Fashion of Football
Sean O'Conor
An Exclusive Interview with Paolo Hewitt
Paolo Hewitt is a well-known music and style journalist who has
written for several publications and an author of ten books, including
biographies of the mod movement and Creation Records as well as
a heartfelt autobiography ‘The Looked-After Kid‘. But
he is also a big football fan and penned a book about the mercurial
‘70s footballer Robin Friday, The
Greatest Footballer You Never Saw, with former Oasis bassist
Paul McGuigan.
For his latest book, The
Fashion of Football, Hewitt, along with co-author Mark Baxter
has tried to marry his love of clothes and style with that of his
love for the Beautiful Game and took time out to speak to Soccerphile's
Sean O'Conor about the book.
This is an interesting book that tries to cover a lot of bases.
What did you set out to do?
I had only written one football book, on Robin Friday, ‘The
Best Footballer You Never Saw‘, Mark had an idea for a book
about football and fashion and a lot of people spoke to me and said
that would make a really good book.
 The
style is quite free and unchained. Did you think that mirrors the
subject matter rather than just strict chapter divisions like a
history book.
It was enjoyable because I just thought I'll write whatever
comes to mind and I wanted it to be about more than just fashion.
I wanted it to be about fan loyalty and male friendship; those things
going throughout it. Mark, my co-author is a Millwall fan and I
started watching them a lot last season and got really excited as
they reached the Cup Final. I could have done a straight history
book but I thought that would have been really boring so instead
I thought wherever this goes I'll follow it. I wanted to write
as much about Mark ringing me up on a Sunday morning and going “Paolo,
have you seen the Sunday Times this morning, there is an
article on footballers fashions and the bastards have ripped us
off “ as much as Bobby Moore's haircut.
You mentioned the origins of football fashion were English
working-class dads telling their sons to look smart and dress up,
the old Sunday best etc.
Definitely that was a thing with McLintock, Birchenall and Summerbee
who we spoke to. Mark, my co-author had that as well growing up.
It was that idea that OK you come from a poor family but when you
go out in that world no-one is going to know you come from a poor
family. Therefore you look as smart as possible, your shoes are
really shiny, your trousers are creased, your jacket is nice and
you do not look like you come from the Gorbals.
For working class kids of the post-war generation your first
suit represented a right of passage. Do you remember yours?
I didn't have one as I was brought up in a children's
home. I got two shillings a week pocket money. A pair of brogues
were 19/6 and a Ben Sherman shirt was really expensive gear. But
it is fascinating how the working classes who are supposed to have
no money are always the best-dressed. But I couldn't afford
a suit when I was 14. I had to wait until I joined Melody Maker
and got my first pay packet and the first things I went out and
bought were those brogues and a Ben Sherman and a pair of stay press.
Because I was denied those things at such a crucial age it stayed
with me.
You were growing up in the ‘60s, did boys of your generation
look up to players for sartorial inspiration?
We identified with Stevie Perrymen and his suede head look, as that
picture in the book shows and I remember Charlie George being interviewed
on Football Focus with his brogues, stay-press and a Fred Perry
top and I remember going ‘Wow he's one of us'.
You grew up in a town that many people now consider well-to-do.
When I grew up in Woking it was London overspill, a working-class
culture and it was a violent place. You were lucky to get from one
end to the other of the High Street without getting a kicking. Even
today try telling those people spilling out the pubs at half eleven
on a Friday night they're not working class and see what happens.
I grew up in the same town fifteen years later but remember
as a child the tales of town-centre mayhem.
People there used to think it was more violent up in London but
in fact it was the other way around. People don't understand
what it was like. A car would pull up and four geezers would start
running after you for no reason whatsoever. Any new gentrified wine
bar would have to spend a fortune on new panes of glass.
 Your
descriptions of the now vanished swinging London of the ‘60s
are quite evocative.
All that stuff has gone. It is sad. And Carnaby Street is appalling
now. Just touristy and high-street shops. I loved the idea of ‘60s
London where George Best and Mike Summerbee would go to a tailor
where Michael Caine and Terry O'Neil were hanging out or you
would go down to Douggie Hayward's shop, open the door and
Michael Parkinson would walk out or Jackie Stewart suddenly walk
in.
What I really liked about that book were the chapters on Moore
and Best.
I thought Moore was the perfect formally-attired guy and the way
he played football was almost second to his wardrobe and the way
Best played his football was second to his wardrobe, too.
Two similar yet different guys.
Yes, Moore was the iconic Englishman, worrying about wiping his
muddy hands when he saw the Queen's white gloves walking up
to collect the World Cup whilst Best was wild and exuberant.
It seemed like the players' clothes of the ‘70s
were as flamboyant as the players.
That was a theme I tried to develop. I laugh when I hear footballers
described as role models. It's footballers' characters
that make them play the way they do. George Best was an amazing
player because he was like that off the field. When he got the ball
he wanted to entertain and to play and that carried over into all
aspects of his life, his drinking, his womanizing and his clothes.
In fact we were all set to interview Best for the book but then
he started drinking again, got robbed, had a fight with Alex and
was all over the papers again. But yes, it was always the same,
the Stan Bowles, the Alan Hudsons were entertainers on and off the
field.
You're not ashamed to sound like an old git complaining
that ‘it was better in them days'.
Absolutely. They were great looks in the ‘70s and to be honest
with you I've never got over it.
In the eighties, the heartbeat of football fashion seemed to
shift from players to fans.
Once again the 80s was a downer. It was all down to the death of
the maverick player and the dullard coming in instead. Football
said ‘we can't have players like Glenn Hoddle with all
those tricks' and ‘track back and defend, Paul Gascoigne!'
so the flair was squeezed out on the field and then off as a result.
The Graham Taylor mentality.
Exactly, all the long ball bullshit and the hard-working player
and once the flamboyant player goes then that is why the footballer
becomes so badly dressed.
Surely there was more to it than that?
I think it was also due to the rise of the designer look in the
‘80s, the European football scene with Liverpool fans bringing
back fashion souvenirs from their overseas games and the rise of
casual culture.
What about today?
I think there is a bit of an upsurge now because football has improved
since the '80s and England are trying to play a more flamboyant
game.
And Beckham?
I am not a big Beckham fan as a footballer but I think he is really
interesting. He gives out fashion signals. He can't come out
and say openly ‘I really love gay culture' or ‘I
love R&B people'. A bit like a politician who is scared
of offending Middle England. So instead he wears a sarong or puts
on the Usher stuff to send out signals.
He talks through his clothes in other words.
Yes, he is a weird one. I am convinced that at the bottom of his
heart he knows he is as famous as Cruyff, Maradona, Pele but that
he has not got their skills and he finds that odd to deal with.
I think he is a football nut who appreciates his football, he tries
hard but he knows he is really limited.
After a while you know how good you are. I heard this story about
Becks that he was out training the morning after he scored that
goal against Greece.
Were you ever a mod / casual?
I was a mod but never really a casual. I liked a bit of that scene
but I tell you what I always loved the Godfather and wanted to look
like Al Pacino in the Sicilian Hills! That was the big one for me.
By the 1980s you got the casuals and the casuals were a youth cult
that developed on the football terraces and had to do with music
too.
Are you comfortable with fan fashion's connection with
violence?
I don't really think about it. But I came round to understanding
it when we had so many barriers trying to get through to Stone Island.
Stone Island refused to talk to you. That was surely hypocrisy
on their part.
They are taking millions and millions of pounds and you can see
it from their end. If they came out and said ‘yes, we are
a hooligan's company' their stockists would abandon
them. So they can't do that. But I just feel they should be
a bit more honest. They should just say ‘we make nice clothes
but we can't control who chooses to buy our stuff'.
Who do Hackett think they are fooling putting St George crosses
and ‘England' on their shirts and then claiming they
have no wish to connect with hooligan culture?
That is right. They should also just admit that when you go to watch
England there is a lot of Hackett stuff around like at White Hart
Lane loads of blokes are in Stone Island gear.
Stone Island must be the No.1 fan, as well as hooligan, label.
It is at every football stadium you go to so to deny its potency
or commercial success - I thought was there was something almost
a bit nasty about it to tell the truth.
Had you thought of looking at other countries' football
fashions?
We wanted to keep the book to England but I would not mind doing
an Italian one although I don't think you would have as much
to write about.
Italy has had more fashion influence on us than anywhere else.
And also in the sixties you had a lot of Italians living in London
and all those Italian cafes and boutiques in Soho plus the Marcello
Mastroianni movies influenced us in style. In Rome there was a place
called Brioni where Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin got their suits
tailored and where the box jacket was invented. Later the Mods took
their fashion cues from Italy and even recently Gianluca Vialli
out-dressed everyone at Chelsea and they began to copy his attire.
We got a quote from Dennis Wise about Vialli walking into the dressing
room at Stamford Bridge and everyone going ‘Wow' and
asking him where he got all his clothes from.
Whilst you admire footballers' clothes can you feel the
same about today's Premiership when the players are earning
obscene wages? All of those 1970s players we interviewed said
at some point during the conversation “Oh, if I had the money
they have now…”, every one of them. But they also cannot
get their head around today's game. The physical demands of
the game are more intense that you can't go on the lash all
the time like those guys used to. It felt like Bob Dylan saying
“I wouldn't go into music now, I'd go into mathematics.”
Everything has moved on so much.
You quote Frank McLintock as saying today's player lives
on a different planet.
Well they are set up for life almost immediately, not having to
try to run pubs anymore and selling their medals in later life to
make ends meet. I was watching Del Piero the other night and he
has lost it at thirty because he has led such a comfortable lifestyle
he has no fire in him when he should have. Plus I had 150 quid waiting
for me on Italy winning Euro 2000 so next time I see Del Piero I'm
going to say “Oi, You owe me!”
Fashion went with fame as ever and today's players are
more famous than ever. What do you feel when you see them advertising
underwear, Beckham's face on everything on the tube, in the
NPG ?
Despite all that fashion is not as important as it was in football.
GQ voting Rio Ferdinand Britain's best dressed man was an
exception.
You said Gerry Francis was the worst-dressed player ever.
Hoddle was a close second, and Joe Kinnear's haircut.
I got the overall impression reading the book that there was
a subtext of fan culture that was better in the old days too. At
times the book veers into being a tale of youth cultures.
I thought all the early 60s stuff was interesting . You see footballers
and fashion are really interesting up until about 1979-1980 and
then it all goes pear-shaped. I mean what are you going to say about
Glenn Hoddle's jacket sleeves or Chris Waddle's haircut?
By that point the fans were more interesting than the footballers.
Since we are all now in a bland middle class culture of sweatshirts,
copycat jeans and tracksuits, has football fashion effectively died?
That was what Mark was talking about when he has this rant against
the way things are now. I wrote a book called the Soul Stylists
and spoke to a DJ called Terry Farley who is a big Chelsea supporter
and there is a great quote of his where he said he longs for the
day when he walks down the street and he sees six kids across the
street looking like he had never seen anyone look like before. But
you never see it, they're all wearing fucking tracksuits and
Stone Island jackets.
Replica shirts I guess do not count as football fashion.
No.
The paperback is due out in August.
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