London: A Blend of Fashion Style and People

What is London?

London is about different cultures, multiple ethnicities, liberal attitudes, thousands of corner shops and being a true Londoner is being confident and embracing the changes happening around you. This capital city, true to its tradition, has been liberal towards gay community too and we have a lot to thank for being accepted as we are.

What does it mean to be a gay Londoner?

Being a gay Londoner means being you. If you are a gay Londoner or simply visiting London, you will easily blend in the fashion, style and culture of this great city. Everything is acceptable in the cool culture of London. However, like every city London has some dressing rules too. Few fashion faux pas that are simply unacceptable are wearing Uggs, getting orange tans, belting a t-shirt, and sporting bell-bottoms. They are so not in fashion and it would be a fashion crime if you try these things in London, gay or straight, period!

What does gay fashion actually mean?

We gays have always prided ourselves for our keen understanding of fashion and knowing good style from bad. From NY to London, gay fashion is highly regarded. Gay fashion earlier was restricted to gays only but lately metro-sexual men have copied everything that was gay and there is a very thin line between gay fashion and metro-sexual style.

What looks are ‘in’ this season for London gays?

Clothes shopping in London and various websites that sell clothes online are featuring over-sized T-shirts with skinny jeans. This look makes the simplest ‘tee and jeans look’ more interesting and de jour. If you feel like experimenting more with your clothing and are not satisfied with regular jeans and T-shirts, buy a long vest and cut out the sleeves. Neutral style icon Kim Ann Foxman of Hercules & Love Affair props up this look the best! For some more variety in T-shirts and jerseys providing classy draping, look around for ACNE clothes in the nearest clothes shop london. For designer tees, you just cannot miss Damir Doma’s at the OkiNi. Striped scarves that were seen on every other London gay man is not in fashion anymore and you need to bin them unless you think its 2008!

What looks are ‘in’ for London gay men with extreme tastes?

If you want to dress to the extremity without looking like monstrosity, check out the summer collection by H&M offshoot COS. Their collection is at the height of the fashion with carrot leg trousers (adapted from women’s wear), jersey blazers, and other classic designs in palette of soft shades. Look for deep-placket tops, alternative for dull T-shirts, in London clothes shop. For some less enlightened gay fellows, who do not know what placket means, well, placket is the double layer of fabric holding buttons or poppers at the neckline of a shirt. American Apparel has great designs for deep-V necklines and they are apt for both work and fun. Just button up in office and when in pub having beer, relax and show some of your man skin. If you want to dress differently than the fellow gays, try shades such as cobalt blue, peacock tones, violet blue, hot pink, fuchsia and bright rainbow shades. The projected popular colours this Spring/Summer 2009 are vibrant colours softened up to two tones; fuchsia, coral, lemon, ocean blue, lavender and faded emerald green are some of them.

Even if you want to dress to the extreme, it is our humble request, do not go combine soft lilac with neon yellow or wear red, yellow and blue together. It is a sin to wear more than two bold colours together and do not expect to be forgiven anytime soon if you commit such horrendous sins in London. Otherwise, as we said earlier, London is a very welcoming and liberal city to be!