Skanking up a staid old image

In the last few weeks, I’ve done two Burberry-related things.

One, I watched that most excellent of actresses, Helen Mirren, in a most excellent of movies, The Queen, and got to see a depiction of royals traipsing about their country "place" in Balmoral, Scotland, in gear that looked like it came straight out of Burberry: never in style, never out of style rain gear and jackets, frumpy head scarves, lots of plaid.

A day or so later, I passed by the Burberry store not far from where I live. I looked in the window and was shocked to see photos of jaded, provocative, even deranged young things in sexed up, skanked up clothing.

Say what?

So I tripped on over to their Web site, and there they were again. They’ve even got a clothing line called Prosum that seems to specialize in things skankish. (If you want to see the real deal, you need to look on the British version of the site, which includes a fashion show straight out of Elton John and Boy George - if they were a bit more daring and outre.)

I understand there’s a younger demographic they want to appeal to, but aren’t there still a lot of twenty-something posh frumps in England? When I see pictures of William and Harry at polo matches, don’t I see a lot of quilted jackets in the audience?

Not to mention that there still seem to be a boatload of conservatively garbed preppies (our version of posh frumps) in The States. (Or do they just shop at Brooks Brothers?)

Not that the royals, and the posh frumps, can’t be jaded and deranged themselves, but I was really taken aback to see the new Burberry image.

By downplaying tartans, and tarting themselves up, don’t they risk alienating their core constituency? Or is the assumption that, once Queen Elizabeth passes on, the royals will get dumped and sweater set and tweed jacket England will disappear once and for all. So, best to nab the hip young replacements.

It will be interesting to see whether this is a temporary move on Burberry’s part, and that they’ll return to Balmoral bliss once the trendoids have spun on to the next new thing. Or whether this is the wave of Burberry’s future. No more plaid lined trench coats with matching umbrella and clunky pocketbook. No more plaid wool skirts and twin sets.

Who wants to sell to old people, who just keep wearing the same thing year in, year out? Who wants to sell to young people who dress like old people?

BOR-ING.

And while I’m on the subject of skanking up a staid old image.

I’ve certainly observed for quite a while that high top Converse Chuck Taylors (a.k.a., Chucks) have been back in style for a good long time now.

When I was a kid, high top sneakers went from being acceptable to being clunky, something that the little boys wore, but that were outgrown by junior high. The cool older boys - the kind who hung around in front of Sol’s Maincrest Pharmacy in their Henley shirts and chinos - wore low cut white (and, occasionally, black) Converse shoes.

I say "boys" here because not in my wildest childhood dreams could I have imagined girls wearing Converse sneakers - high top or low cut.

We wore PF Flyers or Keds. When we were little, they were red or blue, mostly. (One time, I had a really odd-ball pair that were a red-black-and-yellow patchwork print.) When you got to be 10 years old or thereabouts, you graduated to white sneakers. Or black, if you were like me and bought the notion that black sneakers made your feet look smaller.

Now, of course, young men and women, wear Chucks in all sorts of colors. Sometimes I wish I had a pair, but I would look ridiculous in them, unlike my college roommate, Joyce the fashionista (she works for N-M) who had a pair on when I saw her a few weeks a go in Dallas. She looked adorable, but then again Joyce is someone who could put anything on and make it work. Case in point: when we got out of school, she took some ancient wool skirts of her mothers - completely out of fashion and clunky for the times (they may even have been Burberry) - and somehow combined them with scarf and blouse to look completely fabulous. In the same outfit, I would have looked like the Queen Mum’s fourth cousin, twice removed - without the feathered hat.

Ah, fashion.

But here’s the real new look for Converse Chucks:

http://www.nylonmag.com/?section=article&parid=932

Come hither, baby doll look - verging on kiddie-porn?

Ah, fashion.

Why is this clunky song of my grandmother’s youth rattling around in my head: "Darling, you are growing old. Silver threads among the gold.")

Ah, fashion.

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