I AM indebted to the fashion section of the Independent on Sunday for publishing this remarkable story about a new set of chic clothing based on the apparel of renowned fellwalker Alfred Wainwright. This is exactly what the world has been waiting for.
Come winter, with rain lashing down from the Pennines and gales howling in from the North Sea, we Northern blokes can shuffle between pubs wearing tweed jackets, heavy-gauge corduroy trousers and woolly mufflers while the girls shiver semi-naked smoking tabs in doorways. Newcastle’s Bigg Market will be transformed overnight. No more tight T-shirts, bare arms and frost-rimed tattoos. We’ll all be wearing chunky sweaters with seaboot socks tucked in our boots.
According to the IoS:
Debenhams says sales of its chunky walking socks are up 15 per cent; walking trousers up 148 per cent; flat caps up by 180 per cent; walking boots by 30 per cent and Fair Isle knits by 25 per cent over the past two years.
Great. Not so sure about the picture though. It’s not so much Alfred Wainwright as 1930s make-do-and-mend, times of austerity, hand-me-down, backs-to-the-wall, lean times, emergency measures, factory lock-out, love on the dole, National Government, scary deficit, were-all-in-this-together-except-the-rich, hunger-march chic.
Fashion experts say that next year’s big theme will be the soup kitchen look. Actually, they don’t. I just made that up. But watch this space to see if I’m wrong.
