Money talks
“I recently paid £12togeta packet of crisps delivered to my house at 10pm because of a major pregnancy craving. A £1 packet of Pipers… on Deliveroo. I just really needed them.” Fashion designer Rejina Pyo (pictured), quoted in the Evening Standard
“[The BBC] is its own worst enemy. I think they should start again. I don’t think the licence fee can survive — it’s mad. We don’t tax any other bit of household equipment.” Broadcasting veteran and author Jeremy Paxman, quoted in
The Sunday Times
“I started on zero, or less than zero. And I’m aware… that I like it more where I am now… It’s very hard to realise when you pass the point where you’re not going to go back to it… it’s probably about five years after you do that, that you think OK, I can take care of myself now.”
Crime writer Richard Osman on growing up poor, quoted in
The Guardian
“The workshop that I trained at now has to charge people. At school, drama was compulsory, now it’s off the curriculum. I mean, I would not know how to advise a young lad from an area like mine how to get into a career like this.”
Actor Jack O’Connell, who grew up in working-class Derbyshire in the 1990s, quoted in The Observer
“Wearing bright colours was the instruction from above – the theme was eternal summer, they even paid for us to go on sunbeds.” Television presenter and model Ulrika Jonsson on being TV-am’s weather girl in the early 1990s, quoted in The Sunday Telegraph
“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”
Warren Buffett, quoted on Twitter
spectator.co.uk
Fresh out of university, at my first job in advertising, there was a “palpable disdain for suits,” says Chris Cotonou. My Generation-X boss told me that mine was “pompous”.
News that Marks & Spencer is no longer stocking suits in some of their shops suggests that the “post-pandemic world agrees”. In the suit’s place, the “tastemakers” at M&S
have “unveiled their new Smartwear range for the office”, an “unimaginative line of neutrals… seemingly inspired” by Jeff Bezos. It’s become “almost a form of rebellion” to wear a suit. Take the late Rolling Stone Charlie Watts. As
Mick Jagger strutted in leather vests, his “passion for tailoring seemed... defiant”. He always looked stylish.
I have found that a few simple pieces can “carry you through any situation”.
I still believe that suits are a mark of respect, and the same one can be worn a hundred different ways, including with trainers. You can be creative, without having to try “nearly as hard”. There is a new “generation of young tailors challenging the suit’s stiff image”. The suit could yet stage a comeback.