Casuals

  Seeing as I'm a Septic I'm definitey not a "casual" per se(no matter who may tell you, we don't have a casuals culture here), but am a semi-retired, possibly ex-skinhead, maybe a skinhead in a casual phase.  I dig my soccer/football, though more of a hockey head.  Scuffles at hockey games are a blast.  Like my Barbour, Adidas, 6876, CP, yes some Stone Island, Cabourn, etc., and yeah, pretty much dig 'working class style' so to speak.  Just got bored with DM's, flight jackets, and Freds/Bens.

Hi RedCasual, good name . Yeh think you're right about the lack of 'casuals' and agree with what you said in another post about the racist, nationalist and assorted dickhead EDL types. I think when you're not in a scene or a tight knit group there is a lot of cross over with all these 'scenes'. I mean I never thought of myself as a casual and never was, rarely went to the football for instance but I liked to wear Adidas country, a pair of Lee/Levi's and a football shirt and or a windbreaker style jacket. Having said this this would have been in the 90's considering I'm only in my late 20's. So no Tacchini or Fila and all that stuff from the 80's (though did have some Ellesse trainers at some point). Also, I get the impression Tacchini is a bit 'cheap' looking plus I think the general influences from the US and of Manchester ('baggy'), house music, 'indie' and then grunge all got mixed up together or at least quickly followed each other. To put it another way I was wearing Doc Martens at school when I was about 13/14, then more a football terrace look and then baggy/'indie' stuff - loose fitting, maybe boot cut jeans, followed by a smarter period of YSL polo shirts, roll neck or shirt, dark jeans or trousers, leather jacket and shoes. Maybe if you miss a time period or aren't directly in a scene you tend to mix things up a bit or in other words you're clueless . Maybe it has a lot more to with age as well?

Anyway as far as working class fashion goes I think it's all bollocks, playing to the choir as they say but class is a relation to production and ownership not what fucking trousers you wear. Fashions and scenes in my opinion are all fads (and sometimes heavily artificial - by PR, monopolies, media etc) and last for a short period of time and only concern a minority, they also get mythologized and romanticized. Clothes have more to do with what you can afford and what is available. I also think that despite some people saying skins, punks or whoever were left wing (perhaps the left wing of capital) and somehow radical is false. To dress in a uniformed way, including rules informal or strict and to adhere to a "way of life" or always be a 'punk' or 'insert scene' is deeply conservative and could imo be a form of false consciousness. Like John Lydon says, they (Sex Pistols) weren't punks. Yes they or maybe just him had an attitude or personal philosophy (which I like, but also think his understanding of class is shit) but clothing wise they wore what they had and didn't have any money to wear anything else (their knobhead manager might have tried to influence them or market it as 'a look' or whatever) and obviously a certain fad did come out of that period. How much of it was organic is questionable. It seems to me there was a lot of small business opportunities just like there was with 'Madchester' and the 'baggy scene' - Joe Bloggs etc. The 'spirit' of "do it yourself" etc can be liberating and emancipating to an extent but it can be driven not just by say a social form of anarchism but a strong dose of individualism and opportunism. 

To go back to your other post in the skinheads thread yes I also agree that right wing workers are anti-working class or anti-proletarian. Acting against their own and class interests etc you can be a worker and anti-working class.

As it goes I've probably got more terrace style clothing now due to being able to afford it (who's got any money when they're a kid?) lots of Adidas (Originals mostly) track tops, Levi's and classic trainers (Super Samba, Samoa, Reebok Classics, Cortez). Was never into expensive designer stuff cos 1. couldn't afford it and 2. thought it either looked shit or those who wore it were cunts.

That's my rambling take anyway (I've tried to make this more readable but when I do I just add new bits so I'll stop there). Come to think of it re-reading what you said I was probably a degenerated casual