The Skin Fade & North Face Jacket Combo

A funny, sharp and self-mocking critique of a male style popular on Ireland’s campuses, by Irish Instagram and now Tik-Tok star Frankie McNamara.

@meditationsfortheanxiousCultural observations: the skinfade + northface jacket combo #fyp #fypシ #foryou #foryoupage #irishtiktok #irishtiktokfam #college #thewisdomofcollegestudents #meditationsfortheanxiousmind

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Back in my day, signing on in London in the mid-eighties, it was all about flattops and bomber jackets. They came in green, blue, black and maroon. And you were permitted a quiff instead of a flattop.

I had a flattop with a quiff - one of the advantages of a youthful widow’s peak. And a black flight jacket. (With second-hand Levis 501 from Camden instead of light grey trakkies - which must be an absolute ‘mare to keep clean.) I coveted a maroon bomber jacket but didn’t have the balls.

Bomber jackets were not nearly as warm as a North Face, nor as bulkifying. But they did give the illusion of an upper body to young homosexuals living in squats and living off baked beans, crisps - and Tennents Extra pulled at The Bell public house in Kings Cross.

McNamara has a good eye. I think all the specimens he’s pinned and mounted here are adorable and cracking good sports.

But the cocky, gum-chewing, curly-haired skin fade in the flamboyantly purple North Face jacket (c. 45 secs) is totally individual. He’s made that uniform, in the immortal words of the Irish genius Louis Walsh, his own.

h/t Simon M