Entertainment For Lively Minds
Dedicated Follower Of Fashion: Romeo Beckham, Style Icon?
I'm reeling that GQ has named eight-year-old Romeo Beckham as a style icon.
If I'm honest I've never given him a second look. He's just one of the Beckham sprogs that are wheeled out at every event. But on closer inspection this boy is like a junior Niles Crane, all neat hair, stripey ties and stiff suits. According to his mother he's not interested in going to the beach with the other boys, he likes to accompany her to the offices of her fashion line and discuss fabrics, etc. The parents are clearly nurturing this future Gok Wan.
I was wondering what kind of eight-year-old boy takes such an interest in fashion? Massive members with kids - are your eight-year-olds dragging you round All Saints? When I was eight I didn't have much choice in what I wore, and though I sometimes resented scratchy trousers and sandals, I didn't much care.
For me, it was hand-knitted surgical collar-style polo-neck jumpers from Auntie Maggie, who had nothing much better to do following the hip replacement she had after falling off a bus in 1971. Otherwise it was normal blue jeans, lots of brown flares, quilted anoraks that belonged to my older cousin and plimsolls. More often than not it was shorts too, and I have seen pictures of flowery shirts with matching ties, but none of this was my idea. I'm not sure fashion for kids really existed in the early 1970s. It definitely did not exist in the Sixties.
So were you a junior style icon? Did you follow the career of Yves St Laurent with interest? And if not, what hand-me-downs and home knits were you forced into?
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Millets
What else was needed?
Painful memories
of Millets. Unstylish beyond belief, but perfect for children.
The answer to this question is.....
no.
Does anyone on this site think his father has 'style'?
My dad...
...has a style, but it's one which never sees the light of day before my mum sends him back upstairs to dress in a combination of clothes that doesn't cause epileptic seizures in non-epileptics.
My Dad
was once persuaded by my mother to wear a pair of jeans.
He was 53 at the time, she was 52. At that age I think all they were looking for was anything in blue denim. Cut and shape were not considered or comprehended. Jeans were jeans, surely?
Imagine my face when after a trip to town to purchase a pair my father sailed into the living room dressed in a plan white 'casual' shirt tucked into what were essentially a pair of blue denim spinakas on a waistband. Flares doesn't even begin to describe them. Voluminous keks.
Also bear in mind this was 1982 when the straighter leg was the vogue.
'What's wrong with them?' came the terse if natural response to my tittering.
To which my mother added, springing to Dad's defence, 'They're Falmers!'
Well that was alright then.
Like all Dad's, despite what anyone thought, he'd bought the buggers so was going to bloody well wear them. We suffered two summers of him flapping about till my sister eventually 'lost' them.
Romeo
I predict a new Romeo Beckham TV vehicle: Child's Eye for the Old Guy.
Presented by...
...
Tsk!
Any excuse Bob!
the late late show
has been a weekend institution in Ireland for yonks. Every year, they do a Toy Show, which basically has the presenter goofing about with, um, toys. A few kids are wheeled in to demonstrate a few things. Here's this years highlight. Meet Douglas.
Again, no more than what Mr Centres says...y'find yerself thinking 'is he being brought up to be another Gok Wan?'
What
a load of old bollocks.
Should be a job for social services.
Interesting take
Interesting take on this by Tanya Gold in yesterday's Guardian. Although as one of the commenters on CiF said: "He's 8. It would probably be kinder to ignore his GQ listing rather than contribute to his exploitation by getting an article out of it."
Brutus Gold..
jeans from Dartford market were the closest I got to fashion icon status at that age.
Words
fail me on this one. Surely it's just a case Dylan Jones angling for an invitation to the Beckham's next big marquee in the garden based shindig?
When I was eight
My mum was still insisting on the merits of the knitted balaclava.
And woollen gloves, attached by string threaded through the sleeves and back of my anorak.
School trousers would be short and held up by an elasticated belt with an 'S' shaped buckle. School shirts would be white and polyester, worn underneath a hand-knitted grey pullover.
To the extent I was aware of 'labels', they said 'Ladybird' and were sold in branches of Woolworth, I believe.
The only two items of 'designer' clothing I craved were, in fact, footwear.
Firstly, the shoes that came with a compass embedded in the heel and animal tracks moulded into the sole. Wayfarers? Made by Clarks??
And secondly, Stylo Matchmaker football boots with laces up the side. If I'd only had a pair of those when I was eight, instead of the 'Tuf' moulded pair I was fobbed off with, I'd now be spoken of in the same breath as Cruyff and Maradona.
Wayfinders
Let's not forget the Commando and the Grandprix.
It's a little known fact that all professional footballers do not have more talent than us but just did not get given cheap boots when they were kids.