![]() You tended to dress down and look like everyone else.” Generally speaking we kept our heads down and tried to avoid being seen as what we were.” John Hardy echoes the fact that everyday dress for most gay men followed conventions of fashion: as he says “when you were out and about in the streets and going about your ordinary day to day business you wouldn’t think of wearing anything really outrageous. ![]() I wouldn’t have dreamt of going into town in those days without wearing a tie and usually a sports jacket. Clothes were conventional and only small signals were given to indicated sexuality, for example the wearing of a pinkie (little finger) ring or suede shoes (143).ĭudley Cave remembers the clothes he was wearing when he met his partner in 1952: “I was wearing grey flannels, a sport coat and an extremely butch belt, an ex-army belt, a tie. Therefore, most homosexual men followed the accepted dress rules of the day wearing “dark suits, three pieces, very quiet shirts.” To the majority of gay men it was important to remain invisible. The legal position was such that dressing to announce one’s sexual preference could lead to the loss of job or home, and could even lead to imprisonment. The police were conducting a virtual witch-hunt of gay men, exemplified by cases such as the Montagu trials. For most gay men, the 1950s were characterised by the very real fear of exposure, blackmail and arrest.
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