Just too late for London Fashion Week, the book above has inspired Welcome to Optimism to consider London East End fashion. Buttoned-Up is a slim volume in a series of books called Penguin Lines, published by Penguin to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Tube, London's underground railway. The books are another fine piece of design from Penguin – desirable and collectable physical objects that are handily pocket-sized and so, aptly enough, ideal for reading on public trasnsport. Buttoned-Up was edited by the founders of supremely stylish fashion mag Fantastic Man. Its role in the series of books is in relation to W+K's local line, the East London Line, and it explores a curious local phenomenon: the habit of buttoning one's top shirt button without wearing a tie.

"When departing the East London Line on Shoreditch High Street, one might choose to visit one of the many menswear retailers that thrive in the Borough of Hackney. It is likely that one will notice a distinct similarity in the way these shops' employees and customers have dressed themselves: they'll be wearing their shirts with the buttons done up all the way to the top, the collars closed tight around their necks. This approach to dressing is not the most comfortable one by any means, but in this area of London and many other corners of society it is miraculously popular."

The essays in the book trace the roots of the style from a number of antecedents, including the supressed sexuality and anger of the '60s mods and the anti-'rockist' thrift shop chic of post-punk Glasgow band Orange Juice.

Edwyn Collins of Orange Juice in the early '80s, perfectly attired for Hoxton in 2013.

(Orange Juice had a sudden and dramatic impact on impressionable Scottish teenagers at the time, of whom I was one. We immediately rushed out to Millett's to buy tartan shirts, which we wore buttoned up to the neck, along with '60s-style suede jackets foraged from jumble sales or the Oxfam shop. Happy days.)

Simon Reynolds argues, "Buttoned up is smarter and more formal than having the shirt loose at the top but the absence of a tie is a glaring and pointed gesture. It suggests that you're not headed for a conventional workplace, but that neither are you dressing sloppy (as with the classic image of the office worker, arriving at home or in the pub, finally free to loosen his tie)."

Paul Flynn summarises the East End look as follows: "Healthy beard, groomed moustache, trousers half an inch too short, lustrous hair side-parted, shirt buttoned up."

With this in mind, Welcome to Optimism decided to investigate the influence of East London street style on the Fantastic Men of Wieden + Kennedy. 

Planner Tom is buttoned up in a fitted tweedy shirt, rocking a sort of military / gamekeeper vibe.

Group Account Director Alex strikes a pose, buttoned up in blue chambray.

Creative Director Kim is buttoned up in plaid.

Double denim, double buttoned-up for Luke.

Creative Ollie has buttoned up a classic white button-down.

 This week I have learnt to make mistakes. And
that failure is ok – necessary, even. In other words, I’ve learnt that you have to make mistakes in order to get something really good.

Yes, that’s right, I’ve been introduced to
the marvelous Soichiro Honda. For the unitiated, he’s the chap who came up with the whole Honda
business – and an awfully clever chap at that. I particularly like his take on baby
spiders (a bit like thinking outside the box, or, the best way to get from A to B is via Z, P, J and F).

From my perspective, it’s really interesting to see how clients can affect an agency’s philosophy. It isn’t a clinical or purely commercial
relation that ties the two together; there’s symbiosis and exchange between them. For someone new to advertising, this is both surprising and rather nice.

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(Thoughts courtesy of Planning Placement newbie James.)