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Walking my dog, I feel free to wear the most unhinged outfits

Walking my dog, I feel free to wear the most unhinged outfits

The Guardian2 days ago
A school friend of mine once told me she wouldn't go as far as the letterbox outside her home without wearing mascara, lipstick and foundation. My mum used to blow-dry her hair to go grocery shopping.
Recently, I've seen more than one glamorous woman on TikTok warn her followers never to go to the gym without wearing makeup and a cute outfit, in case they have to interact with their weights room crush. Any time I see a friend who's recently given birth, she apologises so profusely for her dark circles and old T-shirt that you'd think she'd committed a minor commonwealth offence. I've heard about someone who puts on a full corporate outfit, including high heels, to sit at the kitchen table in her own home to work.
I despair. Where are our opportunities to look an absolute mess?
Grooming standards are a personal thing. Mine have always been minimal enough to appal every member of my immediate family: unbrushed hair, bare face, no bra. I enjoy dressing up sometimes, but my everyday vibe is more Adam Sandler going for a stroll.
Lucky for me, I've found a loophole in the social expectation of put-togetherness: dog walking fashion.
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When I have my handsome shih tzu trotting by my side, I can go out in the most unhinged ensembles and nobody seems bothered. I am invisible, I am untouchable, I am immune to the judgment of others because I am out with my dog.
Let me paint you a picture. In the summer months, I might step out in a pair of fuchsia linen harem pants that my mum bought in Greece (that have a hole in the crotch), paired with a 2017 Britney Spears concert memorabilia T-shirt and knee-high, shark-print compression socks tucked into faded blue Birkenstocks that have been worn so many times they bear the dark imprint of my foot sweat. Another day, it might be striped boxer shorts, a tank top that's hanging on for dear life, and no shoes; it is my right, as an Australian, to feel the warmth of the pavement on my footsies.
When it's cold, I'll slip into something like this: pants that are, technically speaking, pyjamas, tucked into lilac ankle gumboots, an old jumper of my dad's, finished with a thigh-length raincoat buttoned in a hurry, inaccurately. Or fleece-lined track pants, a jumper with an otter on it, socks and thongs. I work from home, so often it's a case of chucking my favourite item of clothing – a second-hand coat my sister bought in 2009 that looks like a picnic rug with sleeves and has become mine by squatter's rights – over the top of whatever cosy outfit I've cobbled together that morning.
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It's a grab what's near and what's comfortable situation; the less thought put into it, the better. And it's a precious chance for me to take the clothes I am not yet prepared to retire for a spin in the outside world. Stained? No problem. Threadbare? Get it on. When I am with my dog, anything goes.
Nobody blinks an eye. Nobody raises their phone ominously to film me for an Instagram round up of worst dressed strangers. I am free. I am a mess. I am just a girl walking her dog.
And I am not alone. I see you, my chaotically dressed dog-walking brethren: in pyjamas and ugg boots, in animal onesies, in long socks and sandals, short shorts, disintegrating T-shirts, charity shop jumpers. Baseball caps over unwashed hair. Muddy paw prints on your trackpants from the last wet walk. We're in this together and hey, we might not be catwalk ready, but we do have our dogs.
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Period talk needs to stop. Period
Period talk needs to stop. Period

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When the supermodel Brooks Nader's period started at Wimbledon, naturally she turned to social media. 'Tries to be chic. Starts period at Wimbledon,' Nader wrote, alongside a snap on TikTok showing blood stains on the back of her skirt. 'A canon event for all us girlies!', someone bleated in response. The American model was praised for being 'real' and 'NORMALISING' periods. May I be the first to say: Nader should have kept this to herself. This is just the latest example of a disturbing tendency among women to overshare about their menstrual cycles. Nader flaunting her uterine shedding in a white designer outfit is being hailed as a victory for feminism. Her fans would lead us to believe she is single handedly upholding the very notion of women's empowerment. She isn't. The grisly celebration of women bleeding only confirms the way menstruation has become a hot topic. Women are obsessed with talking about their periods, in what we are told is not an icky example of TMI (too much information), but a brave victory towards finally ending the (alleged) shame and stigma surrounding periods. BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty has spoken frankly about her experience of debilitating painful periods, giving talks at book festivals and popping up on the radio to speak about her menstrual cycle. Her BBC colleague Emma Barnett has written a whole book, Period: It's About Bloody Time, on women's bleeding. Davina McCall has made an industry out of women not having periods, cashing in on the menopause©. McCall has released two documentaries on the subject – Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause and Davina McCall: Sex, Mind and The Menopause – and co-authored a book called Menopausing. Am I the only one longing for a time when professional women were not reduced to talking about their hormones? This onslaught of menstrual chat has become so bloody relentless. 'It's that time of the month again…to shout about periods!' the Wellbeing of Women website says, having celebrated Menstrual Hygiene Day on 28 May. No, it isn't. Bookshop shelves are streaked with the blood red covers of tomes imploring readers that it's Not Just a Period (although it is). Oscar-winning films explore the impact of our time of the month. Athletes, pop-stars and actresses clamour to share yucky details of what it's like to dare to appear in public while having their periods. Do these ladies not realise that women have been doing this for centuries without fuss? The excessive sharing of details about bodily fluids is bad enough, but what's worse is how totally disingenuous the whole conversation around the 'shattering the shame' of periods is. Sure, in some countries around the world women are still compelled to isolate themselves or hide during their periods. This is appalling. These women deserve our help. But that's hardly the case in the UK, where it's been years since Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon 'free-bleeding' with crimson stains streaming down the inner thighs of her red leggings. That was in 2015. We've seen it all before. Women have been making art out of their menstrual blood since the 1970s. A decade on, the enthusiasm for celebrating women's periods is becoming unbearable. Our foremothers fought hard for women not to be defined by their bodies; they pushed back against the limiting notion that women are too fragile, or emotional at certain times of the month, to function. They resisted the attempt by some men to reduce us to our child-birthing capacities. But by focusing obsessively on periods, women risk reinforcing that message. A recent survey of Gen Zers found that 78 per cent of them supported companies bringing in menstrual leave. 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The fisherman aesthetic: anglercore is everywhere – but does it suit me?
The fisherman aesthetic: anglercore is everywhere – but does it suit me?

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The fisherman aesthetic: anglercore is everywhere – but does it suit me?

It was, in the end, a fashion trend awaiting better weather. Now that summer is here, the 'fisherman aesthetic', long heralded as one of the key looks for 2025, has finally arrived. Or has it? Standing on the beach at Hastings, with a stiff wind blowing into my face, I am adding one layer of fishing gear on top of another while holding my fisherman's hat on my head, gently overheating under a hazy sky. I'm not sure this is what Vogue had in mind when it predicted that 'the menswear customer will take to water, embracing the 'fisherman aesthetic'' earlier this year. I can't see anyone else on the beach embracing it. Then again, I can't see anyone else on the beach. These early predictions have now hardened into a mantra. 'What started as a humble nod to weathered knit sweaters, sturdy boots and utilitarian outerwear has turned into a full-fledged movement,' declared lifestyle website The Velvet Runway. 'Practical gear like rainboots, work jackets and canvas totes abound,' said Cosmopolitan. 'Less yacht club, more fishing dock,' said InStyle. By the end of March, Veranda magazine felt able to confirm that 'the fisherman aesthetic now reigns supreme in both fashion and interior design'. However, when you investigate the origins of fisherman chic, it quickly becomes clear there are two main branches to the trend. The first is more of a general nautical vibe than a uniform: striped tops, baggy khakis, boat shoes, cable knits. The Daily Mail cited 'the naval-inspired looks on the recent runways of Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Proenza Schouler' as sources for the trend, said to be an offshoot of the 'coastal grandma' look (no, me neither) from a few years ago, which was largely confined to women's fashion. It's beach-friendly, casual and understated (Diane Keaton in the film Something's Gotta Give is apparently an inspiration for it). People dedicated to showing you how to get the look on TikTok are at pains to point out that you may well own most of the stuff already. The second strand, what might be termed the male version of fisherman chic, comes at it from another direction, specifically fly-fishing. New York menswear boutiques such as Blue in Green have been selling out of the multi-pocketed fishing vests favoured by anglers. According to the Washington Post, outfitters catering to fly-fishermen have recently seen revenue boosted by sales to men who don't fish, but are keen to adopt a look the paper dubbed 'anglercore'. Where these traditional outfitters might once have been pleasantly bewildered by all the extra online traffic, the industry is catching on. Streetwear brands and angling companies have begun collaborating on outdoor clothing lines. Last autumn, the Canadian rapper Drake, through his Nike brand Nocta, produced an actual fly-fishing reel in collaboration with Abel Reels. Where the womenswear strand of fisherman chic seems to be more about inspiration – using a nautical theme as a jumping-off point – the menswear seems more like direct occupational appropriation – literally buying the stuff real fishermen use. As the stylist and fashion writer Peter Bevan sees it, the authenticity of the gear is the point of this angler aesthetic. 'If, say, Gucci did a fishing jacket, and they bought that one, it's almost like them faking it,' he says. 'When it comes to workwear, men just like to buy into the proper brands that do it and the real type of workwear, rather than anything that feels manufactured.' There is an inverted aesthetic at work: in most cases the clothing is purely functional; it has no style per se, only a kind of perceived integrity. The Japanese workwear brand Montbell uses the slogan 'Function is beauty', which is one way of saying: this stuff looks this way for a reason. Fly-fishing vests, for example, are often cropped weirdly short, but that's not a style – it's so the pockets don't get wet when you're standing up to your ribcage in a river. And they aren't covered in pockets because pockets are cool; it's because anglers need storage for all the kit they carry into the water. 'You're using floats, you might use sinks, you've got spools of nylon,' says Mark Bowler, editor of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine. 'You've got a dry fly box, you've got a nymph box, you've got a lure box. You'll have scissors, forceps, nips. You've got numerous tools, almost medical, dangling off the waistcoat. You might have a hook retriever in there …' There is an obvious irony to this extreme functionality, in that few, if any, of the influencers wearing fly-fishing vests on the streets of Brooklyn will ever use the garment for its intended purpose, or even know what that is. '… You've got leaders, sight indicators, magnifiers, your sandwiches,' says Bowler. 'You might have a water bottle in the back of it, because it's got pockets at the back. There might be scales in there for weighing fish, or tungsten putty.' On the beach in Hastings, I am having a certain amount of trouble rationalising the two branches of the fisherman aesthetic. My jacket would suit weather more foul than I'm likely to encounter all year. Meanwhile, the Schöffel fly-fishing shirt I'm wearing looks like something Nigel Farage might go canvassing in, only it's made of a lightweight, quick-drying polyester. Who knows? Maybe his is too. There is, of course, something immediately satisfying about wearing a technical garment; it bestows a certain sense of competence and expertise all by itself. The Wensum fly vest by Farlows – a British outfitter established in 1840 – has four capacious pockets on the front and a swatch of shearling wool just below the right shoulder which, it turns out, is for hanging your flies on. 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Bowler recalls an even earlier collision between fly-fishing and fashion, when Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler wore feathers in his hair during a stint as an American Idol judge. The long rooster feathers he chose were also used by the fly-tying industry. 'Everybody wanted them,' says Bowler. 'And we couldn't get them because all the suppliers were being rung up by hairdressers saying, 'Look, we'll pay anything for them.'' News of the current fashion for angling gear has also reached Bowler, although he is not exactly persuaded. He doesn't see a future in which he treats angling gear as a look to be seen in. 'You know what, Tim? When I go fishing, the last thing I want to see is another person.' However, he has noticed that even the most technical gear is becoming more fashion-conscious. 'You'd find it hard to look stylish in waders,' he says. 'But even waders are becoming more fitted, in lighter materials. They used to be like PVC with wellies on the end, and now they're kind of a fitted, breathable material. You actually attach boots to the bottom of them and they have a belt, you know, which gives you a bit more shape.' Indeed outfitters, including Montbell, produce chest-high fishing waders you might feasibly wear to a gallery opening. Another Japanese clothing company, South2 West8, is known for producing stylish gear that will also serve you well on the river. Although if I owned a £358 fly vest (currently on sale at £250), I don't think I'd want to get it wet, especially when you can buy a 'real' vest from an angling supplier for as little as £25. Could an interest in the clothes, as the Washington Post dares to suggest, eventually foster a corresponding interest in fly-fishing? Could the gear lead the hipsters to the sport? Bowler has seen nothing to support that notion. He acknowledges that while angling has a higher profile these days (thanks, in part, to Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer fishing on television), an interest in fly-fishing is not the same thing as fly-fishing. 'The number of fishermen – it's not booming,' he says. 'It's dwindling, in fact.' It's the same story on the sea. In the 1980s, Hastings boasted a fishing fleet of more than 40 vessels, but the ones I'm using as a backdrop for my fashion shoot are reputedly among the last five or six still regularly working. It would be a shame if, in 10 years' time, all that people know about fishing is the clothes. While the nautical movement and the fisherman aesthetic may be two distinct trends, independent and coincidental, they do have one thing in common, and it ain't fishing. Both looks are essentially about wealth. Fly-fishing chic, with its checked shirts, waxed Barbour jackets and old-fashioned gear, mimics the relaxed vibe of the landed gentry. Like the coastal grandma trend that is said to have spawned it, the fisherman aesthetic is really an attempt to appropriate moneyed understatement. 'I think fashion is generally obsessed with wealth recently,' says Bevan. 'There was stealth wealth, the old-money aesthetic, quiet luxury, equestrian-inspired womenswear collections. It feels like one side of this is an extension of that.' Essentially the two looks project the same vibe: tell me you're rich without telling me you're rich, even though you're not actually rich. Even that isn't the whole story: walking back from the beach, through Hastings Old Town, I am suddenly struck by the number of men my age – tourists, mostly – wearing fly-fishing vests. And they're not doing it ironically or because they genuinely aspire to the angling life, or because they're trying to project quiet luxury. They're doing it because they like pockets.

‘I met my best friend': two students on the many benefits of joining university clubs
‘I met my best friend': two students on the many benefits of joining university clubs

The Guardian

time4 hours ago

  • The Guardian

‘I met my best friend': two students on the many benefits of joining university clubs

There are few times in life better suited to trying new things than your student years. In fact, many people would say that's the whole point of going to university. Higher education is about more than just the subject you study – it's a time to meet new people, step outside of your comfort zone and discover new things about yourself. And one of the best ways to do that is by joining student clubs and societies. Now in the third year of his philosophy degree at the University of Lincoln, Thomas Woodcock is a member of no less than seven student societies – ranging from archery to animal sciences, the book club to bellringing, and Kin-Ball to philosophy. The 22-year-old's choice of societies perfectly illustrates the huge range of clubs on offer at universities – whether you're looking to keep fit, learn or maintain skills, dive deeper into your degree subject or simply socialise, there will almost definitely be something that ticks the box. While many of Woodcock's activities are new to him, the hobby that's proved most meaningful is one he's had since childhood, and has continued at university. 'I joined Lincoln University Guides and Scouts (Lugs) at the start of my first year, having been Scouting since I was six years old,' he says. 'Although it's a relatively small society, the community I have because of Lugs has really contributed to my enjoyment of uni. Many of the friends I have made are from Lugs, and I don't know what my experience would have been like if hadn't joined, but I do believe I would have been worse off – that's how important this society, the community, and the people within it have been to me and my student experience.' It's a sentiment that 19-year-old Maya Mathiou-Rose, now in the second year of her psychology degree at the University of York, can relate to. Unlike Woodcock, Mathiou-Rose has channelled her time and energy into just one passion – volleyball – but she has also found that the impact on her university experience has extended far beyond the court. 'Joining any society allows you to find like-minded people and form lifelong connections,' she says. 'I can personally attest to this – having met my best friend, Aurelie, during the team tryouts in first year, we've been inseparable ever since. I also met my three current housemates through the University of York volleyball club (UYVC) and the James College volleyball club. Playing volleyball has not only brought us together, but also strengthened the bond between us.' Woodcock and Mathiou-Rose are far from alone in feeling that their university experience has been enhanced by joining a club or society. A study released by British University and College Sports (BUCS) in May 2025, covering the previous year, found that almost 94% of students agreed that being involved in sport gave them a sense of belonging to their institution and its community. Another recent study, conducted by the University of Lincoln students' union, found that students who were members of a society (of 17,414 students, 4,351 were involved in an activity) were more likely to complete their studies. 'Of the 1,774 who have withdrawn this year, only 86 (5%) were activity members,' reads the report. 'This means that just 2% of activity members withdrew, compared to 10% of non-activity members, highlighting that students involved in sports or societies are five times more likely to continue their studies than those who are not activity members.' Joining a society (or seven) isn't just a great way to enrich your university experience, it can also positively affect your life post-graduation. Extracurricular activities don't only look great on your CV – adding depth and breadth to your life experience – they're also a great way to learn new skills and build your confidence. This is especially true if, like Woodcock and Mathiou-Rose, you go one step further and take on a leadership role. 'As the secretary of the UYVC I've developed key skills which are directly relevant to the career I want to pursue in human resources,' says Mathiou-Rose. 'It's given me real, tangible experiences to reflect on in interviews, like managing stakeholder relationships, handling logistics under pressure, and maintaining clear and professional communication.' As for their advice for the next generation of students about to embark on their own higher education journeys, Woodcock says: 'Go to the sports and societies fairs during freshers' week and talk to the committees and members. Register your interest in those that sound good, and go to the taster sessions. I promise you it will be worth it. The communities and support I have built have massively helped me over the last three years – I can't recommend joining a society more.' Mathiou-Rose recommends not just joining societies, but getting involved in their structure and management. 'It's through this deeper engagement that you gain experiences and lessons that you'll cherish for a lifetime.' For more guidance on the right course for you, check out the Guardian university league tables for 2025. The Guardian league tables for 2026 will be out on 13 September in print and online

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