Watching the English

CLASS RULES

It is much harder nowadays to tell a person's class by his or her dress, but there are still a few fairly reliable indicators. Nothing as obvious as the old distinctions between cloth-caps and pinstripes, but if you look closely, you can identify the unwritten sartorial rules and subtle status-signals.

Youth Rules and Yoof Rules

Class indicators are most difficult to detect among the young, as young people of all classes tend to follow either tribal street-fashions or mainstream trends (which are in any case usually diluted versions of street-fashions). This is annoying for class-conscious parents, as well as class-spotting anthropologists. One upper-middle-class mother complained, 'Jamie and Saskia look just like those yobbos from the council estate. Honestly, what is the point?' Meaning, presumably, what is the point of taking the trouble to give your children 'smart' upper-middle-class names and send them to expensive upper-middle-class schools, when they insist on dressing exactly like Kevin and Tracey from the local comprehensive.

But a more observant mother might have noticed that Jamie and Saskia do not, in fact, look exactly like Kevin and Tracey. Jamie may have his hair cut very short and often gelled into spikes, but Kevin will go one step further and have his shaved off almost entirely, leaving just a few millimetres of fuzz. Saskia's multiple ear-piercings may horrify her parents, and the more audacious Saskias may even have their belly-buttons pierced, but most Saskias will not, like the Traceys, have rings and studs in their eyebrows, noses and tongues as well. Princess Anne's daughter, Zara, had a tongue-stud, but this was a breach of the rules shocking enough to make front-page headline news in all the tabloids. The upper class and aristocracy, like those at the bottom end of the social scale, can ignore the unwritten dress codes because they don't care what the neighbours think. They do not suffer from middle-class class anxiety. If middle-class Saskia gets her tongue pierced, she is in danger of being thought 'common': if aristocratic Zara does it, it is daring and eccentric.

Leaving aside the occasional upper-class exceptions, sartorial differences between middle-class youth and working-class 'yoof' are generally a matter of degree. Both Jamie and Kevin might wear low-slung baggy jeans (a 'gangsta'-influenced style, of black American origin), but Kevin's will be lower and baggier - four sizes too big for him, rather than just two. And working-class Kevins will start wearing this style at a younger age than middle-class Jamies. The same goes for their sisters: Traceys tend to wear more extreme versions of the latest tribal costume than Saskias,58 and to start younger. They are also generally allowed to 'grow up' earlier and faster than Saskias. If you see a pre-pubescent girl dolled up in sexy teenage fashions and make-up, she is almost certainly not middle class.

As a rule, middle-class children's and teenagers' dress tends to be both more restrained and somewhat more natural-looking than working-class yoof attire. Tracey and Saskia may both wear the same fashionable style and shape of t-shirt and trousers, but Saskia's will be matte rather than shiny, with a higher proportion of natural fibres, at least in the daytime. The class indicators are quite subtle. Saskia and Tracey may shop at the same teenage high-street chains, and often buy the same items, but they combine them and wear them in slightly different ways. They may both have a short denim jacket from TopShop, but Tracey will wear hers with tight, slightly shiny, black lycra/nylon trousers and clumpy, black, high-heeled, platform shoes, while Saskia's identical jacket will be worn with a pair of cords, boots and a big, soft scarf wrapped several times round her neck. For some reason, middle-and upper-class young people are much more inclined to wear scarves than the lower ranks, and generally more willing to wrap up warmly in cold weather. Kevin and Tracey often seem perversely determined to be cold, going out on freezing January nights wearing just a t-shirt under a leather jacket (Kevin) or a mini-skirt with thin, shiny tights (Tracey). Such inadequately dressed yoof are a particularly common sight in the North.

This is not a question of money, and the cost of clothes is not a reliable guide to the class of the wearer. Saskia's and Jamie's clothes are no more expensive than Tracey's and Kevin's, and Tracey and Kevin are just as likely to have a number of expensive items of 'designer' clothing in their wardrobes. But again, there are tell-tale differences. When working-class yoof, male or female, wear 'designer' clothes, they tend to go for the ones with the big, obvious logos. The reasoning seems to be: what is the point in having a Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt if no-one can tell? The upper-middles and above regard big designer logos as rather vulgar.

If in doubt, look at the hair. Hair is a fairly reliable class-indicator. Tracey's haircut is likely to look more 'done', more contrived, more artificial than Saskia's - and her style will involve more obvious use of gel, dye and spray. Almost all upper-middle to upper-class public-schoolgirls have straight, shiny-clean, floppy hair, falling loose so that they can be constantly pushing it back, running their fingers through it, flipping and tossing it, tucking it behind their ears, pulling it into a rough twist or ponytail then letting it fall back again, in a sequence of apparently casual, unconscious gestures. This public-schoolgirl floppy-hair display is a highly distinctive ritual, rarely seen among working-class females.

The more restrained/natural appearance of middle-class youth is only partly due to the diktats of class-anxious parents. English children and teenagers are no less class-conscious than their elders, and although some middle-class Jamies and Saskias may use 'common' items of clothing or jewellery as a form of rebellion, they have their own sartorial snobberies, and their own class anxieties. Their parents may not realise it, but they do not, in fact, wish to be indistinguishable from the 'council-estate yobbos'. They even have code-names for those whose dress and manner put them in this low-class category - such as 'Tracey-Girls', 'Garys', 'Kevins' (often shortened to 'Kevs') or 'Grubs'. The Garys etc., in turn, refer to the 'posh' children as 'Camillas', 'Hooray Henrys' and 'Sloanes', and have absolutely no wish to emulate them. These are all labels applied only to others: young people never describe themselves as Kevs or Camillas.

The more sensitive English middle-class youths are slightly embarrassed about their snobbery, and were somewhat hesitant, in interviews, about admitting to using these terms. Discussions touching on class issues were always punctuated by nervous laughter. An upper-middle-class teenage girl confessed that she had been hankering after a particular rather expensive item of jewellery, until she noticed that it seemed to have become very popular among hairdressers, which, she said, 'put me off it a bit,' adding, 'I know it shouldn't, that it's really snobbish of me, but I can't help it: if they're all wearing it, I don't like it so much'. Her class-anxious mother, with her concerns about appearing 'common', would no doubt be pleased at this evidence of her influence.

Although young English people are more class-conscious than they like to admit, most of them are more worried about being seen as 'mainstream' than about the class-labels attached to their clothing. To call someone's taste in dress, music or anything else 'mainstream' is always derogatory, and in some circles a dire insult. 'Mainstream' is the opposite of 'cool', the current generic term of approval. Definitions of 'mainstream' vary. Taking me through the lists of clubs and other dance-venues in Time Out magazine, young music-lovers offered different opinions as to which clubs were 'cool' and which were 'mainstream'. In extreme cases, 'mainstream' encompassed anything that was not unquestionably 'underground': for some young clubbers, any club or venue listed in Time Out was automatically 'mainstream' - 'cool' events were those advertised only by word of mouth.

These are serious issues for young English people, but I was pleased to find that there was still an undercurrent of humour, even an element of self-mockery, in discussions of coolth and mainstreamness. Some teenagers even make sartorial jokes about their own mainstream-phobia. In the mid-1990s, for example, when the Spice Girls were the epitome of mainstream, despised by all those with cool, underground pretensions, some counter-culture 'grungers' took to wearing Spice-Girls t-shirts - a little ironic in-joke, poking fun at themselves, refusing to take the mainstream-avoidance rules too seriously. Such jokes can only be successfully carried off by those already established as 'cool', of course: you are effectively saying 'I'm so cool that I can wear a blatantly mainstream Spice-Girls t-shirt without anyone thinking that I might actually like the Spice Girls'.

Adult Class Rules

Grown-up sartorial semiotics are marginally less complex than the teenage rules and signals, and the class indicators are somewhat clearer.

The current Debrett's Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners advises us to 'forget the old British adage that it is ill-bred to be overdressed'. The author claims that this rule dates from a time when 'it was the accepted norm to dress up for any activity more than gardening'. At this time, he says, 'overdressing meant being got up in a flashy, overly elaborate or embarrassing way and took no account of the modern invasion of sports-inspired clothes that has enslaved whole swathes of the nation into sweats and trainers.' He has a point, particularly where men are concerned, but among females, flashy, over-elaborate dress is still an unmistakeable lower-class indicator, while the higher echelons still manage to 'dress up' without looking fussy and overdone.

Female Class Rules

Too much jewellery (especially gold jewellery, and necklaces spelling out one's name or initials), too much make-up, over-coiffed hair, fussy-dressy clothes, shiny tights and uncomfortably tight, very high-heeled shoes are all lower-class hallmarks, particularly when worn for relatively casual occasions. Deep, over-baked tans are also regarded as vulgar by the higher social ranks. As with furniture and home-decoration, too much twee, laboured matching of clothes or accessories is also a lower-class signal, particularly if the scheme involves a bright colour - say, a navy dress with red trim, red belt, red shoes, a red bag and a red hat (take off two more class points if any of these items are shiny as well as red). This kind of overdressing is often seen at working-class weddings or other special occasions. The same over-careful matching but with a more muted 'accent' colour, such as cream, would be lower-middle class; reducing the number of matched accessories to just two or three might raise the whole outfit to middle-middle status - but it would still be an 'outfit', still too fussy and Sunday-best, still too obviously dressed-up for the upper-middles.

For the crucial distinction between lower/middle-middle and upper-middle dress, think Margaret Thatcher (careful, stiff, smart, bright-blue suits; shiny blouses; matching shoes and bags; coiffed helmet of hair) versus Shirley Williams (worn, rumpled, thrown-together - but good quality - tweedy skirts and cardigans; dull, sludgy colours; nothing matching; messy, unstyled hair)59. This is not to say that any sort of scruffiness is 'posh', or that any attempt at dressing up is automatically lower-class. An upper-middle or upper class woman will not wear Waynetta Slob leggings and a grubby velour sweatshirt to go out to lunch at a smart restaurant - but she will turn up in something fairly simple and understated, without lots of heavy-handed matching and effortful accessorizing. Her hair may be casually 'unstyled', but it will not be greasy, or display several inches of dark roots straggling into a brassy-blonde dye with a half-grown-out perm.

Among adult English females, the amount of flesh on display can also be a class indicator. As a rule, the amount of visible cleavage is inversely correlated with position on the social scale - the more cleavage revealed by a garment, the lower the social class of its wearer (a daytime garment, that is - party dresses and ball gowns can be more revealing). For the middle-aged and over, the same rule applies to upper arms. And skimpy, skin-tight clothes clinging to bulges of fat are also lower class. The higher ranks have bulges too, but they hide them under looser or more substantial clothing.

The class rules on legs are rather less clear-cut, as there are two more factors to complicate the issue, namely: fashion and the quality of the legs in question. Lower-working-class females (and nouveaux-riches of working-class origin) tend to wear short skirts, when they are in fashion and often when they are not, regardless of whether they have good enough legs, while 'respectable' upper-working, lower-middle and middle-middle women do not display much leg, even when both fashion and leg-quality would allow it. Among the higher social ranks, the more youthful and fashionable women may wear shorter hemlines, but only if they have very good legs. The upper-middle and upper classes regard thick legs - and in particular thick ankles - as not only unattractive, but also, worse, working class. The myth that all upper-class females have elegant legs and slim ankles is perpetuated by the fact that those with thick ones usually take care to hide them.

So, if you see an English woman with thick legs in a short skirt, she is probably working class; but a woman with elegant legs in a short skirt could be from either the bottom or the top of the social scale. You will have to look for other clues, in the details described above such as cleavage-display, visible bulginess, make-up, matching, shininess, fussiness, jewellery, hairstyle and shoes. All of these indicators can be used in judging work-clothes - suits and so on - as well as casual dress. English dress codes and sartorial class-indicators may have become somewhat less formal and obvious since the 1950s, but to say that it is no longer possible to judge class from dress is just nonsense. It is more difficult, certainly, but there are still plenty of clues - particularly once one has grasped the difference between higher-class and lower-class notions of smartness, and, perhaps even more importantly, between higher-class and lower-class types of scruffiness.

In genuinely tricky or borderline cases, where you cannot simply 'sight-read' the sartorial class-statements, you may have to focus on other aspects of dress, such as shopping habits and dress-talk, to determine an Englishwoman's social position. Only the upper-middles and above, for example, will readily and cheerfully admit to buying clothes in charity shops. This rule is not so strictly observed among teenagers and twenty-somethings, as hunting for charity-shop bargains has become a fashionable pastime, endorsed by glossy magazines and working-class supermodels, and some lower-class young females have followed their example. But among older females, only those at either the higher end or the very bottom of the scale buy clothes from Oxfam, Cancer Research, Sue Ryder or Age Concern shops - and only those at the higher end want to tell you about it. An upper-middle female will proudly twirl and flounce a skirt at you, and announce gleefully that it was 'Only four pounds fifty from Oxfam!' - expecting you to admire her for being so clever, so thrifty, so charmingly eccentric, Bohemian and un-snobbish.

In some cases, she may be genuinely hard-up and, knowing that class in England is not judged on income, she won't be ashamed to admit it. But upper-middle females will often buy clothes in charity shops and second-hand shops on principle (exactly what principle is not entirely clear), even when they can perfectly well afford new clothes. And boast about their purchases. But have a bit of compassion: this is the only chance these women get to break both the modesty rule and the money-talk taboo in the same breath - surely they can be forgiven for getting a bit overexcited? Their delight would, however, be incomprehensible to the women at the bottom of the social and income scales, who shop in charity shops out of dire necessity and get no social kudos or sense of pride from doing so - quite the opposite: many of them find it deeply shaming.

Although they are proud to shop in charity shops, the more class-anxious upper-middles are often reluctant to admit to buying clothes at certain high-street chains, such as Marks amp; Spencer (except for underwear and the odd plain t-shirt or man's jumper), British Home Stores and Littlewoods (both no-go zones, even for knickers). If they do buy something more important, such as a jacket, from Marks amp; Spencer, they do not normally twirl and flaunt it and exclaim over how cheap it was, but if a friend admires the garment and asks where it is from, they say, 'Would you believe M amp;S?!' in a high-pitched, surprised tone, as though they don't quite believe it themselves. The friend replies, 'No! Really?!' in the same tone. (Their teenage daughters might have much the same conversation about the cheaper high-street chains aimed at their age-group, such as New Look or Claire's Accessories.)

Male Class Rules

One way or another, it is usually possible to gauge English women's social class from their dress. Men, however, pose rather more of a problem for the class-spotter. There is far less variety in adult male clothing, particularly work-clothes, which means less choice, which means fewer opportunities to make either deliberate or inadvertent sartorial class-statements. The old blue-collar/white-collar distinction is no longer reliable. The decline of the manufacturing industry and the casual dress codes of many of the newer companies and industries mean that a suit per se no longer distinguishes the lower-middle from the working-class male. The young man going to work in jeans and a t-shirt could be a construction-site labourer, but he could equally be the managing director of an independent software company. Uniforms are more helpful, but not infallible. Yes, a shop assistant's or bus driver's uniform is probably a working-class indicator, but a barman's or waiter's is not, as middle-class students often take jobs in bars and restaurants. Generally, occupation is not a very reliable guide to social class, particularly in the 'white-collar' occupations: accountants, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, teachers and estate agents can come from any social background. So, even if you could tell a man's occupation from his dress, you would not necessarily be any the wiser regarding his class.

Although dress codes are now more relaxed in some occupations, the majority of 'white-collar' men still go to work in a suit - and at first glance, be-suited male commuters catching their trains in the morning all look pretty much alike. Well, to be honest, they all look pretty much alike at second and third glance as well. If I were a menswear expert, and could distinguish between an Armani suit and a Marks amp; Spencer's one without grabbing the commuter by his collar and peering at the label, I would still only have information on the man's income, not his social class. Class in England is no more determined by wealth than it is by occupation. I know that an upper-class English man, with sufficient money, is more likely to choose a tailor-made Jermyn Street suit than an Armani one - and that if he is broke he might prefer a charity-shop tailored suit to a new high-street-chain one - but this is not really a great deal of help to me as they all still just look like suits.

Jewellery and accessories are a better guide. Size is important. Large, bulky, ostentatious metal watches, especially gold ones, are a lower-class signal - even if they are frightfully expensive Rolexes (or those James-Bond-wannabe gadgetty ones that tell you what time it is in six countries and will work at the bottom of the sea and withstand a small nuclear attack). Upper-middles and above tend to wear more discreet watches, usually with a simple leather strap. A similar principle applies to cufflinks: big, flashy, show-off cufflinks are lower class; small, simple, unobtrusive ones are higher. Again, the cost of the items is irrelevant.

Any rings other than a plain wedding ring indicate that the wearer is probably no higher than middle-middle. Some upper-middle and upper-class males might wear a signet ring, engraved with their family crest, on the little finger of their left hand, but these are also often sported by pretentious middle-middles, so they are not a reliable guide. A signet ring with initials on it rather than a crest, and worn on any other finger, is lower middle. Ties are marginally more helpful. Very brash, garish colours and loud patterns (especially cartoony/jokey ones) are lower class; ties in a single, solid colour (particularly if pale, bright and/or shiny) are no higher than middle-middle; the upper-middles and above wear ties in relatively subdued, usually dark colours, with small, discreet patterns.

But I'll come clean and admit that I rarely, if ever, manage to identify be-suited males' class by dress alone: I have to cheat and look at their body language or their newspaper. (Whatever they are wearing, only working-class males sit on trains or buses with their legs wide apart; and most upper-middle-class males do not read the tabloids - or at least not in public.)

Casual clothes are a bit more revealing, in both the physical and class-indicator sense, than suits, as there is more variety and men have to exercise more choice. The trouble is that when allowed free rein to choose what to wear - without the rules and constraints of the suit - adult English men of all classes tend to dress rather badly. The vast majority have no natural sense of style, and indeed no wish to be stylishly dressed - quite the opposite: to describe a man as stylish, or even just well dressed, is to cast doubt upon his masculinity. A man who is too well dressed is automatically suspected of being gay. English men are concerned about being correctly or appropriately dressed, but this is because they do not want to stand out or draw attention to themselves. They just want to fit in, to blend, to look pretty much like any other unquestionably heterosexual male. The result is that they all look very much alike. When they are not wearing the work uniform of suit and tie, they all wear more or less the same undistinguishing and undistinguished dress-down uniform of jeans and t-shirt/sweatshirt or casual trousers and shirt/jumper.

Yes, I do realize that all t-shirts are not created equal, and that there are casual trousers and casual trousers. So it should be possible to spot class distinctions between different styles and fabrics and brands and so on. And it is possible. But it is not easy. (I'm not whining here - well, actually I am: I just want you to know that this has taken a lot of effort, not to mention a lot of funny looks from men who misinterpreted my attempts to scrutinize the label on the back of their trousers.)

The class rules of male casual dress are based on more or less the same basic principles as the female class rules, except that fussy overdressing is regarded as camp, rather than lower class. The shiny nylon versus natural-fibre principle applies to adult males as well as females, but it is much less useful as a class indicator because men of all classes tend to avoid obviously shiny man-made fibres as they are both effeminate and uncomfortable. And although the working-class male's shirt might not be pure cotton, it is quite difficult to tell just by looking, and you can't go around pinching men's sleeves to check the quality of the fabric.

There is also the same inverse correlation between amounts of visible flesh and position on the social scale. Shirts unbuttoned to display an expanse of chest are lower class - the more buttons undone, the lower the class of the wearer (and if a chain or medallion round the neck is also revealed, take off another ten class points). Even amounts of arm on display can be significant. Among older males, the higher classes tend to prefer shirts to t-shirts, and would certainly never go out in just a vest or singlet, however hot the weather - these are strictly working-class garments: bare chests, anywhere other than a beach or swimming pool, are lower-working class.

If you are wearing a shirt, the class divide seems to be at the elbow: on a warm day, lower-class men will roll their shirt-sleeves up to above the elbow, while the higher ranks will roll them to just below the elbow - unless they are engaged in some significant physical activity, such as gardening. The visible-flesh rule also applies to legs. Upper-middle and upper-class adult males are rarely seen in shorts unless they are playing sports, hill walking or perhaps gardening at home; middle-middles and lower-middles might wear shorts on holiday abroad; but only working-class males exhibit their legs in public in their home town.

As a general principle, winter or summer, higher-class males just seem to wear more clothes. More layers, more coats, more scarves and hats and gloves. They are somewhat more likely to carry umbrellas as well, but only in cities - there is an old unwritten taboo against gentlemen carrying an umbrella in the country, except at the races or other occasions where chivalry might require them to protect dressed-up ladies from the rain. So, an umbrella in the city can sometimes be a higher-class signal, but an umbrella on a country walk is lower class. Unless you are a vicar, that is: for some reason country clergymen are exempt from the no-umbrella rule.

Upper-class English males take the 'don't stand out' rule to extremes, dressing to blend in not only with each other but also with their surroundings: tweedy greens and browns in the country; sombre greys and dark blue pinstripes in town - a sort of high-class camouflage. Wearing inappropriate 'city' clothes in the country, for both males and females, is a serious social solecism. In some very old and grand upper-class country circles, this taboo extends to the wearing of anything even remotely fashionable: the more frumpy and out-of-date you look, the higher your social status.

DRESS CODES AND ENGLISHNESS

Oh dear. Dress seems to be yet another thing that the English are not very good at, yet another important 'life skill' we have somehow failed to master. Unless we have strict rules to follow - either official uniforms or tribal-sub-culture uniforms - our sartorial statements tend to be at best inarticulate and at worst downright ungrammatical.

Of course, there are a few exceptions, a few English people who speak the language of dress with effortless fluency. But on average, as a nation, our grasp of this idiom is poor. More evidence, if any were needed, of the social dis-ease that seems to be the most distinctive of our national characteristics.

My attempt to dissect English dress codes has also helped me to 'get inside' a stereotype: that of English eccentricity. Under the microscope, our much-vaunted eccentricity is not quite as admirably individual, original and creative as we might wish. Most of what passes for English sartorial eccentricity turns out, on closer inspection, to be a rather sheep-like conformity. But still - we do at least appreciate and value originality, and we can take some pride in the collective eccentricity of our street-fashions.

We are at our best when we are 'in uniform' but rebelling just slightly against it, refusing to take ourselves too seriously, indulging that peculiarly English talent for self-deprecating humour. We may lack the sartorial fluency of other nations, and our dress sense may be laughable, but fortunately we have a sense of humour, so we can always laugh at ourselves.

56. Almost all of these will probably be out of date by the time you read this - some are already, in the current jargon, 'so last week', or even 'so three minutes ago' (these expressions themselves give an indication of how fast the music fashions change).

57. These are from the magazines Muzik and MixMag. The current music-based sub-cultures have a penchant for cutely misspelled words, wherever possible involving the letter 'k', as in Kamaflage, Nukleuz, old-skool, Muzik, etc. 'Old-Skool' means pre 1993/94, usually House. 'Floors' are people on the dance-floor, people who are into dancing. 'Purist swots' are anoraks, trainspotters, who instead of dancing to the music develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of every aspect of it, which they bore you with at every opportunity. 'bpm' is beats per minute. The rest is a bit of a mystery.

58. At least, this rule applies to punk and to the current black-American gangsta/hip-hop fashions, but a relatively high proportion of Goths are middle class, as were most grungers, so there are exceptions.

59. Apologies to those too young to remember Shirley Williams in her heyday, but I could not find a good contemporary example, as all female politicians now seem to dress in a rather lower/middle-middle manner - or at least I have seen none with Williams's unmistakably high-class brand of unkemptness.