Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are no Brando and Dean
|
Version 0 of 1. Val Walsh has got it wrong about men’s dress in the 1950s (Letters, 1 April). In the 50s, manly dress was a made-to-measure, two- or three-piece suit, complete with collar and tie. Casual dress was a sports jacket or blazer and smartly creased trousers. In the mid 50s young men wore Teddy-boy suits with drainpipe trousers, drape jackets and fancy waistcoats. (My brother used to design his own waistcoats.) After seeing Marlon Brando and James Dean, some wore black leather jackets and jeans. Later in the decade the style changed to short high-lapel jackets known as bum-freezers, cuffless trousers and winklepicker shoes. Nobody dressed like Jeremy Corbyn. He would not have been allowed in any dance hall without a tie. In any case Corbyn was a 60s man and we know what peacocks they were. So he is a badly dressed man in any decade.Bill MacinnesWorthing • What pretentious flannel Val Walsh writes in her comments on Hadley Freeman’s amusingly observed G2 Style Q&A (29 March). Along with other older men, this 76-year-old finds that his clothes hang loosely as his frame shrinks more quickly than his clothes wear out. Are we to be mocked for our parsimony in not rushing to keep up with fashion, or indeed, in some cases, no doubt, for the poverty that will hold some back from seeking to please the eye of the cultural commentator?Mike GallacherWhitchurch, Shropshire • There I was, sitting reading your piece about Prince Philip, clad in my “loose, shapeless, billowy and generally dull” old man’s duds, and thinking this year’s April fool’s joke was a bit of a disappointment. Then I read the letter from “Val Walsh”. Brilliant! You just made this old hetero-patriarchal hegemonic masculine person’s day.Bev LittlewoodRichmond, Surrey • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |