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Allen Togwell’s Marketing Place |
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It’s remarkable how the words of one
person - albeit a very powerful one - namely Barack Obama, can
have a profound effect on a twenty-year fashion style even when
it wasn’t exactly intended. As was the case when he said
brothers should pull up their pants. A statement, which
appears to have brought about the downfall in USA, and I’ve
noticed in the UK, of the wearing of those ridiculous jeans with
the crotch dangling around the knees. A fashion that supposedly
originated in American prisons, indicating the wearer’s sexual
preference and availability and later favoured by rappers,
hoodies and of course the young and not so young on both sides
of the pond. The president was speaking literally, but his directive was interpreted figuratively as well along the lines of: Stop complaining, pull up your pants, roll up your sleeves and make something of yourselves. The problem with fashion is the moment it becomes an accepted style, it then goes to extremes. For example, during the 60’s fashion designer Mary Quant had a shop in the Kings Road called Bazaar. It was the first in the UK to introduce the mini skirt, a style that was to cause a sensation when top model of the time, Jean Shrimpton, wore a white mini dress at a race meeting in Melbourne with the hem 3" above the knee. Women of all ages and sizes became so attracted to the style, they began cutting the bottoms off their dresses and skirts and it has remained popular to this day. However it wasn’t long before 3inches became 6inches, 10inches, 15inches and more. Which might be appealing to your average hot-blooded male, but not exactly appropriate for the work place or even in public, especially since in addition to showing an exorbitant amount of thigh, we have the added exposure of excesive midrift or in males – builder’s bum. A style, which because they dropped to such rediculous extremes, several states in the USA such as Dallas and Florida made it an arrestable offence for exposing underwear in public. Having once designed and manufactured a whole range of womens wear, I have a fair knowledge of what makes a women look atractive and frankly, showing off one’s backside or underwear in public is not fashion, it is exhibitionism. Every week in my local shopping centre, I constantly see women of all ages |
 with jeans and skirts hanging so low, particularly when bending, that they are showing almost two thirds of their G-string plus a whole variety of tatoo’s, some so oddly placed that I’m curious to know for whose pleasure they are meant to be, obviously not the wearer unless they are contortionists! So where lay the line between fashion and indecent exposure? In the meantime, to those of you that support the view that image plays an important role in the service industry; firstly, showing off your Calvin Klein underwear is now most definitely uncool. High waistband snug fitting jeans or trousers aka Simon Cowell are now in vogue. As for you ladies, I personally have nothing against shoulder tatts, in fact if you are looking for something really unique, a small Dial-a-Cab logo would I’m sure attract more attention from your male passengers than a thousand give away cards! I’m joking of course… When interviewing new applicants wishing to join our circuit, I ask the obvious question - why Dial-a-Cab? Occasionally I get a shrug of the shoulders and a nondescript - I just wanna give it a try. But generally, the three most common answers are; a) I’ve decided to join a radio circuit and as I’m always seeing cabs carrying your logo, I assume you to be the best, b) I have a friend or relative on DaC who convinced me I should join and c) I like the DaC system of having people on the Board who understand what it’s like driving a cab, unlike the circuit I’m on at the moment who have no idea - and worse don’t care a dam. That last comment I’ve heard quite often of late and its sad to hear, especially when the drivers in question have been loyal members of their respective circuits, in some cases for twenty or thirty years. It’s also a cause for concern because it is attitudes such as this that has been the reason why for many years only a third of all green badge drivers have ever been attracted into joining a radio taxi circuit. A multi million pound industry, which in my opinion had |
every cab driver in London
from the moment they got their badge joined a radio circuit, I
truly believe minicabs would never have existed. Over the years, whenever I’ve used a non-radio cab, I always ask the driver if they have ever considered joining a radio circuit, and it’s surprising how many comment that they were put off by a whole range of mistaken beliefs. Such as loss of freedom, the feeling of being employed, forced to do jobs and lastly and the most common assumption, that the circuits were hooky with only the ‘faces’ getting the best work. In the majority of cases that last assumption had been perceived during an era when radio circuits used two-way radios. And to be honest, when I first joined DaC there was many a time when I was of a similar opinion. Especially on the occasions I missed out on a roader, not only to a face, but a face who just happened to be passing the very address the trip was being called from, no matter how obscure the area! Or on other occasions for example when being of equal distance to the point with another driver, the dispatcher would insult my intelligence by rattling what was supposed to be a coin and asked me to choose odds or even! It was a ridiculous system and understandably left many cynical about the honesty of the dispatchers, especially in my case as I never once won a toss. However, I feel it prudent to add that when I joined the Board and seeing first hand the dispatchers at work, not once, in my presence at least, did I ever see anything other than complete fairness. In fact the system of dispatching in those days with the use of dockets, at times was so frantic there was no time to indulge in favouritism. Nevertheless, when computerised dispatching was first mooted and I and the rest of the Board went on fact finding missions around the world looking at various computerised systems, the speed and fairness in the way trips were dispatched played a significant part in convincing me that data despatch was the way forward. Unfortunately for many, old attitudes still remained. Which is a pity because had every cab driver been on radio, as is the case in many European cities, it would it have given the public and business’s a greater level of service and the drivers less dead mileage and an extra source if income. Allen Togwell |
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