This Full Moon post is lighthearted. That feels like a risk these days, as if I’m unable to read the room—and by ‘room’ I mean the news of atrocity, genocide and war going on, and the climate crisis. I’m disoriented by it all. I’ve also recently been turned inside out by one of the worse flares of my life. 

When I surface from a flare, the first thing I think about is getting dressed. After having lived in joggers and my dressing gown for days, I want to adorn myself as a way of coming back to the world. 

Missives from the Verge with Allyson Shaw is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What we wear is a signal to others. I used to love reading the signals of others, the language of clothing. This post from 2007, seventeen years ago, is about my obsession with street leuks. Street fashion, as the most accessible form of self-expression, has always interested me. 

I loved putting together outfits of second hand clothing, perpetually indulging different obsessions—be it colour, texture or vibe. In the 90s I supplemented my income lecturing part time at the University by selling vintage clothing and jewellery online. (I still sell vintage jewellery to supplement my writing income! This is my online shop, Feral Strumpet.)

I live on a cosmopolitan island—a place of contractions and freedoms. I could wear whatever the hell I wanted and no one would even bat an eye. Kirkwall, where I live, is bustling in the summer—a tourist hub, and in the winter, well, no one cares about anything but the weather. It’s a fact that any outfit has to survive whatever Orkney throws at it and needs to work with my disability.  I live in warm layers, trainers and gortex—ensembles that would have made my younger self—a bit of a snob—cringe.

The other day I was walking in a storm along the Peerie Sea, or “little sea” by my house. The only other soul walking was an old woman with a bright red walking stick and even brighter pink anorak. She stopped me—her blue eyes glowing as if she had applied pink liner—but I think it was just her fey presence—and conspired that we two were the only ones brave enough to see the storm through properly. Once I saw an elegant man wearing an Issey Miyake tweed whilst shopping for cabbage at the Tesco. Shops on the high street sell colourful Fair Isle jumpers and other knitwear printed with rune script. Kirkwall, it must be said, is a cool place. My ‘Street Fashion of Kirkwall’ would amaze you, but it would be so sporadic that both you and I would forget it was a thing I was doing. 

I still lay my ‘outfits’ out in the morning, just like I have done for the last forty years. In the smallest of ways, this ritual orders my place in the universe. Location has played a role in my choices. Sometimes I wonder what I would wear if I lived in an urban centre, but gentrification has pushed me far beyond that possibility. It’s interesting to look back on this blog post from 2007 about London street fashion, 17 years on, from the tranquility and practicality of Kirkwall.  

Track Suit City

When I first came to London 8 years ago, the street fashion excited me. Already the 80’s revival was making a quirky come-back, and the cyberdog candy-borg look was in full swing on the streets of Camden.

Now, London street fashion seems nowhere. Maybe I am just older and more jaded? Or perhaps we can blame it all on the demise of rave culture, or the banning of mushrooms as a harbinger of grim new times. Or blame sky-rocketing rents that drive out creatives. Who knows.

Just to make sure it wasn’t my own pessimism, I sought out some London Street Fashion blogs. Most outfits featured on London Street Fashion [now defunct] are a combination of grey, brown, black or khaki. All oversized, ripped, drooping, hooded. Camo overload! Basically ugly as hell. The editors clearly have a bent against things femme or colourful. Depressingly, this does seem represent what a lot of people are wearing in London.

However, I then found Style Scout, [defunct as of 2016] which reflects the London style I actually admire– the demure, the whimsical and subtly wacky. I recognised a shop girl from Carnaby Street featured there in her signature pink lipstick and pearls.

But on the whole, London is not very inspiring, street-fashion-wise. I was more impressed with Glaswegian style: girls with BIBA-black eyes and vintage tweeds, huge rhinestone brooches– men in fitted trousers and elaborate scarves. There are a few flashes of style I see on the street, mainly in the Sikh community here in Southhall– with the mixing of prints, textures and traditions. Or the art school girls mixing it up in Hackney, or a stray man on the tube wearing some Saville Row masterpiece– but mostly people are stuck wearing the disposable crap from Primark, etc., and nobody’s trying anything new or different. 

I’ve come to accept that most of London fashion is decidedly top down–window shopping at Liberty may get the blood going, but it’s out of reach of most Londoners. Let’s face it, by the time most of us have paid rent there’s little left for even modest indulgences, much less playful risks. On the whole, the city seems dispirited, and fashion is a barometer of this (One can trace the takeover of San Francisco by dot-com-ers, as well as the dot-bomb through street fashion, but I digress).

I am of course looking at it all from the bottom up. I live in W7, a post code of immigrants and labourers, not trust fund art students and socialites. London’s working poor have a strong tradition of defiant style, but the look on the street at present is nowhere.

Helsinki, with its playful absurdities, puts London to shame. [This street fashion blog is still going—twenty years on! It will make you want to get dressed.]

ADDENDUM: 

NYC Looks is alive and kicking: https://nyc-looks.com/post/745029034750115840/tivoni-28

Missives from the Verge with Allyson Shaw is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.