Priya Elan: ‘My role models were babymen who dressed as if they hated the system’
Recently, when I went to see the reunited 90s dreampop band Belly, I looked around to see possible future versions of myself. Grey-haired men wearing shapeless jeans, plaid shirts over worn T-shirts and busted-in Converse, clutching their pints of beer as if they were hot water bottles. Was this the future me? Grown-up Asos refuseniks whose mirror image version of themselves had not moved past “it fits, it looks vaguely anonymous – so it works!”?
For most of my teens and 20s I worked as a music journalist – a job that was so pro-male-arrested-development that you got sent band T-shirts in the post. My role models for style were babymen who dressed as if they hated the system so much that they were ripping convention to shreds one garment at a time (Kurt Cobain, Johnny Rotten). That, or they just wore the type of elaborate performance costume that was hard to navigate through the barriers of the tube (Prince, David Byrne).
Most of pop music is about the elixir of youth, and getting older is associated with some sort of soul death. Peter-Panning it in clothes was the only way to be; so how to reflect getting older in clothes form? It’s hard for men. To paraphrase Simon Amstell, one way to dress in a more mature way is to end up looking like an obscure French poet (dark jumpers, possibly a poloneck, smart trousers, even smarter shoes).
My look currently flits between a more mature sensibility and an innate immaturity: smart shirts worn with trousers that look clownishly wide, nautical stripes worn with pleated shorts two sizes too big (my friend calls them “balloon shorts”). It still doesn’t feel very grown-up but it feels different than it was before. And perhaps that’s the point.
Leah Harper: ‘Style-wise, I was all over the place’
If what you wear is a reflection of how you feel, never was this more true than when I was a teenager: style-wise, I was all over the place. I switched from low-rise baggy jeans and Vans to “gypsy skirts” and gladiator belts; from gaudy Tiffany’s necklaces to stripy arm socks, à la Avril.
So while the early noughties were not obviously formative for me in terms of fashion, they were a time when I developed long-lasting style habits. Spending much of my teenage years in a school uniform meant I learned to customise it to within an inch of its life. The tendency to tweak hems, let out darts, and unpick stitching is one which has stayed. It was also when I first began to scour charity shops, boot sales and eBay – largely out of determination not to show up to the lower-school disco wearing the same outfit as someone else.
Rarely, in fact, did I follow the more fleeting trends of my adolescence: my wardrobe was not full of Von Dutch hats, or sequined butterfly tops. My taste in clothes became specific, despite the skittish nature of my overall style. I often shopped with a stylish friend who insisted there was nothing one “couldn’t” wear – a rule I still think of now.
As 90s styles roll back around, I find that I now more closely resemble my pre-teen self, in button-up denim skirts, lettuce-edge T-shirts and chokers. If I ever made a conscious effort to cultivate a more mature appearance, the last of it was probably stamped out the summer we all decided to wear jelly shoes.
Morwenna Ferrier: ‘We were “artists” – we wore army coats, cut-off leggings and big boots’
This was a well-documented phase that took place in my early 20s, when I lived in Italy. The mood then (the early 00s) was anarchic, and I was probably searching for some sort of community, so I decided to dress, well, in what I would now reductively and problematically describe as communist mod-kitsch. If you want to discuss the degeneration of the left then I was a good place to start.
This was Turin, 10-odd years ago; the age of Berlusconi. It was his political apotheosis in one way, and everyone was reacting. I didn’t have the vocab but I had big, black boots. The cool kids (we didn’t use the word “hipsters” but they were certainly countercultural) had a specific look and a specific lifestyle. We were “artists”. We wore big army coats, black cut-off leggings and big boots. We dyed our hair or shaved it off (I went for the former) and went out to drink major alcohol brands in squats and listen to dubstep. The mood was very protesty – I feel like I definitely broke the law at some point, possibly occupying something, although often it felt like a phase rather than anything more serious.
Looking back, it was more than a gateway look. Before I went there, my style was very haphazard and, well, typically West Country, working on the premise that all we did was sit in fields and pretend to surf and skate. Shortys’ hoodies, baggy skate trousers, Quiksilver vests, ringer T-shirts. I went goth for about eight months and pierced various parts of my face. At university, I brought that with me and by dint of where I went to school (Glastonbury), I also wore a bit of dip-dye and shearling. That’s not to make sweeping generalisations about the West Country but these are tics we have yet to exorcise as a region.
The look is actually bang on-trend now. That whole Eastern-bloc look by way of Gosha Rubchinskiy is in the air. It also probably set the tone for how I dress now. Athleisure is the natural successor to this monotone, oversized, over-baggy, pan-gender style. This photo is me in the aftermath, struggling to acclimatise to England. Toned down but, looking at the cords, the sentiment is still there.
Will Dean: ‘This is basically how I dress now at the weekend’
I don’t think I transitioned, style-wise, from a teenager to an adult until I was about 24 and had (a) had enough money to buy some proper shirts and (b) something of an awareness of how clothes are supposed to fit.
A university-era photo submitted for this feature by the writer’s mother but declined by the writer on shame grounds saw me wearing – quite seriously, as far as I remember – an oversized shirt and tie belonging to my stepfather. It was for a “dress code: smart, £10 entry” new year’s eve party at the Church Inn in Oldham. It made me look like an eight-year-old wearing a Toys R US “Office Worker” costume.
Somehow, I think I managed to have better personal style before I went to university. As a 16- or 17-year-old, whose shifts as Pizza Hut on Manchester’s Deansgate were beginning to pay off, I developed the idea that nothing was smarter than slim-fitting Ted Baker T-shirts (bought in the sale) and an unlikely obsession with shirts and jumpers made by Italian denim brand Gas. The latter were bought in the “edgy” boutique bit in the bottom of House of Fraser. Neither looked particularly good. A long-sleeved Gas T-shirt still gives me chills, but there was at least a bit of uniformity.
The saddest fact about the picture of me here, drinking warm Heineken in terrible specs at what I presume is 2001’s Leeds festival, is that the look: baggy jumper, what look like football shorts and presumably some knackered trainers, is pretty much my current weekend attire. It’s what I wear in the garden, having moved out of London, had a kid and pretty much given up. Except now the beer is cold, and my glasses are better.
Nosheen Iqbal: ‘I’ve spent a small fortune buying a wardrobe in the style of what I wore half a lifetime ago’
Two words you don’t want to hear, it turns out, after you have spent a summer casually cultivating your back-to-school September wardrobe: “Midlife crisis?” So brutal, so concise, but then family Whatsapp groups are unforgiving places, and I have spent a small fortune recently buying up – unwittingly – a stock of T-shirts and sweatshirts in the style of stuff I probably last wore half a lifetime ago. If it has made a nod to pop culture I love, and comes at an eye-watering price, chances are I’ve picked it up in the last few months not realising that slapping Kanye, Winona, Prince, MJ or ET across my chest is the equivalent of a flash convertible at the traffic lights, roof down and dignity undone.
No matter. Big, complicated life changes being what they are means I’m OK with this simple, pared-down aesthetic. I’m considering it one part off-duty Spike Lee (white sneakers are essential) to two parts adolescent regression. To be fair, considering the wardrobe crimes I committed in my 20s (because needing to look original always trumped needing to look pretty), my teenage years were relatively alright-looking: obscure slogan tees, track tops, Carhartt, Adidas Superstars. Very athleisure, very accommodating of neurotic wardrobe rules I maintain even now: no tits, no shoulder, no thigh, no blue denim jeans since 1997.
