Dressing a husband rather more interestingly that his standard office garb was a challenge of Alisons. She always commented how boring I looked. She was very polite, she regularly used words like smart etc but of the style, no, she was not fond. Then I was brought up as… went to the office in a suit and tie and I think regularly at Star the fact that it was a small company and so on it didn’t affect things as we were dealing with customers – this was in 1970 when the company started – customers who all wore formal office wear and it was only towards the end of the 70s that under pressure from Alison saying how dreary I looked and observing that we had then two or three good customers who were architects. They weren’t themselves the customers but they were acting on behalf of their clients and they all wore, well it seemed to me that they all wore much more interesting clothing, not just standard office garb of suit and tie, conventional grey suit. I was always a little out by wearing more interesting almost tweedy clothes rather than the pure smooth pinstripe etc that one would have worn in the city. I decided that working in a factory didn’t quite require the formality of stockbrokers and their like but anyway mum one day came back with I think the orange variety of this, and said I should try it, it was more modest in so far as it was a nearer brown colour than green or blue so I took to wearing it in the office with a polo neck, but that again or course was a thing she had always troubled me with clothing and she wanted to get me into polo necks and went and gave me as a wedding present a lovely pullover sleeveless vest, Paisley was it, very fine silk woven garment [oh yeah I remember, a green backing, says Mil] yes on a green, I’m sure I’ve still got it somewhere. [Alison says terrible story coming]. Oh yes if you want the terrible story, as a wedding present for our first wedding anniversary booked a table at the Malmaison which is the posh hotel / restaurant [that was then] at the back of the station in Glasgow, so booked there and when I arrived they said I couldn’t come in because I wasn’t wearing a tie. The fact I was wearing a white silk polo neck similar to Anthony Armstrong Jones who got away with it, or a sort of tabard thing like bishops wear didn’t count. They offered me a tie. I didn’t quite see how I’d put a tie on, so we just stalked out and went to the 101 restaurant opposite and we had a lovely meal thank you very much Mr Central Station. I tried once or twice after that to eat at the Malmaison and said when booking I would wear this because it was high society wear but I didn’t want to be turned away again and they always told me not to come, so they lost our custom. If I was invited by others then I would not want to embarrass then so I would go in conventional garb.
There was somewhere, yes it was along at Charing Cross. There was a nice restaurant, not particularly grand, they insisted I wore a tie, they gave me one which I wore through the meal, but the pudding had been served and I took it off before it was consumed, knowing that I hadn’t paid the bill and they were unlikely to throw me out at that stage. That was my little protest on that occasion but back to the office. I just enjoyed this garb and polo neck., I feel free in movement working at my desk or walking round the factory, whatever I was doing, it just felt so much more comfortable garb, and also in those days I carried a bag. There was a period round then, must have been late 70s early 80s when men carried bags, not in Glasgow and not my type of man etc but they were carried so it wasn’t totally out of the way. The disadvantage of an overshirt is the lack of pockets and I do understand how men feel attached to a jacket with dozens of pockets.
[Mil asks if this approach to dress influenced the culture in the company]
Oh slightly but only marginally so. I think it more let them feel that I was a little different or a little odd or a little not quite…. Particularly with customers they thought oh this is very casual, and in the 80s it still was very casual although architects and artists and maybe those in advertising I don’t know would dress like that. Ordinary businessmen, engineers and other office jobs, never. I can’t remember when I first came across it and when introduced a lot later, dress down Fridays in the city and elsewhere, people just put on pure casual dress at they would at a weekend with rolled up sleeves and open necks, they didn’t dress smartly. I was dressing smartly in my so called style. Others would have called it scruffy but its not.
She converted me. Mark you I came under regular pressure and I had to , I couldn’t live a totally separate life. My life was separate enough going into the office each day. And anyway later on came the jackets, and I think the first one she bought some material of that blue jacket, wooly, very loose and roomy, side pockets and we had it made up by two tailors I used. One was a tailor I had always used in Maryhill Road, Mr O’Docherty, and then when he gave up, his son moved to great western road and I went to the standard tailor in Milngavie. Each of those made up these garments and again I used to wear them with a polo neck at the office. Probably more winter. This shirt is quite cool and so the blue one was my favourite because it was very loose and comfortable. [the blue version of that which is dead now, says Mil] and so I would then wear this red one, and this I think mum actually bought for me as a jacket in Wales. Wallace Woollen Mill West Wales. It can’t have been as early as that time we had the holiday in Aberystwyth when Ben ate ice cream with chocolate everywhere on the shore. Totally covered in chocolate. It must have been another occasion because we often went to Wales because of her connections in north Wales and bought this as a jacket. I never liked it so much. It was stiffer and very warm and in the office with heating I often took it off and so had no pockets. So if I wasn’t carrying my leather bag and didn’t have this with pockets I was stuck.
I never wore this with a conventional tie. I must have had approaching ten different polo necks. I’ve got rid of a lot. My clothing drawers were nothing like mums but they were rather bulging with things I rarely wore.
[re jacket mil says I don’t think I’ve seen you wearing that for 15 years]. I used to wear it from time to time when it hung in the downstairs cupboard. I wouldn’t have worn it if I was in the grand circle of the opera but any other event, stalls or the like, a cocktail party or the like.
The one I remember having tailored was from a lovely piece of tweed mum bought in Cumbria. [was it light grey?] Yes. With a strap across the front. I had a pair of trousers too but it wasn’t hard wearing tweed so they went at the knees.
The Royal Collection 