - but my female friends, acquaintances and informants from around the world tend to be particularly scornful about English women's sartorial awkwardness and incompetence. On one occasion, when I protested that singling us out in this way was a bit unfair, a rather grand French lady replied, 'It is perfectly fair. One does not expect much from the colonies, but you English are supposed to be civilized Europeans. You really should know better. Paris is what, an hour away?' She lifted an immaculate eyebrow, shrugged her elegant shoulders and sniffed delicately, meaning, presumably, that if we could not be bothered to learn from our neighbours and betters, we were beneath her notice. I wouldn't have minded so much, but this impromptu interview took place at Royal Ascot, in the Royal bloody Enclosure, no less, with all us Englishwomen (even undercover social scientists) in our very smartest frocks and hats. And I'd been especially proud of my pink mini-dress and pink shoes with amusing snaffle-shaped buckles on them - a little horsey reference (footnote, even) that had struck me as charmingly witty for a day at the races, but which now, under the withering gaze of Madame Style-Police, seemed rather silly and childish, a typically English attempt to make a joke out of everything.

Dress is essentially a form of communication - one could even call it a social skill - so perhaps it should not be surprising to find that the socially challenged English are not terribly good at it. We have difficulties with most other aspects of communication, particularly when there are no clear, formal rules to follow. Perhaps the loss of our old 1950s rigid dress codes has had the same effect as the decline of 'How do you do?' as the standard greeting. In the absence of the formal 'How do you do?' exchange, we never know quite what to say, and our attempts at informal greetings are awkward, clumsy, inelegant and embarrassing. In the same way, the decline of formal dress codes - now regarded by many, like the 'How do you do?' ritual, as stuffy and old-fashioned - means that we never know quite what to wear, and our informal dress has become as embarrassingly awkward as our greetings.

We do not like formality; we object to being dictated to by prissy little rules and regulations - but we lack the natural grace and social ease to cope with informality. We are like rebellious teenagers whose parents complain, with some justification, that they want to be treated like adults, and given the freedom to make their own choices and decisions, but do not have the sense or maturity to handle such freedom, and when granted it just make a big mess of things and get into trouble.