When times are tough, look demure
I AGREE with Amanda Platell that Carrie Symonds resembles a Tudor queen in her newly fashionable powerband (Mail). This is because it is a modern variation of the French hood, which was the favoured head-dress among fashionable, but sadly powerless, young women in France and England from the late 1520s to the late 1550s, when Elizabeth I came to the throne. Historically, women have adopted more demure, but not necessarily practical, fashions in times of political and economic turmoil. This happened in the Seventies, when hemlines headed downwards along with Britain’s manufacturing output, and bright colours were replaced by brown and beige. Could all the calf-length dresses with modest, high necklines filling the shops this autumn reflect the uncertainty over Brexit, just as much as the three-quarter-length culottes are reminiscent of the Seventies boy band Bay City Rollers? Fashion tends to be more flamboyant in times of greater optimism and prosperity. Flapper styles were replaced by understated, ladylike fashions at the time of the Great Depression. How ironic that the powerband was in vogue when Britain was trying to break free from control by Rome — and has now returned to favour when we are trying to leave the EU! NANCIE RUTHERFORD,
Sevenoaks, Kent.