From what friends in high places (very high) have told me, it seems that wearing tiny little tennis dresses (it is the Wimbledon season) under fur coats is all the rage in London now. (It is called the Elena Vesnina-Russian Mafia-Doll look). Finish up the ensemble by applying baby oil to your bare legs as you totter around on impossibly high Givenchy heels. Tossing tennis balls at dowagers on Bond St., opptional.

To mkingdom: You would have been horrified at the front page of yesterday's New York Times (Sunday, June 25). Larry Kramer, the AIDS activist and playwright, is shown BANDING in a photograph!! White top over black pants--a gay man should know better.

Handmaiden.

yes, class distinction was very important last time i checked. however, it has little or nothing to do with one's dress. in fact, often the worst dressed are in the upper tiers.

as for white trainers...everyone should know that this is just britons taking the pi$$. winding people up is a national sport just behind football. white trainers are quite popular among londoners (the many less stylish ones). so aside from winding up a whole nation's worth of visitors and making them self-conscious, this is pure worthless urban legend.

From what friends in high places (very high) have told me, it seems that wearing tiny little tennis dresses (it is the Wimbledon season) under fur coats is all the rage in London now. (It is called the Elena Vesnina-Russian Mafia-Doll look). Finish up the ensemble by applying baby oil to your bare legs as you totter around on impossibly high Givenchy heels.>>>>>>

Testify sister! Spread the word! This is the gospel of Tit Tuesday. We must converet the globe!

Woody ASKED A QUESTION ...because woody clearly knows there were standards in London .The air con situation is improving but not quite there yet. London is still one of the worlds greatest citys and the boys will love the fashion varation.Hampstead is currently wearing alot of Toast and boden clothes.http://www.toast.co.uk/
www.boden.co.uk hope this helps....

What are white trainers? Is that the English term for tennis shoes?

Only younger boys wear shorts in the UK. You can wear what you want, of course, but I wouldn't recommend shorts. Tennis shoes are fine.

>>>>>
Only younger boys wear shorts in the UK.
>>>>>

last weekend it was quite warm in london and i was out in shepherds market (no giggles). i would say that about 60% of the people were wearing shorts - the age range was roughly late 20s to late 30s. almost all were londoners. even more were wearing flip flops.

i'm not sure where you come from but i suspect that most people who say that londoners don't wear shorts have not been in london on the few warm days of the year or have not been around a lot of people relaxing on such days.

assuming a normal tolerance to cold, i would say that shorts are really completely appropriate (weatherwise) on only about 10-20 days per year...and that's in the south.

"Hampstead is currently wearing a lot of Toast..."

LOL, maggie -- good thing you remembered the capital T there, or it would have conjured a very funny picture! :-))

Must've changed since I last went - I grew up in Devon and we never wore shorts. London could be different, but I always err on the side of caution, so don't listen to me...

Trainers are indeed Tennis shoes....in London x

Someone I know has just broken his ankle falling off his flip-flops - you have been warned!

We call "watching television shoes" trainers, you call them tennis shoes. We call "watching television while eating biscuits trousers" "jogging bottoms". In short, the more active sounding the clothes the more sedentary their actual use.

It's a matter of hot, if not entirely serious, debate here too:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1805874,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1800693,00.html

(Hadley Freeman is, by the way, a USAnian).

OK, I googled tit Tuesday and came up empty. Still unenlightened.

Tit Tuesday has been postponed this week owing to poor climate conditions. The best we can hope for this week is Tit Thursday.

(The Profanisaurus at viz.com will explain all)

Still unenlightened. I'm beginning to question my research skills.

That should be viz.co.uk and it’s not in the online version.

But frankly, if you’re a man you should automatically grasp the concept, and if you’re a woman, we don’t want you to grasp the concept.

If there's a Tit Tuesday, is there a Willie Wednesday?

Yes - but only in Germany.

:)