The Battle of the Bulge

We moved to London when our daughter was two, settling somewhere in south London. We found a good day care with loving, multi-cultured child minders. Despite having lived in New York City, I still thought it was very exotic to cohabitate with people from so many different cultures.

As a traditional Spanish toddler girl, our daughter wore short dresses. We don’t believe that sack-like outfits are becoming and prefer having our little boys and girls wear clothes made to the scale of their little bodies-very much like in those old movies. And short little dresses must be worn with cute looking knickers (or braguitas), even better if hand-made by “la abuela”.

So when she started I packed nappies and an extra pair of clean knickers, as she was to go through potty training at the school. Well, the first day it was transmitted via my daughter’s culture-confused 2 year old tongue that I needed to buy knickers. So I packed two or three thinking that she must have been, well, a little behind the curve at potty time. That day I was reminded at the school to get knickers. Yeah, I got it, my daughter had told me. And then again another day, she needs to wear knickers…until my daughter said something like “Miss So and So says that I need to wear knickers like the rest of the girls because these have holes”. Oh I see. It was then that I started to grasp the magnitude of the cultural disconnect. It was knitted crochet

vs polyester blend!

After having bent to respect and even embrace so many cultural mores- language, pub rules, dress codes- those knickers became my battle-worth-fighting-for cause.  After all they were just grandmum’s knitted crochet knickers and they did their job just fine. In the end of course I succumbed to the high street and bought what I was told, more socially acceptable but not as cute.

And just like that my fashion/culture immersion started…

Brit men vs Brit women?

Why is it that British men have a good -very good I would say- sense of fashion regardless of their urban tribe, but British women just don't seem to get it?

Sorry, pretty harsh and probably not a good start but I will explain myself (although I am not counting on getting a clapping crowd). 

I have always been amazed at those women in the tube, mostly Anglosaxon looking, not wearing tights or socks in the freezing weather, open seams with loose threads hanging down the back of their skirts, or those vomit- yellow coloured scarves. And what about the poor little kids wearing clothes three or four sizes too big, their hair never having seen a comb, dressed in the same vomit- yellow colour as their mums?

So I found myself developing a hypothesis which I secretely hoped would end up being a big pile of prejudice-based rubbish.  But it is with a heavy heart that I have to admit that it has turned into a very reliable theory:

"British women do not have much style"

If you go to London, do this little experiment: visit the well displayed exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, "Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950"  and do the same with "Valentino: Master of Couture" at Somerset House. And make up your own mind.

Or, if you want to do an easier, cheaper and more contemporary exercise, check out Topshop on Oxford Street and afterwards, Zara on Regent Street. Enough said