There goes the sun

So summer's been and gone now - clocks change next weekend, sob. It was a good one though...well better than it seemed it was going to be at one point. With the summer gone it seems strange a group of scientists should choose now to publishing findings that dark clothing is better than Hawaiian shirts for sun protection.

Although dark clothing is usually shunned in hot weather for light, floaty, bright colours, Dr Ascension Riva, who led the study - published in the journal Industrial and Engineering Chemistry said, “The colour of cotton woven fabrics is a factor that has a remarkable influence on their protection against ultraviolet radiation." She added, "Clothing manufacturers could use information from this study to better design sun-protective clothing."

So, what are you waiting for, get to it - in time for next years heatwave!

Stone Age Clothing

Since human's made clothes, they liked fashion. Who doesn't like looking good? From the ice age to the dole age (thanks Morrissey) we humans have been fickle folks when it comes to colours, shades and lines, and now we have the proof to prove it. Sort of.

Archaeologists have uncovered a haul of pink, turquoise and black fibres that were used to make thread more than 34,000 years ago in caves the hills of the Republic of Georgia. Pink and turquoise? Hmm, suspect cavemen fashion. Then again, I guess if they saw some of the things we wear, they'd be a little shocked.

The Ashes

We won! We won! Oh isn't it good to have won the Ashes back!

Did you hear Lily Allen on the Test Match Special (TMS) lunch time show being interviewed by Johnathan Agnew? It was quite an interesting interview, underlying the sports wide appeal to people of all generations, and it was intriguing to hear the thoughts of Ms Allen on the game, and its appeal. One of these she noted was the simplicity of the kits, the colour of the "whites on the green", and her dismissal (ha!) of Twenty20 and its kits.

It's true indeed that the sight of cricket whites against lush green grass, standing in the field, and the sound of leather on willow, is an classic piece of English heritage. It's nice to see that even a live-fast rock-hard youngster like Lily Allen can appreciate this, and the simple white clothing of the game still retains its charm, even as day-glo kits are fast becoming the norm.

The roaring 40s

Twenty 20 cricket is upon us - with England doing their best / worst to make the start of the tournament more dramatic than it needed to be - but what we particularly like is the kits the teams wear. Ostensibly mere variations on their traditional colours - dark blues, greens, yellows etc - they're adorned with numbers like footballers (many seem to have random ones like 99 or 45 - eh?) and their names emblazoned across the back.

Of course, with such loud, bright colours the potential for kit clashes is high. If Pakistan play India you get sky blue v dark green. Urgh.

Giddy up!

So the Grand National is upon us, with forty runners and riders ready for the off tomorrow afternoon, and across the land people will cheer on their nags, screaming at the television in the hope of winning any bets down, or the office sweepstake.

Of course clothing has little to play in this - unlike, say, swimming - but it's nice if the random gee-gee you've chosen has a rider in go-faster strips or something that looks good, it seems as if you have more of a chance.

Company Clothing wanted to pick Fleet Street (66-1) for obvious reasons, but instead has been saddled with Kilbeggan Blade (20-1), so perhaps an outside chance of victory.

Come on horse! Run!

It's just not cricket (well, technically it is)

Looking at sport for the second day in a row and The England Cricket Board (ECB) has caused much constenation and stroking of beards among the cricketing glitterati with the announcemnet that the forth coming, and inaugural, floodlight test match at Lords could see players wearing kit that, shock horror, isn't white.

In The Telegraph's report Peter Baxter, the ex-producer of Test Match Special, warned that many of the game's most passionate supporters would be upset. He said: "I don't like the idea of the Test matches not being played in white. If you don't play in white than it's the thin end of the wedge. For many people, the attraction of cricket is the aesthetic and the sense of tradition."

In some ways you can understand the problem. For hundreds of years cricket was a sensible game played in white kits that last for five days and involved a nice lunch in the middle. Now, it's loud garish kits, 20/20 games, mad crowds, and 'referrals' allowed on decisions given by that most respected of characters - the cricket umpire. The white test kit must have been the last bastion of a world that has been rapidly changing.

But time marches on and evolution happens. No doubt the ECB will have their way, pink kits or lime green, or maybe a mixture of both (yuk!) will become the norm and that will be that. I don't know, it's just not cricket is it?

Feet of the seats

How many times do you see those posters telling you not to put your feet on the seats on public transport? Quite right too. But what if your feet are the seats. Or to put it more accurately, you're wearing shoes that have the design of the tube's seats as their pattern.

That's the potentially mind-boggling situation that could occur should you choose to wear a pair of these shoes. There's a pattern from each line - Victoria, Piccadilly, Metropolitan - and so forth, and the gallery section of their website shows how the shoes are made.

We were hoping to end this blog entry with a funny pun on a tube station that had a reference to footwear but the nearest to any form of reference on the underground we could come up with was Archway - which is pretty poor. So we decided against it.

Kilt pride

We've blogged about kilts before and they've once again come on to our radar with the story that a man from Halesowen has designed two brand new plaid patterns for Halesowen and the Black Country to show his pride for his place of birth.

Far from just being a garment worn by the Scottish they can be found as far south as Cornwall or, as the story shows, in the midlands, and the fact people choose to show their pride for somewhere through their clothing is another reminder of why the right look is so important.

Drowning in pink?

The BBC Magazine section published an interesting article yesterday on the pros and cons of promoting pink as the colour for girls. Also worth noting is that at the start of the 1900s, the prevailing thought was that pink should be for boys, and blue should be for girls:

The Women's Journal explained it thus: "That pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."

DressMaker magazine agreed. "The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is considered paler, and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger (akin to red)." Taken from the article.

Interesting how fashion changes. Any thoughts?

How not to kit out a team

French rugby team Stade Francais have been making headlines for their new kit, but not for the right reasons. As you can see from the image on the right it has certain hint of Andy Warhol about it.

Perhaps to give the designers some slack the BBC have plundered the photo galleries and found some other classic designs from the past - you can view the gallery here. Special credit to number 9.

Is a team kit meant to inspire fear in your opposition? Or build a good sense of teamwork and community? What is the best colour for success? New Zealand's black kit has a classic ruthlessness to it, but then they always falter at the end. England's white kit probably causes headaches for the people who have to wash it, but they seem to do alright, despite wearing a colour more synonymous with surrender than vicious tackling.

It would be some interesting research to carry out - see which colours result in the most wins / trophies etc. Manchester Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool have been three of the most successful English teams of the last 20 years and all wear red. Often a colour associated with agression...

Then there is Brazil in yellow. Argentina in blue and white stripes. Perhaps there is no science to it at all. What do you think?