Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under The Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜.

Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone.

So 安澜, usually you would propose the topic, today let me propose one.

Okay, that sounds rather dangerous.

I think it's something that you do have some knowledge of, not a lot, but some knowledge of.

Okay.

Let's talk about fashion and clothing in the UK.

You are right. I don't have much knowledge on that at all.

But I can vouch for 安澜, I think he's got a pretty good sense of style.

Oh, thank you.

Now first things first, when people think of your fashion or clothing in the UK, I think perhaps a lot of our Chinese listeners would have certain stereotypes from old movies, period dramas, like Downtown Abbey for example.

Yeah, there's a lot… I've noticed as well like for example when I buy clothes on 淘宝, it would say things like London style or kind of English style clothes, and I look at them and think well, yes, they were English style clothes but when my grandad was alive.

I see, well, but retro, vintage.

So first things first, let's start with the fact that you don't really have “national dress”. Right？Like for us, you think about 旗袍 or for Japanese you think about kimono.

Yeah, UK doesn't really have a national dress. Generally, the clothes that we wear are very similar to the clothes that worn in other parts of Europe, and also in America.

Did you guys invent like suit就整个那种西服套装是…

Yeah, we did.

So obviously everyone knows a suit and many of our listeners probably own maybe one or two if not more suits.

Originally it was a British invention, it was invented in the 18th century because before then people would dress in very colorful clothes, very intricate clothes you know that required lots layers, but actually a really famous British dandy called “Beau” Brummel invented a suit where the focus was it's gotta be simple, elegant, and how you show how rich you are or how wealthy you are is by the use of the fabric, it’s by the use of the quality.

I see, the suit although nowadays we probably think I don't want to wear a suit but actually was invented as a simplified version to make things simple.

Yeah. exactly. Because before then people just dress in blink, they just have lots of gold, silver.

But the whole idea of a suit was that a man should dress simply and elegantly. And that was the whole idea.

When you say people, you mean rich people.

Oh, yeah. pretty much.

I thought it's easier for us to put it in like a logical order. Let's divide first of all, let's divide the clothes we're gonna talk about in these 2 episodes into categories based on dress code, so you have formal wear.

Yeah. And smart casual.

Smart casual, it means not so formal but still kind of formal.

Yeah. Casual and loungewear.

We're gonna talk about loungewear later. It's just basically more casual than casual.

So let's start with formal. Obviously, a lot can be said about formal dress, formal wear, especially when you think about upper class, you know the sort of crème de la crème of the society.

Yeah.

But can I just ask because most people would probably just think oh suit, suit is formal enough, but you can go higher than that.

You can go much higher than a suit. There are actually two different types of suit. You have Morning Dress and Black Tie.

Morning dress is not... dress is not just for women, is it？

No, we just call it morning dress.

As in morning clothes.

Yeah, so you have a morning coat and that is the coat with tails.

噢，就是燕尾服, 英文里不是叫tuxedo吗？

No, actually, the Chinese translation is wrong. A tuxedo doesn't have tails.

Oh, so tuxedo does not have tails.

No.

But what did you just say, morning coat.

A morning coat, and you would have a waistcoat, stiff collar, grey striped trousers.

Ok, a lot of concepts. So morning coat就是这种带尾巴的, 就是真正的带燕尾的这样的一个上装, 然后waistcoat是马甲, stiff collar就是领子是硬的竖领, and then grey striped trousers, striped就是有竖纹这种and then do they wear a tie or bow tie or...?

With morning dress, you generally wear a cravat.

A cravat is…对, 我记得这个词这个叫领巾, 我有一次去参加朋友的婚礼, 我看见过他们戴这个东西

Yeah, so cravat is basically like a much wider tie, and then you would finish it all off with a top hat.

One of those tall ones?

One of the tall ones.

Wow.

Now this is only really worn for very special occasions. We call it morning dress because it's for special occasions during the day, so for example, like weddings.

That's why you have evening dress, like晚礼服, 叫evening dress. So this morning dress is for like wedding or maybe like some religious thing, like baptism.

Or for example if there's a ceremony at the Royal Palace, for example, you're given a medal, you would wear morning dress.

So it’s normal for everybody.

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, I think most people老百姓一般除了婚礼之外, 不太有机会去穿 morning dress, even for wedding some people wouldn't go that far.

Yeah, even for wedding, sometimes it's seen as a bit too formal. And most people in the UK I would say they don't actually own morning dress.

They probably rent.

They rent it.

Black tie, I actually know. So black tie is less formal than morning dress situation.

Yeah, black tie is you have a dinner jacket, white dress shirt, cuff links, and you have a cummerbund.

Again, let me go through the list. Dinner jacket, I often see this word, but it's really weird. It's like dinner jacket, I assume the first time I saw it, I just assumed is something you wear to dinner, but it's just a formal jacket.

It's just a formal jacket.

No tails.

No tails, and normally the lapels are slightly shiny as well.

就是翻领的这块它可能有点亮亮的那种感觉, 有点感觉更加正式.

And white dress shirt, dress shirt is different from your normal shirt. 就我每天穿那种普通的衬衫不一样, dress shirt它是要系袖扣的. Cuff links要翻过来系袖扣, if you guys have dress shirts you would know. Yeah. And cummerbund is just a... like a wider belt kind of thing.

Yeah. It's a wider belt, it’s really just to solve... hide your stomach, to be honest.

It's decorative.

Yes, because if you're wearing black tie, generally you don't wear an actual belt with it, you'd actually wear suspenders.

对的, 它有吊裤带suspenders, 然后把你的裤子这样吊起来, 就你不用系那belt, 所以你有一个cummerbund是一个基本上装饰性的东西, 像腰封一样的东西.

Yeah, exactly just to sort of hide your belly a little bit.

I've seen pictures of you in a black tie situation.

Yeah. I do have a black tie suit. I normally wear a bow tie with it, but yeah I do, because I don't really like black tie, it is not very comfortable.

I don't think those are meant to make you feel comfortable.

No, they're not.

Ok. let's say not normal, let's just say for ordinary folks, it's very rare that you would have black tie or morning dress scenarios.

Yes, it’s only if I go to like special events like special dinners for example, I would wear that.

Very formal banquets, but smart casual is a lot of people's style especially if you're in certain fields of work.

Yeah. Smart casual just normally means shirt, trousers, shoes. But there are some particular British items of clothing or types of clothes. That's really sort of typified what smart casual is, first of all is tweed.

Tweed这个词我还真知道就是粗花呢. It's from Scotland, right？

It's from Scotland. Tweed is a very heavy material and it's actually meant as protection from harsh weather. And in the 19th century became very popular with the upper class because they would do things like go shooting, they'll go into the countryside.

Oh, like hunting gear.

Yeah, it's become associated with agriculture and farming.

But nowadays people do wear it for stylistic reasons.

It's become popular in the city too. But tweed always has this very kind of countryside feel to it or it has a academic feel to it.

Oh, yes. Professors wear their tweed jacket and their elbow patches.

Yeah, that is a stereotype, that is a stereotype.

安澜 for you, if you see someone wearing tweed, what is your association, academic?

It depends where I see it. If they're sort of quite skinny, quite pale, then I might think ok academic, but if they're normally so like bigger, less pale, then I might think maybe like farmer or someone who lives in the countryside.

Maybe not farmer, maybe it’s someone who owns a big house in the countryside

Could be.

Yeah, there's also something that's basically perfected by Burberry, trench coat.

Yes, the trench coat.

叫战壕风衣我记得它现在被翻译成, it's wore in trench or trench in the war.

Yeah, so it's called a trench coat because originally it was designed for officers in the World War I by Burberry. So The idea it was a very long coat that would be able to deal with the mud and also the rain as well, but it became very popular.

Hang on a minute. So the famous Burberry trench coat was originally what they designed for the officers to fight in a war.

It was part of the uniform.

I see, pretty stylish uniform.

Exactly. And only now it's become very popular and it can sell for thousands and thousands of Pounds.

Yeah, I'm just too short and curvy for trench coat. I don't look good in trench coats. Do you own one?

I don't own one, but I do actually want to buy one. I do like trench coats.

I mean you have the height for it.

And I guess the next one you can really talk about when it comes to smart casual is blazer.

Oh, blazer, it’s a type of jacket, right? It's just a more formal jacket.

It is just a slightly more formal jackets, it's not as formal as a suit jacket, but you can wear it over just like maybe even a T-shirt or you can wear with jeans.

现在好像中文我看到网上就把它翻译成布雷泽夹克, 就是那种怎么说比一般那种特别casual的夹克要更加正式一点, 基本上你可以在里面穿个衬衫, 然后再穿一条比较smart的牛仔裤, 你就也可以去一些比较好的场合.

Blazer if you wear it well and style it well, you can actually look pretty smart or pretty formal.

This is the type of thing that I would normally wear