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Vanity Fair – BRITISH INVASION
As red-blooded Americans, we hate to admit defeat, but, okay, we owe the Brits real props for their mammoth contributions to fashion over the last several hundreds of years. Looks originated in the UK continue to have a significant impact on American fashion. You can probably thank the18th-century bustle-packed ball gown, worn with pale face and stern conviction, for every prom dress that swallowed you whole. Thick British tweed worn on the hunt, on the moors, on the men and women in highfalutin libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, this stuff translates to sport coats in the U.S. and other elegant items that help us serious-up any ensemble, even when worn with jeans. The Savile Row suit, seemingly tailored by gods, made the sartorial block famous, drawing clients such as Winston Churchill and Napoleon III. Today menswear designers like Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren pay ongoing homage. The English equestrian is alive today in jodhpurs-inspired pants and jackets. And let’s not forget the oh-so-hip 60s British mod movement, leg-climbing boots, beyond-micro dresses, saucer sunglasses, and I-don’t-care hair. Twiggy and Mia Farrow may have immortalized the look, but Sienna Miller and every band boyfriend of Drew Barrymore reinvent it all the time. Finally, punk fashion, born in the 70s, might be our favorite. It’s the uniform of the rebel, and it has never gone out of style. Just check the store windows of H&M or peep inside Avril Lavigne’s stylist’s notebook for proof.
Many highly fashionable Brits live happy lives in Baltimore, did you know? So, we must have something special to offer them, too. Our models are among this highly desirable expatriate crew. They come for love, for career, for variety, but stay for the spirit of the little city.
Frances Sellers (The Mod) edits the health section of The Washington Post. She came here in the early 80s as a Thouron scholar and did graduate work while her husband finished his PhD and moved to Baltimore when her American husband began teaching at the University of Baltimore law school. Frances gets a kick out of small changes in British slang that occur while she’s away from home. Certain words, she says, shift ever so slightly in meaning, and clearly date her when she visits the UK. “You can avoid using words like mad,” she advises.
Sebastian Watt (The Gentleman), a Chief Operating Officer who works in Philadelphia, moved to the U.S. only three years ago. He came to Baltimore for the love of an American woman, Liz Perkins, the owner of gifts boutique Le Petit Cochon. And he’s quite pleased he did, despite having gained a stone dining American-style. Sebastian keeps a boat at the harbor near his Federal Hill home and cheerfully reports, “The area is full of entertaining, agreeable people!”
Lucy Goelet (The Equestrian) married a French American and said goodbye to England. She spends most holidays in the UK or France, but she likes the states, yes, very much, but “I’m not going to be buried in America,” she says, scoring a few laughs all around.
Eloise Goelet (The Punk), Lucy’s daughter, is a junior at Middlebury College. She has spent all summers in England and France, but devoted recent summer months to intensive language study at her college. “I want to work in London for a bit [after college]; London is a much nicer place,” Eloise says.
Sally O’Brien (The Victorian Lady) came here in 1990 when her husband began a Fellowship at Hopkins. Originally sent to the US to” lie abroad” for her country as a British diplomat, Sally likes being a foreigner here -“You don’t get pigeonholed” she says “and it’s entertaining to live in a country that expects one to be eccentric.”