Thursday, July 14, 2005
Christopher’s Manchester Weblog - Summer 2005 - Days 3 and 4 - Fashion Updates, Cues and Hot Water
Days 3 and 4 of this summer’s trip
Thursday and Friday were relatively quiet days, so I though I would just combine them into a single entry…
British Fashion Update
Several of you wanted an update on English women’s “fashion.” As you may know, for the past several years the “in-thing” has been to show as much midriff (the bellybutton for those of us who don’t use midriff in polite conversation) as is humanly possible. I am glad to inform you that the bottom of shirts and the top of pants have risen slightly since last year! This is particularly good news since the London Times just had a very long article about the fact that waistlines among the Brits, especially women, have continued to expand. This years fashions seem to have changed to accommodate this growing problem.
However, I am sad to inform you that there is clearly a fabric shortage crisis here in the United Kingdom. There clearly is not enough fabric to go around for this change in lengthening the bottom of shirts and the top of pants. This crisis has called for radical measures. Given the clear dearth of cloth, they have added this additional fabric to cover the “bellybutton expression area” by taking it from elsewhere in the shirt. As you might have guessed…
This year’s fashion focus is to show as much of the “white meat” of the woman as possible while not yet qualifying for a “Page Three” pictorial (for those who like me had never heard of “Page 3 girls,” these are the women who pose topless on page 3 of many of the newssheets here, for no other reason than to…actually I have no reason why there are nude women staring at you opposite an article about the Tories continuing search for a new party leader).
Thursday I took my first trip to downtown since arriving, and from the time I stepped onto the train I knew that the fashion change was not an isolated one. Teen girls, college women, professionals, mothers, and literally every women who is not a Muslim it seems in this city, has adopted the “ready for breast feeding” clothing. To give you a picture, image a sharp V cut that goes down to near the diaphragm, while using as little material as possible to connect the shoulder with the rest of the top. There you go…they fixed the midriff while using not one bolt more of cloth! Those ingenious British designers.
As I walked through the city all I could think of was that Barbara Walters, who started a nationwide furor among the Lactavists (breast-feeding women who are proud of it and militant) because she commented about how inappropriate it is to feed on the plane would have passed out if she walked the streets of Manchester. Mind you that none of these women were actually feeding a baby (as you well know from previous weblogs, no one has children in this country), but they were ready for the occasion.
In case you are wondering…no, undergarments for the topside of the female body seem also to be out this year….again I can only surmise a fabric shortage. If you are wondering if this creates any temptations for a man far from his gorgeous wife for four long weeks, let me assure you. These are still English women. Temptation is not a problem, as it wasn’t when I was being blinded by the bellybuttons the past two summers.
