Best of British

With the Olympic Games and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this year, it seems everyone on the high street is rolling out the red, white and blue. This is across home, gifts, womenswear and menswear. Of course, the American designers have been doing this for years, what with America's penchant for the Stars and Stripes, but we Brits don't really celebrate our flag - except perhaps in an ironic way!

The Union Jack is an easy bandwagon for the high street to jump on. We saw it in the 1990s when Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls wore that dress and we seeing it now. I guess the aim is to turn even the most sceptical into an enthusiastic Anglophile. So how can you get into this trend without looking like a walking cliché?

• Vintage flag T-shirts - You'll find these in lots of assortment as they're the easiest way for brands to celebrate ‘Britishness’. Look for rockstar style graphics with fading and blurred edges. Note - this isn't the most stylish way to work the trend but it is the simplest!


• Celebrate British design - This seems to me like a very middle class sort of trend; akin to people wanting to know exactly which farm their steak was sourced from. But it does seem to be a concern on the high street right now with brands shouting about their British/English credentials and bragging about working with the likes of Abraham Moon or Harris Tweed. Over the years, British manufacturing has been dwindling as it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the prices offered by manufacturers in China and the rest of the far east. This is a real shame because it means we lose whole ways of working and manufacturing processes. There are now few wholly British brands, there are quite a few high end ones; go to Savile Row and you'll find a few; but not so many on the more affordable end of the scale. You can try John Smedley who makes beautiful knitwear at a fairly reasonable price. Or up and coming brand, Cro'Jack who have quite a unique offering of outerwear, tops, knitwear and accessories - all made and designed in the UK.


• Combine red, white and blue in an outfit - The stylish way to wear the trend! There are loads of pieces out there, just waiting to be put together in your own homage to the Union Jack. The vivid combination makes these colours perfect for summer, see my Pinterest board for how to put an outfit together. Look for a combination of stripes and block colours. Plus, quite conveniently, you can wear blue jeans! Although I'd recommend bright blue chinos instead so you can incorporate this season's obsession with the colourful chinos.

Screen and Style

Over the past few seasons, thanks to a preoccupation with retro and vintage styles, popular TV shows and films with distinctive style from a bygone era are frequently celebrated in designers' and high street collections. It started with Mad Men and sixties tailoring, then we got to Boardwalk Empire and the double-breasted suits of the twenties.

This season's style revival? The bomber jacket. Heavily featured in Ryan Gosling's critically acclaimed film, Drive, the style is having its moment again. It's just a shame you'll be hard pushed to find Driver's satin jacket complete with an embroidered scorpion on the back!

The history of the bomber jacket, as so often with popular men's styles, has military routes. Sometimes referred to as a flight jacket, the bomber was originally created for American pilots to keep them warm in the cockpit. It started with the ubiquitous shearling aviator and then progressed to a style like today's bomber jacket. Originally the jacket was sage green with a contrasting vibrant orange lining.

A bomber jacket is an ideal choice or spring - it's lightweight yet warm enough for the clement weather. Plus it'll add a cool confidence to your look, akin to the film's Driver.

Summer blues

Summer blues is one of my favourite trends this season for menswear. From nautical to preppy to brights, the runways couldn't get enough of blue this season. Blue is so easy to wear as it matches well with bright chinos or you can create a tone on tone look by matching a blue top with denim jeans. Plus it suits pretty much every skin tone so it'll never make you look bad! Blend your patterns by starting with a gingham shirt and then choosing a tie with a pattern on a different scale to the shirt.

Designers must be inspired by the sea and the sky in creating this trend, it just makes you think of summer holidays and sunshine!

First post!

So the first post is a little nerve-racking; I'm sure it can only get easier! I love writing and have thought about starting a blog for a long time but kept waiting for inspiration to strike. Here goes then!

As it says in my introduction, I'm a copywriter for a big fashion in retailer in the UK, writing product copy, articles and editorials for menswear and sportswear. And I've found that I've really gotten into men's fashion! It may not be as exciting as womenswear at times, and trends may repeat themselves over and over (another season of nautical?! When isn't it 'on-trend'?) But I think it can be a lot easier to get right than women's style and there are so many inherited conventions that are fascinating - who decided a suit should be made just like that and how has such a complex design survived so well?

My main idea behind starting this blog is to write about and explore menswear trends and my favourite pieces that I find online or in stores during my everyday job and shopping trips. I read a lot of menswear blogs myself and sometimes struggle to find a comprehensive list of trends for the current season and there are no-where near as many men's blogs as women's so thought I should add my own voice!