At least two style magazines have recently run skinhead-inspired spreads. The reason may be designer Raf Simons' recent hook-up with Fred Perry, or it may be something more fundamental. If you're able to uncouple the skinhead look from its more unsavoury connotations, the appeal is obvious. It's sharp - particularly in its initial, Jamaican-inspired tonic suit look - hard-wearing and affordable. Also, the skinhead's excellent taste and eye for good design should be noted. Literally every item of required clothing is a design classic: Dr Martens, Levi's 501s, Fred Perry, Harrington.
You can't imagine there'll be much rejoicing among skinheads that the look has been deemed hip once more: it disdains fashion and does its best to repel outsiders. Look on the web and you'll find details of bafflingly arcane skinhead dress codes. I like the ones concerning the colour of your Dr Marten laces. If you wear red ones, it can mean you are a Nazi, or perhaps a communist - no room for terrible confusion and violence there. Meanwhile, gay skinheads, I quail to inform you, may construe red laces as a signal that you enjoy being on the receiving end of an unmentionable sexual activity: suffice to say, if you want to avoid the risk of ending your evening playing the role of Sooty to some vast, shaven-headed Matthew Corbett, it's probably best not to bother.
Anyone who was ever on the receiving end of an Air Wair shoeing may beg to differ, but there's something appealing, almost quaint, about skinheads in the age of the hoodie - a reminder of a distant, more gentlemanly era when even the local thug found it incumbent to dress up a bit, before vigorously divesting you of your teeth.
