Watching the English

HUMOUR RULES

The coded language of sub-cultural sartorial statements is, like all English communication, infused with humour. I have already mentioned the role of the Importance of Not Being Earnest rule (the First Commandment of English humour) in mainstream English attitudes to dress, but I was surprised to find that this rule was equally powerful and as strictly observed among youth sub-cultures.

It is well known, after all, that young people, especially self-obsessed teenagers, are inclined to take themselves a bit too seriously. And given the immense social importance of dress in these youth tribes - clothing style being the primary means by which they distinguish themselves from the dreaded mainstream and from each other; the principal way in which they express their tribal affiliation and identity - they could be forgiven for taking their clothes and appearance very seriously indeed. I had fully expected these sub-cultures to be an exception to the Importance of Not Being Earnest rule and the irony rules. I assumed that members of youth tribes would be, understandably, unable or at least very reluctant to stand back and laugh at their cherished sartorial affiliation signals.

But I was wrong. I had underestimated the sheer strength and pervasiveness of the English humour rules. Even among those whose sub-cultural identity is most closely bound up with their tribal uniform, such as Goths, I found an astonishing degree of ironic detachment. Goths, in their macabre black costumes, might look as though they are taking themselves very seriously, but when you get into conversation with them, they are full of typically English self-mockery. In many cases, even their clothes are deliberately ironic. I was chatting at a bus stop to a Goth in full vampire regalia - with chalk-white face, deep-purple lipstick, long black hair and all - when I noticed that he was also wearing a t-shirt with the legend GOTH printed in large letters on the front. 'So, what's that about?' I asked, indicating the t-shirt. 'It's just in case you missed the point,' he replied, mock-seriously. 'I mean, I couldn't have people thinking I was just a boring, mainstream, normal person, right?' We both looked at his highly conspicuous, unmistakeable, fancy-dress costume and burst out laughing. He then confided that he had another t-shirt with SAD OLD GOTH on it, and that these were very popular among his Goth friends, who wore them 'to stop people taking it all too seriously - well, to stop us from taking ourselves too seriously as well, which to be honest we're a little bit inclined to do if we're not careful. You've got to be able to take the piss out of yourself.'

Once you learn to de-code a sub-culture's sartorial dialect, you find that many of the dress-statements are self-mocking in-jokes, often ridiculing the tribe's own rigid dress codes. Some Goths, for example, poke fun at the whole sombre, morbid, black-only colour rule by wearing bright, girly pink - a colour that is traditionally despised by this sub-culture. 'The pink thing is a joke,' explained a young female Goth with pink hair and pink gloves, 'because pink is like totally against the whole Goth ideology.' So, Goths with pink hair or sporting items of pink clothing are laughing at themselves, deliberately mocking not just their dress codes but all the tastes and values that define their tribal identity. That seems to me about as ironically detached as you can get. Humour rules, OK!

I've been rather critical of the English so far in this discussion of dress, but this ability to laugh at ourselves is surely a redeeming quality. Where else would you find dedicated members of dress-obsessed youth tribes who can look at themselves in the mirror and say 'Oh, come off it!'? I have certainly never come across this degree of self-mockery among comparable groups in any other culture.

So. Vampires in ironic pink. Another thing to be proud of. I think my last little burst of patriotic pride was over bad puns in tabloid headlines. Hmm. You may be starting to worry about my taste and judgement, but at least there's a consistent pattern: my rare moments of unqualified admiration for the English all seem to relate to our sense of humour, clearly something I prize above many other perhaps more worthy qualities. How very English of me.

This sense of humour might perhaps help to explain the otherwise puzzling English mania for fancy-dress parties. Other nations may have masked balls and national or regional festivals involving fancy-dress costumes, but they don't have fancy-dress parties every weekend, for no apparent reason or on the flimsiest of excuses, the way the English do. English males seem to have a particular penchant for cross-dressing, seizing every opportunity to deck themselves out in corsets, fishnet stockings and high heels. And it is always the most macho, the most blatantly heterosexual of English men (soldiers, rugby players, etc.) who find it most amusing to dress up as tarty women for fancy-dress parties. This strikes me as yet another form of 'collective eccentricity': we love to break the sartorial rules, providing we can all do it together, in a context of rule-governed cultural remission such as a fancy-dress party, so there's no individual embarrassment.