August 23, 2014 |
I had a day off and I wrote down some stuff. I want to tell you not to worry, because I think, underneath, people are nice. Basically we are good. Some people are pigs, but I still think they’re reasonably good pigs. I’m in a funny place at the moment, so I’m just typing and we’ll see what happens.
Being alone on a day off
I love the sound of the washing machine and that clean smell. This sounds odd, but a washing machine doing its thing makes me feel like I have a home and it’s safe. And that whirring and going round and then splashing and then whirring and then the spinning and then the faster spinning all makes me feel like I’m sort of doing something right in life. I think it’s rooted in propriety and cleanliness and being like a mum. I think being like a mum means having a purpose and getting things right. In this silence, when the washing is off and the vacuuming is done, a mum fills the silence without even making any noise. She (me when I’m alone) gives everything at home purpose; the house has a heart. I think I’m like a mum. I’d like to be a mum some day. I think I’d be a bit like Mary Beth from Cagney & Lacey. Now I want to say something like “Mums are ace”, but that sounds like a greetings card. But they are, though.
The telly
Loose Women is on the telly. Jerry Hall has had her hair cut. This has become a debate, as some of the Loose Women (whether they’re “loose” or have loose stools or something else, they don’t mention) believe that Hall’s short hairdo “looks so much better”. They’re right. One woman with black hair – I think she used to be in sororal 1970s pop swish The Nolans – doesn’t want to take the new test being developed by scientists to see if she will develop Alzheimer’s because “she doesn’t want to know” because she’ll “worry”. Another one says she feels “unfamiliar” because she’s going through “the change”. Women can talk quite openly about “down-below” things and their worries and how they “feel”. I imagine if, on an all-male version of the show, some fella said “I feel… ”, there would be silence? Men don’t speak in this way. My friend Claudia told me about how her lovely son, who is three, visits his gran and they walk to a nearby farm. There they speak with the local farmer and she watches how her son and the farmer “talk about things very matter-of-factly”. The conversation is about what surrounds them (the pigs and horses on the farm) and how old they are and what they eat. This, of course, is how you speak to a child, but Claudia has noticed how everything is factual and ordered when two men (two males) speak. “There’s no internalising,” says Claudia. “After having a little boy, I now know how men think, how they are.” I find this absolutely fascinating. Perhaps the farmer’s wife would talk to Claudia’s son about mummy pig and daddy pig and baby pigs and how mummy pig looks after them and they all “feel” safe. I turned Loose Women off after 20 minutes – I couldn’t take any more. “Just get your muff out on national telly, dear,” I shouted. Nobody heard me.
Tesco
Supermarkets are full of “day people” – the retired, the unemployed, a few students and mums with buggies – and they operate by different rules. If I have a day off during the week, it’s a bit of an adventure to walk around the aisles with a plastic basket; for everybody else it’s a chore. So many mums look worried and I’m worried for them. There’s one old man with a calculator totting everything up as he picks up lots of dried things like Cream Crackers; he mumbles some stuff then keeps adding up. A kid in a buggy is crying and his mum placates him with sweets and her on the till who always, always smiles isn’t smiling inside. That old man is at the till now and the young kid who was crying has stopped crying because the old man has handed over his calculator and they’re busy playing. I want to cry myself at this point but I just look at my Lenor fabric conditioner. Everybody is just getting on with it. This is what happens when you’re not at work and it’s during the day. I make a promise to myself always to bear in mind that all this shit about fashion and being fabulous that I peddle is nonsense and that what really matters are people. I’ll forget this in an hour but for now I’m resolved to be nicer and more caring and to smile at people because not everybody is a pig and most people are very nice. Maybe I’ll become a nurse.
Manipulation through comedy
I’ve now forgotten what I just said about being nice. I’m watching a small man talk to two really tall men outside the bookies. I’m in the cafe looking through the window. I’m not that tall so this is fascinating. The small man is looking up and holding court. They seem to respect him, although he’s standing with his arms folded. There’s something very conspiratorial about the way he’s telling this story and everything is really animated. He’s standing with one foot on top of the other to make himself look about an inch taller and he talks with his hands a lot. Is he the father and these his two strapping lads? They’re really laughing at this story and it’s still going on. He does a trick that women do a lot to keep the audience’s attention: touch folks’ arms every so often. It’s a kind of physical cue when presenting a delicious fact, a “you’ll never guess”, or a drum roll. It’s very good. I imagine if Putin and Obama actually sat next to each other with some knitting and a cup of tea and talked through things like this we would get somewhere; now it’s just arms folded and glares across a table. They’re all really laughing now and the two tall men are walking off. I think they’re saying “Good old little John” as they laugh. You have to be a bit of a jester when you’re small; it’s a form of manipulation over other people. You control them if you make them laugh. It’s a defence and(Itals) attack. You’ve got to be that little bit quicker. Good old “little John”.
A trip into town
I can’t stay in now. I can’t breathe. If I don’t go into Soho and have a coffee or walk round the shops, the day feels wasted. Other people will read a book or visit a gallery; I just walk round shops. It’s a bit embarrassing really, but there’s always that chance that I’ll see something that will change my life. It’s normally a shirt or a coat or, more recently, shoes. But I’m very specific when I buy bits and that makes it a whole lot harder.
I’ve been thinking a lot about where we are in fashion recently and some of it makes me feel quite sick. Instagram fashion is shopping aimed at those under 23 who want to look like fashion bloggers. It’s a bright and fizzy kind of look that really, really wants to be kooky. It looks like sick outside defunct East End club BoomBox. It looks good in pictures. It sells online because it “pops”. This is dying now and a duller mood is taking its place. It’s based less on shopping and more on anonymity. This has been predictable because, after two years of Instagram fashion and Instagram pictures of the Instagram-obsessed posting shameless and endless pictures of themselves with contorted mouths, the absolute opposite is bound to come through. The Americans call it normcore: it’s normal. It’s normal looking. It’s being anonymous. It’s not “shopping”, it’s renouncing trends and not being “in” and it’s absolutely not being part of the above Instagram crowd. It’s absolutely not Instagram. That’s more womenswear.
For menswear it’s not tattoos or creatine-pumped “hench”, or side-parted and undercut hair and a beard, it’s not roll-neck cardigans. It’s not chinos shaped like carrots the colour of Alsatian shit. It’s not man make-up or plucked eyebrows or anything remotely sleeveless. It’s not reality TV. It’s not dabbing legal highs on your gums in the bog and coming back smelling like a packet of Haribo either. Go out on the town next Friday and have a look. Look at the fellas under 30; it’s none of them.
By Richard Gray
Richard Gray is the Executive Fashion Director at The Sunday Times Style
