Fashion Brief
When I saw my tiny nephew wearing a general’s pips on one sleeve of his overcoat and a corporal’s stripes on the other, I realised that the fashion for decorating your own clothes must really have penetrated. The idea is to start with something plain like a Levi cord jacket and collect things to put on it. Old badges and cloth insignia from defunct regiments are rather sought after, or even better, American insignia or First World War stuff, but embroidered rag-trade trimmings like butterflies or flowers are fine too.
Michael Ross from the Observer art department reckons that his £4 jacket is now worth more like £30. He’s been collecting things for it since last summer, but just recently “it’s got out of hand.” His best badges come from Lee Daniel’s stall, Earlham Street, London, W1; good cloth insignia from Trader Grey’s, 28 Gordon Road, Aldershot; and embroidered flowers from The Great Gear Trading Company 85 Kings Road, SW3.
Rockers’ jackets are almost Art. Paul Arblaster has been working on his for four years to get it as terrific as it is now and though the original plain leather jacket cost 15 gn the decorations (mostly from Lewis Leathers, 124 Great Portland St, W1), have worked out at about the same again. He has horse brasses, chains, hares’ feet, and charms dangling from its pockets, and studs that come from America and Morocco. To put these on you make a hole in the leather with an awl which means thinking and measuring carefully or you’re stuck with the mistakes.
“It makes you individual, it’s not like wearing a suit like anyone else – this jacket is me and there is only one like it.” When you’ve got a jacket like Paul’s, you have to guard it apparently – “I never take it off, if I did someone would nick it for the sake of the stuff on it.” “It’s like knights,” said Dennis Mitchell, “I mean, your bike is like a charger and your jacket’s like a suit of armour. If you come off though, these studs can really hurt you.” Ken Forward has the most modern version of the jacket – sleeveless. Paul says he’d undertake commissions to stud jackets for other people, but he wasn’t about to commit himself on what it would cost.
“You couldn’t put a price on Pearly Kings’ clothes,” says Harry Tongue, the Pearly King of Tottenham whose 13-year-old son, Stephen, is naturally the Pearly Prince. This is because the necessary mother-of-pearl buttons are rare to the point of extinction these days (very reluctantly they sometimes have to cheat and fill in gaps with plastic). Proper Pearly Kings sew each button on themselves and the patterns belong to families. Stephen’s jacket was handed down to him from his grandfather – it looks magnificent and infinitely covetable.
Pearly people wear their pearly clothes for charity functions. (Since the last century, when barrow boys sold what was left at the end of a day cheaply to hospitals, they have been associated with do-gooding.) Stephen is training to be a Pearly King which means he has to go to all the charity dos and help with floats, raffles, collecting tins. He had to watch his Dad all the time and do everything he does – “he must learn the patter,” says Harry, “you’ve got to have the patter to con people for money for the charities.”
