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Anyone else noted the sartorial change?

It’s all jackets and open necked shirts now Jezzbollah is on the rampage. Rather than the boring suits and silk ties of old style accounting?

30 thoughts on “Anyone else noted the sartorial change?”

  1. Yes, I noticed that during the Murph interview. I never liked that even on the Top Gear presenters, it smacks of mid-life crisis and a desperate attempt to appear cool. I recall Peter Jones’ frequent comments on the early seasons of Dragons’ Den along the lines of:

    “If you can’t even be bothered to put on a suit and tie when you come here to ask for my money, why should I take you seriously?”

  2. Doing away with ties and thus saving millions of people the expense of having to maintain a collection of expensive silk scarfs is the greatest contribution to economic stimulus that these people could ever come up with. Although they would never realise this, and if pointed out would no doubt make tie purchases compulsory in order to circulate more spending.

  3. A shame really because in the City one of the quickest ways to determine the ability of the people you met was by the expensiveness of their dress, and somebody who turned up every day in a pristine $150 Hermes tie was probab

  4. A shame really because in the City one of the quickest ways to determine the ability of the people you met was by the expensiveness of their dress, and somebody who turned up every day in a pristine $150 Hermes tie was probably making big bonuses.

  5. Not a sartorial choice – it’s just that his neck was getting too fat for him to do up the top button.

    If you want evidence of sartorial branding, then look at Owen Jones, the Val Doonican of lefty pranksters.

  6. Like many fashions it depends on who is wearing it, and how much effort they have gone to to look smart. A fine suit on a fit body can look very good, with or without a tie. But a cheap suit that looks like it’s two sizes too big for you can look really bad. Or you could like Tom Watson…a gorilla wearing a suit.

    That said most politicians of the suit and tie kind annoy the shit out of me because they can’t seem to put the damn tie on straight and symmetrical.

  7. The Meissen Bison

    Love that description of Owen Jones. I prefer to call him an ‘accessory to mass murder’ on account of his support for the Venezuelan regime but it does lack the style of your description…..

  8. In Jezbollah, John McDonnell is an exception. He is always wearing a suit and tie.

    Owen Jones, by contrast, often wears shirts that are unironed.

  9. Tim Newman,

    “A scruffy student look is fine if you’ve already invented Facebook.”

    It’s about first impressions, and people’s first impression of Facebook is the website, not the guy who runs it. You use it, trust it, don’t care what the owner looks like.

    Plus, Facebook is about people sharing amusing photographs of cats that can’t spell and what they’re having for lunch. If they fuck up, it’s off to Google+ or Twitter to do the thing. If you work in the serious end of the software industry, like mortgage software or drug testing software, you meet clients wearing a suit. These people really want to know that you aren’t going to fuck up their data. So you do all you can to show that you’re serious. Not wearing a suit might make people question that.

    The public is the same – running a country, especially all the basic stuff like law and order and defence, is a serious business. You don’t want a twat in charge of that stuff. You want someone serious who will do it at least reasonably well. And wearing a good suit is a signal of being serious.

  10. Leftist scum have amongst them the “Derek Hatton” strain–ie a few who go with the wearing of sharp(ish) suits. Serwotka is another twat cut from this same cloth.

  11. Crazed Weevil,

    “Like many fashions it depends on who is wearing it, and how much effort they have gone to to look smart. A fine suit on a fit body can look very good, with or without a tie. But a cheap suit that looks like it’s two sizes too big for you can look really bad. Or you could like Tom Watson…a gorilla wearing a suit.”

    The problem with Tom Watson is that he doesn’t buy good suits. I’m his build and I get compliments wearing a suit. I get women smiling at me more on the train. You just have to go to the right places and spend a little more.

  12. Sorry,but whenever I’m confronted by the whistle & neck ornament my immediate reaction is “low grade crook”. I prefer honest criminals.
    £150 Hermes tie?
    We know what your selling &we ain’t buying.

  13. Anon

    Yep, it’s who and what your clients or customers are or expect, as always – they pay the bills.

    Which is exactly what Tim is pointing our in the title – Jester is the “client”.

  14. Witchsmeller Pursuivant

    Does anyone else remember when this blog used to concentrate on politics, rather than what politicians wear, what songs politicians sing, and who politicians consensually fuck? Even Tim’s obsession with the dork Murphy is more interesting than this.

  15. WP: you’ve not been reading this blog for long. It’s always been interested in tittle-tattle and amusing gossip. Got to give the punters what they want.

  16. I’ve heard apocryphal stories of successful salesman not taking their Ferraris to meet clients, on the grounds they would baulk at how much of a cut of the deal he would be getting.

    As for Zuck there is a long standing tradition of American software companies being all casual dress. It’s been that way for decades. Smart is a pair of chinos and a polo neck, and that goes all the way to the top of the company. The exception is the salesmen, but if Zuck turns up in a suit he loses that I’m a geek, and everyone knows geeks do the best software image that all American software companies try to portray.

  17. Absolutely superb line from H.Rifkind in the speccie;

    “Corbyn and John McDonnell, with a combined age of 130, look like a pair of plain-clothes coppers who have slept in their car”

  18. GlenDorran

    “Does anyone else think Murph’s mannerisms are like a watered-down David Starkey?”

    Absolutely spot on! I too noticed this a while ago when I used to read and post on Murphy’s blog (before the psychopathy started to take hold). And I asked him right out if he thought he sounded like David Starkey on his blog and he said he had not noticed the similarity.

  19. Best description of Corbyn yet, courtesy of Alan Carr:

    “He looks like an angry nudist who’s been told to put his clothes on”

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