Britain's Princess Anne is the perfect role model during a recession, writes Michael Parsons
BRITAIN'S PRINCESS Anne wore an outfit to a wedding last month which she had first worn 27 years ago at the nuptials of her brother Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Apparently she didn't give a fig that the wrap-dress had been seen before. And, boy, had it been seen - an estimated one billion people watched television coverage of that wedding in 1981. Now where do you think the princess acquired this prudence? Why from famously thrifty mummy and papa of course. She's quite the chip off the old majestic oak block. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Princess Royal (her official title) said: "Clothes have to be practical. My parents believe that things are not to be wasted." How right they are, Ma'am!
Isn't it a pity that Irish parents don't offer similar common-sense advice to daughters "maxing out" on credit cards in Dundrum Town Centre and then "going mental" over their monthly statements? Princess Anne is, indeed, the perfect role model for these recessionary times. You can be quite sure she seeks out the OBOOGOF offers at Tesco: "One buys one, one gets one free". And sends an equerry out to Lidl for the Thursday "specials".
Incidentally, she's been watching the pounds as well as the pennies. Women will have deduced (with delighted approval surely) that Her Royal Highness's ability to slip comfortably into the same dress after three decades means she hasn't put on an ounce of weight in all that time.
She's not the only toff acting frugally. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, also stepped out last month - on the occasion of her 61st birthday - wearing the exact same "combo" of skirt and blouse she had worn the previous year for her 60th.
It wouldn't happen here. Oh no. Irish women in the public eye wouldn't be "caught dead" wearing the same ensemble to more than one wedding or going to a party in glad rags that had been aired last year.
But although shopping may now be the chief "leisure" pursuit of our society - never have so many people been so badly dressed.
"Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over 35 who is fond of pink ribbons" said Oscar Wilde. Well, the old bean always did prefer lamb to overdressed mutton, but what on earth would he have made of contemporary fashion trends? Such as women wearing "tracky bottoms" to the supermarket and sullen youths wearing "hoodies" for a District Court appearance? Or, the stray hen - surely a tourist - seen tottering down the High Street in Kilkenny wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the flag of St George and the slogan: "Come On Lads - Score With Me". Isn't it a good thing the GAA has relaxed the ban on playing foreign games?
But Wilde might well have approved of a rather different manifestation of perfidious Albion's sartorial influence. Pith helmets recently returned to a shop window display in central Dublin for the first time in many years with the opening of Hackett, an upmarket English clothes shop, on South Anne Street.
The quintessential headgear of the British Empire was worn by civilian and military personnel posted to the tropics until the sun finally set. The helmet - made from pale-coloured plant fibres - could be soaked in water to act as a coolant thus preventing heatstroke among the mad dogs and Englishmen who went out in the midday sun. Hackett is simply peddling "nostalgie d'Empire" to Ballsbridge bwanas and Sandymount sahibs. Its summer clothes evoke the glamour and romance of Passage to India or White Mischief and are perfect for willowy West Brits and Fine Gael barristers "en vacances".
At the, ahem, other end of the social scale, Cork-based internet retailer, Puckout.com, is selling "GAA Underwear". "Native girls" can choose between "Continental Hotpants" or a "sexy, high-quality string thong". Both - rather scanty - garments come in a choice of county colours and available logos include "Cats", "Dubs" and "Rebels". Two tribes, one nation under God. Eh?