A French Connection With Manchester's Fashion

by Yani Khezzar on 16.04.09

A slender silhouette crowned with a bowler hat, hobbling with grace and elegance on the soaked pavement, apparelled in a slim and sober dark suit matched with a twinkling briefcase and polished shoes. This is the typical and so british stereotype that French people from Paris, like me, would describe to you if you asked them, “What is the english look ?” Clichéd, isn’t it ?

Just like you won’t come across many striped t-shirts and garlic necklaces in the streets of Paris, this stereotyped british engraving, gently caricatured by the Monty Pythons in their “Ministry of Silly Walks”, is quite simplistic.

Therefore, in order to genuinely discover the reality of fashion nowadays on this quirky island of yours, I figured that nothing would be better than an infield observation and this is what I’ve done. Everywhere from the streets to the clubs and bars, through the pubs, restaurants and shops, in the day, in the night, snooping with the intention of detecting the specifics in the way English young people dress.
The main asset of a Parisian outlook on this is my outsiders point of view, because even when you are aware of the fashion trends in your country it is hard to discern the singularity of an English sense of fashion.
Now let’s see how you dress you cheeky Mancunians and to do this we need to understand how clothing became what it is now. So here is the recipe:

Firstly thanks to its (very) rainy weather,there was a massive influx of Flemish weavers in Manchester during the fourteenth century to grow cotton. Then during the Industrial Revolution Manchester expanded tremendously trough mass textile production and clothing became a vital element of Mancunian life.
Now you add to this textile heritage the colossal influence of rock music in British culture since The Beatles and the punk movement; you put these two ingredients in a traditional porcelain cup of tea, cover it and shake it on the beat of the best Madchester anthems that excited the Hacienda’s epileptic crowd.
Et voilà ! The result would be a fizzy and flashy drink glowing in the night and tasting like a sweet alcopop, and this, is Manchester’s fashion.

Young people in Paris usually wear the same outfit in the day and in the night. In Paris the day outfit looks classy and elegant because it will be used in the night as well, where it will look classic and sober. The reason is that the nightlife culture is not the same as the crazy and hectic british nightclub, the effect of which is a kind of dual fashion personality : people wear two outfits per day.
One for the broad daylight and another especially chosen for the night. In Manchester the day outfit may look slack and casual, because it is for the day and there is no shame in walking around wrapped in a leather jacket, with grey jogging pants inside light brown Ugg boots.

At nightfall, the dynamics shift to sharp heel shoes, short sexy skirts and sophisticated make-up. The main characteristic of the English girls here is that they are daring. There are no inhibitions, while French girls often try to hide their silhouette under layers of loose fitting clothes. There is nowhere else but in England where you can see girls braving the frozen winter rain with naked legs, hiding courageously underneath a doll size handbag.

Another kind of extravagance is palpable in the streets; the proliferation of shops where you can actually buy pieces of clothes for a ridiculous price (you know the one I mean) has a humongous influence on Manchester’s sense of fashion. These shops provoke a frenetic consumption of clothes in an abounding and unbridled style. As a result the street becomes a creative melting pot. It mixes the influences taken from famous icons (Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Nicole Ritchie who brought the Ugg boots from the australian surfer beaches), indie subculture (Oasis haircut, skinny jeans, vintage shops) and a modern hint of dandyism supported by Jeffery West shoes embodying this spirit with its so meaningful creed: “Decadence, Sleaze and Excess”.
It is this unique and irreverent creativity, as well as a proper fashion awareness, that bring into England’s clothes the colours missing in its sky.

This excentricity makes the British fashion as hard to export as mint sauce or meat pies, but after all that might be what makes it so original and unique,
is it not ?