At Port Eliot in Cornwall last summer, there were so many Barbours on narrow, youthful backs, I thought I was at a three-day equestrian event rather than a literary festival. The most popular Barbour is the International, followed by the Liddesdale, which starts at 80 and rises to 150 for one with down quilting. Sales of Barbour coats for women were up a staggering 400 per cent in 2011 compared with 2010.Woolrich Jackets Shop UK
Barbour, though, has not remotely 'done a Burberry', refusing wholeheartedly to cross over into high fashion. It is little changed, merely adding a few fashionable colours, such as pink, emerald and blue for summer 2012, say, or a small collaboration with designer Alice Temperley.
Neither has it courted celebrity, stating proudly it even insists members of the Royal Family pay full price, although when Helen Mirren wore a green Bedale to portray the Queen in the 2006 film, sales of that particular style tripled.
Pringle is yet another 'heritage' brand that is seeing sales soar. Founded in 1815 and still manufactured in Hawick, in the Borders, it not only invented the twinset — a Great British Posh Staple (remember it as worn by Joan Fontaine in the 1940 film of Rebecca?) — but was way ahead of its time, being one of the first brands to court celebrities,Online Belstaff Outlet Shop Sale including British actress Margaret Lockwood, and use them in its advertisements back in the Forties and Fifties.
Hunter wellies, too, despite the price tag of 79 for the Original Green (a style that first saw the light of day in 1956), have seen sales soar (up 30 per cent in 2011 in Selfridges alone). In February, during New York Fashion Week, I lost count of the number of fashionistas in Hunter wellies trudging through the slush.
While I now live on Exmoor,canada goose jacket discount deep in green Barbour-wearing country, I never dress 'posh'. I find Barbours simply not warm enough for the reality of looking after horses in winter, while a flat cap might make me look as though I condone shooting and fishing, which I most certainly do not. I tend to dress in a much more eccentric and townie fashion, with Prada jodhpurs, a Helmut Lang frock coat for walking my four dogs, and a Topshop parka for mucking out.
I still fit into a Harry Hall tweed hacking jacket I've owned since a child, but it's too precious to be covered in the green slobber from the horses.
The adoption of the uniform of the posh by fashion style-setters and pop stars — add-ons include tweed flat caps from Bates on Jermyn Street, Harris Tweed jackets, Hilditch & Key shirts, Swaine Adeney Brigg jodhpurs and hand-made brogues from John Lobb at almost 3,000 a pair (I love the fact Lobb still sells 'felt bath slippers') — is not just about the economy, or buying less, but buying better.Fjallraven Expedition Parka Jacket
It is also because posh pretenders have a new poster girl in the Duchess of Cambridge, who has shown how the middle-class can transcend their roots. But, unfortunately, even Kate has not managed to get the look quite right, largely because she does not have the correct attitude.
While Diana was truly aristocratic — and when first in the public eye stuck to her Sloane Ranger uniform of white collar peeping over her sweater, an Alice band, a string of pearls and navy courts — Kate has verged too close to the High Street and high fashion.
She has a careful,Online Canada Goose Outlet Shop uptight air and could never sling a Barbour over her shoulders with quite the right nonchalance, nor leave home with bed-head hair. I doubt her car ever has rubbish in the footwell, but rather something small and green and smelling of pine.
And I still don't understand how posh people manage to preserve their clothes so impeccably: I had my eye on my mum's embellished, silk-lined Pringle cardi, but was disappointed to find it had been ravaged by moths.
Even grubs privileged enough to inhabit the netherworld of the posh turn out to be very different indeed.
Barbour, though, has not remotely 'done a Burberry', refusing wholeheartedly to cross over into high fashion. It is little changed, merely adding a few fashionable colours, such as pink, emerald and blue for summer 2012, say, or a small collaboration with designer Alice Temperley.
Neither has it courted celebrity, stating proudly it even insists members of the Royal Family pay full price, although when Helen Mirren wore a green Bedale to portray the Queen in the 2006 film, sales of that particular style tripled.
Pringle is yet another 'heritage' brand that is seeing sales soar. Founded in 1815 and still manufactured in Hawick, in the Borders, it not only invented the twinset — a Great British Posh Staple (remember it as worn by Joan Fontaine in the 1940 film of Rebecca?) — but was way ahead of its time, being one of the first brands to court celebrities,Online Belstaff Outlet Shop Sale including British actress Margaret Lockwood, and use them in its advertisements back in the Forties and Fifties.
Hunter wellies, too, despite the price tag of 79 for the Original Green (a style that first saw the light of day in 1956), have seen sales soar (up 30 per cent in 2011 in Selfridges alone). In February, during New York Fashion Week, I lost count of the number of fashionistas in Hunter wellies trudging through the slush.
While I now live on Exmoor,canada goose jacket discount deep in green Barbour-wearing country, I never dress 'posh'. I find Barbours simply not warm enough for the reality of looking after horses in winter, while a flat cap might make me look as though I condone shooting and fishing, which I most certainly do not. I tend to dress in a much more eccentric and townie fashion, with Prada jodhpurs, a Helmut Lang frock coat for walking my four dogs, and a Topshop parka for mucking out.
I still fit into a Harry Hall tweed hacking jacket I've owned since a child, but it's too precious to be covered in the green slobber from the horses.
The adoption of the uniform of the posh by fashion style-setters and pop stars — add-ons include tweed flat caps from Bates on Jermyn Street, Harris Tweed jackets, Hilditch & Key shirts, Swaine Adeney Brigg jodhpurs and hand-made brogues from John Lobb at almost 3,000 a pair (I love the fact Lobb still sells 'felt bath slippers') — is not just about the economy, or buying less, but buying better.Fjallraven Expedition Parka Jacket
It is also because posh pretenders have a new poster girl in the Duchess of Cambridge, who has shown how the middle-class can transcend their roots. But, unfortunately, even Kate has not managed to get the look quite right, largely because she does not have the correct attitude.
While Diana was truly aristocratic — and when first in the public eye stuck to her Sloane Ranger uniform of white collar peeping over her sweater, an Alice band, a string of pearls and navy courts — Kate has verged too close to the High Street and high fashion.
She has a careful,Online Canada Goose Outlet Shop uptight air and could never sling a Barbour over her shoulders with quite the right nonchalance, nor leave home with bed-head hair. I doubt her car ever has rubbish in the footwell, but rather something small and green and smelling of pine.
And I still don't understand how posh people manage to preserve their clothes so impeccably: I had my eye on my mum's embellished, silk-lined Pringle cardi, but was disappointed to find it had been ravaged by moths.
Even grubs privileged enough to inhabit the netherworld of the posh turn out to be very different indeed.
