Sinister: Flaccid casuals

[Martin Horsfield]

Glam Heather asked "what is a casual?"

While I'd hate to export this grimly British phenomenon to the US, I
think you are owed an explanantion. Casuals emerged in the mid-80s and
were characterised by a taste for sports casual clobber: think pastel
shades, Pringle V-necks, Lyle & Scott sweaters, polo shirts, white
Taschini tracksuit tops, white Puma State trainers, Farah slacks, lots
of hair gel, wedge haircuts, crimped mullets, bum fluff, one ear ring. 

Bizarrely, rather unthreatening, effeminate look was sported by all the
hardest kids in school. Unsuprprisingly it also took hold on the
football terraces, with trips abroad to see English teams often
degenerating into smash and grabs on Italian boutiques. To an extent, it
was an oddly Thatcherite youth cult, which prided itself on the cost and
exclusivity of the gear, and it had reactionary values to boot. At my
6th form college, these people were called 'football casuals', but being
a right-minded football fan, I didn't give that label much time of day. 

The arrival of E at the end of the 80s is credited with the terraces
getting a bit more 'loved up'. The casuals stopped trying to beat the
shite out of students and, oddly, the studes made the most of this
hiatus in hostilies and started, well, dressing like casuals (Oasis were
culpable here). These days, I may occasionally sport an Ellesee ski
jumper or a Lacoste V-neck as an ironic throwback to the casual era. At
least everyone didn't dress the same back then. Someone like Damon
Albarn could be seen as ironic casual, too. Indeed for a short while, it
was suggested that the kids who frequented Blow Up, circa 1993, were
'modules' - a cross between mods and casuals. Actually, they were a
watered down, middle class, pastiche of both.

Dont you just love this stuff?


PS/In common with everyone else, I too misheard the intro to 'Stars
Of...' I thought it was "Make a new coat every day to suit your
affairs", which made a certain amount of sense.

Martin Horsfield, anthropologist
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