Why Zack Polanski’s Parka Should Shame Us All

While we cannot judge that Zack Polanski is a wally just because he permanently wears a parka, we can probably agree he looks grim. Is he really Prime Minister material? Style wise, is this the look we want representing Britain on the world stage? After the shameless corruption and treasonous activity carried on by men in suits and Hermes’ ties, perhaps this is indeed a more honest alternative. And in any case, Polanski, with his parka and poor dentistry, is an accurate reflection of our sartorially rundown nation.

And I say this as one currently wearing jeans and a hoodie. Urgh.

At her northern Secondary Modern, Mum was taught ‘A History of Britain through costume’. Children recorded the dates and important information about different eras before colouring-in images of medieval villeins, Georgian rakes, Victorian industrialists and so on. If such teaching materials still exist, I can picture the next chapter: The Second Dark Age 1997-present. Images will be drawn of late-stage Elizabethans and Caroleans dressed in prison chic tracksuits, baggy jeans, fleeces, anoraks, popstars in sportswear, special advisers in non-ironed shirts and baseball caps, the Archbishop of Canterbury in wide-fit rubber-soled footwear. Pictures of leaders in costume would include Mothin Ali in his cross-cultural mix of Bangladeshi lungi and leather jacket, and a gap-toothed Zak Polanski in his parka. A friend saw a dishevelled women outside a Westminster coffee shop recently and reached into her bag to give her a £5 note she keeps to give the homeless. She realised just in time that this unfortunately dressed person was actually a member of the House of Lords (Baroness Coffey). Just like the Mitchell and Webb sketch where two Nazi’s suddenly wonder whether they’re the bad guys, we British will look at ourselves and wonder: are we all actually poor peasants?

There are two main explanations for the general shabbiness of current attire. The most obvious is the sad decline in wealth and ambition. Britain is now a poor country, we have to rely on cheaper fabrics and generic design rather than plush materials and bespoke dress. 22% of the working age population in Britain does not work. There’s no point in dressing up for anything if there is nowhere to go.

The other explanation is that there is a determined national demoralisation campaign afoot that seeks the great uglification of Britain. Our tastes, and indeed the tastes of our tribe, are not self-generated, but rather decided from on high. When I buy a slouchy pair of jeans, I am no more freely choosing my own clothes than the teenage boy who insists on £300 Nike trainers. Meryl Streep as the supercilious magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada explained this brilliantly to unfashionable PA Anne Hathaway:

You think fashion has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don’t know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don’t know is that that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. … And then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.

The memo has not yet been sent from on high that all of Britain deserves to wear elegant clothes. Trend forecasters such as WGSN and Peclers Paris predict miserable ideas about “comfort being non-negotiable” and “formal dressing continuing its post-pandemic fade with ongoing interest in sustainability and regenerative fashion”. As such ideas trickle down to the high street, this means in practice: more drawstring trousers, anoraks, clothes made out of plastic, sweatpants and oversized hoodies. Polanski’s parka chic looks set to remain for the foreseeable.

Many brave clothes horses successfully rail against this neo-peasant chic, including Peter Hitchens in his braces, the always immaculate Michelle Dewsbury in her red lipstick, and no doubt all the readers of the Daily Sceptic. We should draw sartorial strength from them. And indeed, the popularity of Poldark, Bridgerton and Downton Abbey is in part thanks to the gorgeous costumes and a collective yearning for more appealing dress. I can’t be only woman who longs to be corseted up and dance with a man in tight breeks and buckskin boots?

Bijan Omrani wrote a rousing piece last year encouraging us to dress well: not just for ourselves but for the country. Let’s turn over a page in the ‘History of Britain through costume’ and banish the Polanski parka aesthetic. We shall reclaim the trilby from George Galloway and the covert coat from Farage. Peter Mandelson however, can keep his pink rollneck.

Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.