Reader Letter: It’s a good thing Norwich isn’t fashionable

One reader can't make sense of what passes for fashion these days. What do you think?

As an old Norwich boy (born a generation earlier than Steven Downes) I identify perfectly with his sentiments in 'why we should be celebrating the news that our fine city isn't on trend'.

Even before I read the phrase 'dedicated followers' toward the end of his piece, I heard that Kinks song of 50-odd years ago Dedicated Follower of Fashion wafting into my consciousness.

Ray Davies and his group were pouring scorn on the idea that a man could be so obsessed with his appearance that 'he thinks that he is a flower' in his polka dots and stripes.

But remembering those days as I do, I still feel that things are worse nowadays. Steven speaks of trousers too short and ankles too bare and such things mark a deterioration.

So many people, today, cultivate the comic or slovenly, looking like something from the hall of mirrors — without the mirrors.

For the young it is only natural to want to be attractive, it's part of life. But to continue in this way is wasting time on the superficial. In Norwich and its county we have a millennia and more of exciting history to inspire us, and have no need to look at the peripheral or superfluous. We are self-contained and we don't need them.

So I doff my hat to Steven Downes. And when I say hat I mean a hard hat, preferably a brown one with a curly brim. Then if anyone commented by saying it was a bowler, I should say 'no! It is a billycock'. Mr Bowler only made it, but Billy Coke (2nd Earl of Leicester of Holkham, Norfolk) invented it.

Do you agree with our reader? Let us know in the comments below or write to us at edpletters@archant.co.uk