The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook: The First Guide to What Really Matters in Life

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After what had seemed like decades of an intellectual moratorium on big picture discussion of class and inequality, it was everywhere (I’d been told by broadcasters before 2008 “that’s so not today’s issue,” when I’d wanted to look at the rich as anything but lifestyle options, and immediately after 2008 it was off the table).

When Diana Spencer began to appear in newspapers in the summer of 1980, Sloane Ranger style started to gallop down to the high streets,” York has noted. “Suddenly, a Sloane – as we saw her – was the most interesting and publicised person in the world.” And one, perhaps, ripe for gentle pastiche.

Ann was not domesticated – she looked down on those who were – and her tiny top-floor flat in Notting Hill was chaotic, ruled by her parrot Turkey, who flew freely about, depositing mess, clawing her way through papers, gnawing at boxes and plastic, and sharing Ann’s food. She rarely entertained at home and kept people she wanted to impress away from there. In fact, Sloane Ranger fashion was as far away as you could get from anything European (very suspicious in the eyes of most 1980s toffs). When York’s Sloane Ranger Handbook was published, it described the ubiquitous pie-crust collars, colourful loafers, velvet Alice bands and navy-blue gilets as “middle-aged dressing for young people”. It infected many of us seriously. Gold signet rings began to sprout on bare little fingers. Vowels stretched. We began to dress like our grandparents. And look what damage it did to bright young minds. I recall taking a young Sloane Scottish, velvet hairband, gorgeous in taffeta gown with tartan sash to a charity ball in London during this heady period, and, when the party eventually ended, she turned to me outside the Dorchester with a sparkle in her eyes. ‘I know what we should do now,’ she murmured. ‘Let’s go to Sloane Square and jump in the fountain.’ A chill November morning, 3am, and this was the most alluring possible end to a night out for a girl bitten badly by the bug. Things got a bit more cushy in the early 1980s. By then, belatedly, there was a four-door option, along with power steering and even an automatic gearbox. And then the Sloane peepers could be made to widen enviously with editions aimed at him, created with Daks on Piccadilly, and her, thanks to a tie-up with Vogue magazine. Rover simply could not turn out Range Rovers fast enough. The world’s most stylish station wagon was in strong demand from overseas markets, and there never seemed to be enough of them to go round. It was also one of the rare bright spots in the British Leyland debacle, but unlike many of the company’s other products the Range Rover seemed to get almost everything right first time. As a consequence, year by year it continued unchanged and so became a pillar of the British motoring establishment that all patriots could be proud of.

By the noughties, commentators were complaining that the acting trade – a ‘being profession’ – was dominated by people like Benedict Cumberbatch, Eddie Redmayne and Dominic West. Would there ever be another generation of Michael Caines and Terence Stamps, they asked?What's more, the Sloane way of life has returned in a wholly non-ironic form, updated for the 21st century. To be a Sloane in the 1980s, one had to wear the right clothes (see above), go to the right venues (Tramp, Annabel's) and have the right family name. To be an It girl today, one doesn't need to do anything but wear the right clothes (tight jeans, Anya Hindmarch bags, glitzy stilettos), go to the right clubs (Attica, China White's) and have the right family (Palmer-Tomkinson, Hervey, even Aitken). Plus ca change. Dictators' Homes (2005), published in the US under the title Dictator Style: Lifestyles of the World's Most Colorful Despots, explored the interior design favoured by dictators as a reflection of their despotic characters. [ citation needed] The book isn’t meant to be taken seriously, it’s just a really really hysterical piece of literary satire. Light-hearted social commentary. Reading it won’t change your life, but it will stop you embarrassing yourself in front of an upper class person if you are about to ask for a handful of serviettes because there’s no paper in the toilet. These two fashionable sets may have been separated by 250 years, but each captured a unique moment in history – and style.

Ann was born in London, the second of four children of a Canadian mother, Margaret Gordon, and a Scottish father, Andrew Greig Barr. Ann’s grandfather, also called Andrew Greig Barr, invented the soft drink Irn-Bru, which still has the Barr name on the logo. In 1939, at the start of the second world war, Margaret took her children to Montreal and put Ann into a private school called the Study, where Margaret had previously been head girl and had a house named after her. The idea of Sloane Rangers – the native population of the bestselling Official Sloane Ranger Handbook (Ebury Press, 1982) – started with what I call a Martian moment, a ‘Have you seen it?’ sensation. A welcome side effect of this anti-French dressing was that clothes became far more comfortable. Eighties’ Sloane Rangers also made relaxation a priority. One glance at Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson in muddy Barbours or colourful jumpers proves that they prized being able to move freely above quite a few other considerations (including, sometimes, taste). In 2015, York presented a sixty-minute live show, How to Become a Nicer Type of Person, on stage in Edinburgh and London. [5] In November 2016 he presented Peter York's Hipster Handbook on BBC Four. [6] Books [ edit ] Happy anniversary to The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. Exactly 40 years ago, this absolutely barking book came out declaring that one should eat jelly with a fork, cry while singing carols but not at funerals, wear navy Barbours and live in a postcode that begins “SW”. While the miners haggled with the Coal Board, the stars of the book, Caroline and Henry, were trotting about Fulham in their loafers and eating beef bourguignon at dinner parties. (In the section about the Royal family, the entry for Prince Andrew is prophetic indeed: “Very brave. Can he really be so sexy? What can the Queen think of it? Hope he settles down before she gets embarrassed.”)When The Official Preppy Handbook hit the shelves in 1980, the east coast American sub culture had flourished long enough, and aroused enough curiosity, to commence poking fun at it. For those familiar, it was such a hit that is spawned a sequel of sorts some 30 years later. On the heels of the The Official Preppy Handbook's popularity, England turned out a handbook of their own in 1982, The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. The approach feels familiar, riffing on its predecessor down to the title itself. While hard to find, we serendipitously came across a copy in New York while vintage shopping.