The Unheard words of new writers...

situation one: the anticipation

The week was cruel. I had an adjournment for two days.
I need a release.
I’m at my house, waiting for my friends. I’m deciding what to wear. Can you wear shoes? Not sure?

Shoes in the clubs I go to are largely unacceptable. This also goes for my jeans. I don’t think they are acceptable. I had better put some trousers on, and I had better wear a shirt. Actually, I had better iron that shirt.

‘Dress to Impress’, ‘Smart and Sexy’, ‘Fresh and Clean’…they all mean the same things – no caps, no hoods, no trainers, no jeans. It’s paradoxical that in the bars and clubs I’ve visited in Shoreditch just up the road from where I’m going in Dalston – the play space of the young professionals - trainers are highly acceptable. However, black people, the second poorest social group in Britain, are required to adhere to a ‘bourgeois’ dress code. The argument being, the better dressed you are, the less trouble you’re likely to cause. It's an intriguing theory and wholly inaccurate.

We have a situation where those young people who earn the most, in many cases sport the scruffiest most weathered clothes. We have a situation where those young people who have the greatest economic power, can chose dress-down club wear. And yet, young black londeners, who received the second worst GCSE results, are second bottom in the list of cultural groups who live in unfit dwellings, and belong to a group, 46% of whom experience poverty in Britain; are forced to dress-up to go out.

Black people are the single most dominant force in youth culture. From their communities in Britain and the US; their innovation in music; and more importantly, their street wear, they have created a global phenomenon. The baseball cap, Bronx hat, baggy jeans, hoods, trainers, tracksuits, have become a trademark of young people from the Ukraine to Vietnam. So I still can’t get my head round the notion that in clubs frequented by young urban black people, street styles are rejected by club owners.