Culture Shock: London

So I just got back from a 1-week book tour in the UK, taking in both London and Edinburgh. And it occurred to me that people in the UK (or in both these capitals, at least) dress with infinitely more flair, style and wonderful sluttiness than in my new home in America.

Here, 95% of the men seem to sport whatever Nike / Gap / Old Navy/ Abercrombie and Fitch has in the window this season. All of them. The same pastel-shade polo shirts. The same distressed jeans, cargo pants or shorts. The same flip-flops or deck shoes. In London and Edinburgh, the dudes mix it up a great deal more. More fitted jackets and smart shirts. More variety in trouserage and pantage. Pseudo-punk, goth, new-wave, 80s, mod, rockabilly, Eurotrash drainpipes...and that's just the heterosexuals. I felt good to be stepping out in some sharp threads, and not feeling overdressed to the point of people assuming I was either a) an estate agent, or b) gay.

And the women? Ahhh, the women. Don't get me wrong. Here, the girls look nice. Very nice. But as with the guys, it's often a kind of identikit nice, closely following fashions hawked by a precious few countrywide corporations. Plus, there's nothing truly daring or bold in what they go for. Maybe they'll go with some sexy shoes, but if so, it's with fairly ordinary jeans and a conservative, figure-swallowing top. Or if they go for a hot-looking skirt or dress, the shoes are flat, and the boobs de-emphasized.

Not so with the nymphs of London. Walking through the financial district at lunchtime is more like watching The OC than it is The Office. And that's the most conservative area. Venture in towards Soho or Regent Street, and it's a veritable eye-candyshop. And I really can't say enough about the valiant ladies of Edinburgh, who - in spite of whipping winds and subzero night-time temperature drops - still manage to exhibit a good helping of their pale, freckled beauty with the help of tasteful minidresses, strappy tops and plunging necklines. Sod France - Vive l'Ecosse, I say.

Now I know the comparison between Raleigh and London / Edinburgh might not be fair. London and Edinbrugh are far more ethnically diverse, so you might expect a more diverse range of styles and attitudes toward dress. Maybe comparing them to New York / LA might be fairer. But I think it goes beyond that. I think the omnipresent corporations dictate fashion and conformist culture in American in a way they simply cannot in the UK. There, people happily pay more and travel further in order to find something unique, and go to great pains to look different for the sake of looking different.

Modern America, I think, finds it hard to balance its legendary spirit of indepedence and individuality with its accompanying culture of convenience and mass consumerism. Hence, in the land where everyone ostensibly wants to be an individual, people end up being (or at the very least looking) far more conformist than in allegedly "socialist" states.

I realise this is rather a profound claim to make on the strength of one week's ogling. But I felt compelled to justify my observations as more than simple casual perving. It was complex, intellectual perving. And that makes it okay.