|
A tricky question … but there's a surefire solution; plus are waistcoats ever a good look? Now that it's nearly Christmas, am I allowed to ask you what I should get my fashion-conscious 14-year-old niece for Christmas? Derek, email Derek, you're talking to someone who lives near a small park that has been decorated with fake ivy and miniature Santas since September, so your anxiety about holiday timing, while sweet, is unnecessary. Being in America during the holiday season is a little like eating meals with my grandparents: just as all meals with my grandparents would happen about four hours earlier than they would for the rest of the world, so the holidays here begin about three months in advance of their calendar dates. So yes, you may ask. Without wishing to cast aspersions on that truly holiest of holy rituals during the Yuletide months, the gift guide, I've never been entirely sold on this idea of getting advice from strangers on what to buy for one's relatives. Look, I like looking at gift guides in magazines as much as the next materialistic capitalist dog who can spend hours down the netaporter.com hole, scrolling through dress after dress after dress after dress after … Wait, what happened? Sorry, I think I just hypnotised myself. My point is do all uncles really want the same present? Do all girlfriends? All 14-year-old fashion conscious nieces? This is what magazine gift guides seem to suggest. Having once worked on this newspaper's fashion desk, I always know it's July when I start getting deluged with emails from fashion PR companies asking if they can "help" me compile the gift guide. Readers, you would only weep – maybe with pity, maybe with laughter – if you knew the amount of effort fashion PRs put into getting their clients into magazine gift guides. If you ever meet a fashion PR, whisper the words "gift guide" to them and watch them spontaneously combust with excitement. As I have not been so fortunate as to meet your niece, Derek, I doubt if my advice would be of much cop, really. But seeing as you asked in such a gratifyingly timorous manner, I'll give you a three word clue: Topshop gift certificate. There's your entire gift guide in under half a sentence. What do you think about waistcoats for men? Adam, London Well, Adam, London, what we have here is a question of balance. Waistcoats on men, rather like fringes on women, or hats on both men and women, are something of an affectation, and that, in and of itself, is not a criticism. Without fashion affectations, we'd all just be human embodiments of the beige section of Next. I've always been a great fan of waistcoats on men (as opposed to on women, as modelled by everyone who wanted to look like Sienna Miller in 2007. That is a look that should, and one day will, be illegal.) Without wishing to come across like Max Hastings – although, who am I kidding? It is my daily, nay, hourly intention to be mistaken for him – it saddens me that we live in a sad modern age in which any man who wears anything more effortful than a Superdry T-shirt, a pair of old Levi's and brown trainers is viewed with suspicion as a pretentious attention-seeker. I was recently at a party where not a single man wore a button-down shirt – not a single one! Either standards are slipping faster than I thought or I go to bad parties. Both, probably. In any case, gentlemen, I don't want to get a reputation for being a shirt dictator – although, again, who am I kidding? Etc etc – but T-shirts are rubbish. T-shirts = arrested adolescence. Button-down shirts = dapper manly phwoarness and, yes, that is the technical fashion term. Which brings us back to the waistcoat. As I said, a good waistcoat will always be welcome in my homestead. Worn with a nice button-down shirt and a pair of trousers that do not match the waistcoat (very key point, that) and, yes, you might even be allowed to have a perch on my sofa (it's a pretty baller sofa – feel the honour.) But one does have to treat the waistcoat with care. What I'm saying is, don't get carried away and jazz it up with a billowy shirt, say, or – ugh – cowboy boots (which, too, will one day be made illegal for anyone who isn't an actual cowboy) or you will have to spend the rest of the day fending off requests to break into a rendition of Come On, Eileen. So, to sum up, yes, break out the waistcoat, but perhaps leave the fiddle in the case. You're already sufficiently accessorised, dear boy. • Post your questions to Hadley Freeman, Ask Hadley, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Hadley Freeman
guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
{loadposition user38} source:
source: |
