Know Your Enemy

"Last week, hardcore idiots across the nation stood in rows at dawn, desperate to get their hands on a cotton bag with the 'I'm not a plastic bag' printed on it. Right now, a group of determined oafs is camping out in preparation for tomorrow's launch of the new Kate Moss clothing range at Topshop. If Grazia magazine printed an article declaring it fashionable to smack yourself in the forehead with a limited-edition ball-pein hammer designed exclusively by Coleen McLoughlin, a mob would form outside your local B&Q before the ink had dried on the page".

"As far as I can tell, fashion is nothing more than a handy visual system that gives people with no personality some palpable criteria to judge each other by".

"Don't get me wrong. I'm all for freedom of expression. I just don't understand why people choose to flaunt their individuality by dressing alike".

The superbly irascible Charlie Brooker lays into fashion and its victims.

(Incidentally, I currently know exactly what he means about having shoes whose soles have worn so thin "I can stand on a penny and tell if it's heads or tails"...)