The English have an uneasy and difficult relationship with clothes, characterized
primarily by a desperate need for *sartorial rules and an imabiHty to cope without them.
This helps to explain why the English have an international reputation for dressing jm
general very badly, but.with specifc areas (pockets, you might say) of excellence, such
5 aS high-class gentlemen's tailoring, sporting, and 'country′ clothes, ceremomial costume
and innovative street-fashion. QBE other words, We English are at our sartorial best when
we have strict, formal rules and traditions to follow 一 when we are either literally or
effectively in uniform .