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Ready to Wear: Men don’t like Uggs or harem pants. So no surprises there, then

Susannah Frankel
Monday 25 January 2010 01:00 GMT
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January, like August, is traditionally the month given over to the not- entirely-statistically-rigorous-but-entertaining-nonetheless fashion/lifestyle survey. And so, thank you, MyCelebrityFashion.co.uk, for your effort, dutifully documenting what a little more than 1,500 men, aged between 18 and 30, love to hate about women's fashion.

Top of the list – and there's no need for sisterly dissent or indeed even concern here: Ugg boots, the most hated item of women's clothing of them all, according to 57 per cent of those questioned. Quite what redeeming features the remaining 43 per cent came up with remains a mystery. The fact that Stephanie Beacham is clearly inseparable from hers, perhaps?

Next, more than half the men surveyed disliked 'jeggings', although it should perhaps be pointed out that over a third didn't actually know what they were. Bless. Could it be the Max Wall effect that is causing such antipathy? Who knows? Women, for their part, might protest that should a man try on a pair and compare with the by-now-ubiquitous skinny jeans they might suddenly be enlightened. Jeggings don't make your bottom look like an oversized pasty, are stretchy enough to make muffin tops unlikely, and don't fall down. As for skinny jeans... Confusingly, 57 per cent of men said they hated them but they also appeared among men's favourites. In fact, a love/hate relationship, given the aforementioned drawbacks, is unusually insightful here.

Neon colours received an outright pasting, with 73 per cent of men dead against them. A minor case of overreaction perhaps and reason, in 2010, to get a life. (At least some involved also had an irrational dislike, nay, hatred of leg warmers.) Men were also antipathetic towards pink, although this, almost certainly, is some faux-metrosexual response to what they consider to be stereotyping. They don't know, clearly, that the fashion cliché, more often than not duly subverted, tends to be rather more interesting than that.

Men didn't like harem pants (no surprises there, then) and the majority were also opposed to tattoos, deemed tacky, if you please. Disingenuous in the extreme, meanwhile, was the fact that 37 per cent of men claimed to like a maxi dress. Are you man enough to prefer suggestive clothing over and above, say, the overtly sexy miniskirt? Yawn. And if you believe that...

"It's interesting to see that some of last year's fashions have been so unappealing, particularly when they have sold so successfully," said Andy Barr, the website's marketing director, going on to opine, with the wisdom of a sage: "I doubt it will change what women like and how they dress."

There's no arguing with that, certainly.

s.frankel@independent.co.uk

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