Last week Thursday, page 3 of The Times was dominated by a large quarter page photo illustrating a much-redacted report about a Premier League footballer winning a legal gag against a topless model.
The caption does not make it absolutely clear, but the photo showed at least twenty photographers, all male, presumably outside the Royal Courts of Justice hoping to catch the combatants as they arrived.
My mental image of such a press pack shows them all in dress-down, even scruffy, casual; but not this lot. Every single one is wearing a smart, well-tailored dark grey suit. I was so startled that for a moment I thought it actually a uniform, but a closer look revealed subtle differences in the cuff buttons – some three, some four, some with buttonholes, some not.
Have we entered a new age of formality in the dress of the working London male, chinos, polo shirts & parkas banished to the country? Is it that, just like other professions, the top ranks of photographers are now dominated by toffs? Or are they perhaps just rehearsing, making sure that they can work in such clothes, de rigueur for The Abbey, The Palace & The Wedding.
But yet another look suggested that they were all also wearing white shirt & dark tie, so perhaps the day’s other major news story involved a funeral or memorial service.
