In short, because they are stupid

Hello Hadley, long-time reader, first-time contributor. Why is it that so many people these days wear clothes that absurdly advertise the shop?

David Walker, London

Hello David, long-time ranter, first-time replier (to you). The answer to your question is simple: it’s because they are morons. And not just morons – multi-level morons. For a start, they think that somehow flaunting the name of the shop from which they bought the garment makes them look cool. This means they are brand snobs, which is bad enough, but what makes it even worse is that the brands themselves are always ones that any sane, thinking person would try to hide from the world, such as Sloaney pony Hollister, or the sluttishly ubiquitous Emporio Armani (that Emporio Armani sure gets around: there is not a man on this planet who hasn’t had a bit of Emporio Armani splayed across his chest). Thus, while this column obviously abhors any kind of prejudice, it is perfectly acceptable to shun these people, not because they are stupid (although that, too), but because they are saying they think you’re stupid, because they think you are as impressed as they are with their label flashing. Now, that’s just rude. So shun them, David. Shun them hard. They need to be taught the error of their idiotic ways.

Second, they fail to see that they are merely being used by the brand as a form of free advertising. Again – moronic. They are like those unbelievably dorky kids from summer camp who used to believe the camp counsellor when she said that tidying their bunks extra quickly would make them really cool. Worse, seeing as these idiots are willing to pay to advertise the brands, it is no wonder these companies then decide they probably don’t need to fork out money to advertise in magazines and newspapers. Ergo, they are killing the press. Morons!

Third, they paid extra money for that label to be sloshed across their clothes. Lots and lots of extra money! Obviously, as I have never soiled my hands by picking up such a garment, I cannot tell you how much more they have paid for the privilege of being walking adverts. But seeing as they are morons, it is likely to be by at least an extra £500. Per letter.

How long – or, to be more precise, how big – can a man’s hair be before it gets a bit “banker”?

J, New York

J, I like your interjected note of specificity, distinguishing that crucial long/big distinction that is so often treated as a single issue but, in the arena of men’s hair, is the difference between sloppy and Sloaney or, to throw in your new, intriguing, and utterly apt description, billowy and banker. With such attention to detail, have you ever thought of working in, I don’t know, the financial field?

But let us leave aside your career prospects for the moment and focus on what really matters: hair. Now, it would make life simple if there was a single rule about this, a certain measurement past which a man’s coiffeur becomes bouffant. But if the banking industry has taught us anything (beyond hairstyles, of course), it’s that life is not simple. If it were, someone, somewhere in Hollywood would stop giving Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey money to make movies, seeing as their movies are less films and more lobotomies-by-celluloid. (Just as there is, as we have discussed, a difference between “long” and “big” in the world of hair, so, in the world of life, there is a difference between “stupid” and “simple”, and I’m afraid all too often things that happen fall under the former’s banner.)

So although there is a crucial difference between “long” and big”, and the banker look tends to come more from the latter half of that equation, even that is not the full story. The fact is, J, it is less a matter of hair, and more a matter of attitude, by which I really mean, a matter of wardrobe, by which I also really mean, whether the gentleman is wearing a striped Thomas Pink shirt with contrasting white cuffs while talking very loudly on a giant mobile phone about how one is off to Arbutus to quaff down some £15,000 bottles of wine and you’ll get the girl back in the office to slip it through on expenses, no biggie. That might make you look a little banker, J, but I think you might need more than a haircut.

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