WHET Spice Boys?

To clarify, this vintage sociocultural fashion era has nothing to with:

a) prison drugs b) guys who wear Old Spice c) the actual Spice Girls

"The Spice Boys" were actual footballers. WTH are you going on about. I know the style you refer to, but who called them spice boys?

Circle the Mediterranean from Spain all the way around to Morocco and this style of young man is forever.

R2 thanks, yeah, I am aware the Spice Boys look and moniker did start with actual footballers. I linked the article about it above.

Out of the sartorial and lifestyle choices of those footballers came a small subculture of young men who weren’t famous or athletic trying to emulate their style, and that’s what I’m on about.

One doesn’t really see those types of lads around in the U.K. anymore nowadays, however, so I wondered where they all went and why/how the style fell out of favour—I venture that recession/economic downturn in the mid 2000s, the denigration/selling-out of designer fashion since the Millennium (sweatshop labour and shoddy products are a bit of a turn-off), strife between Europe & the U.K. (culminating of course in Brexit), and the globalisation of the Premier League are all contributing factors.

You’re saying that it’s a perennial Euro-Medtrash fashion, then? Sounds accurate. As a follow-up question, why do you suppose that is? What does it signify? I’m genuinely curious why it didn’t stick in Britain for more than several years, but it’s always been on-trend abroad.

Why does ANY trend come and go? There is no real answer. That is just what trends do. Perhaps this is a partial answer: People are fickle and always in search of something new and different, chasing the next best thing while denigrating things from the past they think are "dated". I think it makes them somehow feel special and superior.

The English Aristocracy would take the Grand Tour from the 17th - 18th Century. In the 18th Century it went through Switzerland. There were brothers on the carriage routes down to the alps, for instance in Lausanne. Swiss farm boys and farm girls were the delicacy. When the grandees arrived in Torino, Venice or Milan, they were serviced by beautiful slick, urban, extremely fashionable Italian thinks, who worked on commissions for all the luxury trades in these cities.

The slick, fashionable, pretty peacock young man is a part of Mediterranean culture for centuries. It's both masculine and feminine - like the peacock - were the male is the beauty of the species. La Bella Figura is a part of most latin cultures to this day - the imperative to look ones best in public, to put out the best possible image of oneself. It is true through the Levant and across North Africa. Young men want to be impeccably groomed, fashionably dressed, clean if possible, alluring, and of course POLITE and CHARMING.

I think one of the few Northern European cultures that place value on charm through the classes is Ireland. Not so much the other parts of La Bella Figura, for the mass of Irish men. Only British of certain classes had a value on charm and fashionability, until recently. If you go further east, past Germany, you'll find it again in the Poles. Occasionally in Bavarian boys, not so much in Central and Northern German boys.

*brothels, not brothers. There were brothels in Switzerland serving the fetish of the alpine twink. But in Italy, you got the peacocks.

I guess there might be something to be researched about catholicism and muslim, as opposed to protestant cultures, which rejected flamboyance. And we know Allah wants his faithful to be clean and tidy.

catholicism and islam. versus protestantism. might be part of it. I don't know for sure.

To be a proper Spiceboy, you need a too-tight department store wardrobe, a too-big flash cunt watch, slicked hair, and a primo tan in a Love Island hue. Even if you’re worth millions, you’ve got to look like you’re only trying to worth that in some ill-conceived tabloid stab at it.

Also, it’s crucial that you act laddy, and prize the Boys/social life above anything else. Your camaraderie and banter is usually homoerotic, but you’ve got to pretend as though you don’t notice that.

[quote] we know All@h wants his faithful to be clean and tidy

Could someone tell this to my squalid Egyptian BIL? He doesn’t seem to know how to clean a living space, sanitise his gym equipment, or aim for the bowl. He had servants growing up, so he’s way too pampered.

Every year LOVE ISLAND always has at least a couple of Spiceboys in their cast, and they’re always all over each other.

The band Blue are quintessential Spiceboys.

I'm not seeing any pretty boys in OP's picture.

R13 it helps to be pretty or handsome as a Spiceboy, but it’s not a pre-requisite.

As long as you do the best you can with flaunting what you’ve got (fake tan, teeth bleached, tight clothes, tits out) and you’ve got at least one really fit mate that you’re seen with often out on the town, you’re golden.

Can someone pls compare and contrast Spiceboy vs Chav vs Towie cast members? I think Towie cast member and Spice boy might be the same..?

Who is the ugly one in the pic with the striped tie? He definitely has BDF. The ugly ones are very often hung like mules.

R16 Robbie Fowler having a massive cock? Oh my days I’m crying😂😆😂

Though I guess the joke’s on me cuz the man’s got as much money as the Pope...

R17 You must know him I guess, in the biblical sense perhaps.

R15 think of it this way: all Spiceboys are chavs, but not all chavs are Spiceboys.

There are many subcultural subsets of chav all along a spectrum, and a Spiceboy may be found toward the more affluent end of that spectrum. A Spiceboy has cash to splash, a well-paid job, a willingness to perform ‘taste’, and an ersatz sense of rising above his own class thanks to that, though really there’s no escaping chavdom.

Male TOWIE cast members are indeed scrubbed-up, well-off and well-paid chavs, so while YMMV I would say they count as Spiceboys.

Fowler is a massive homophobe, though.

R19 thanks for breaking it down!

R20 seriously? Do we have receipts?

The Brits are so bizarre.

R 20, during a match he used homophobic gestures to a rival player Graeme Le Saux (who wasn't gay but who read the Guardian, so was - you know - obviously a pansy) and there was a big fuss, so he had to a high-profile tv non-apology ('I'm sorry if people were upset...').

It's so adorable when Brits talk amongst themselves. It's almost like real people talking.

R25 It’s as if people are listening and caring!

R25/R26 alright, lads, leave off. You can give it all the mouth you like, but when it comes down to it, we’ve got what you like.

I don't think these Spice Boys sound much like the type of glossy peacock I associate with Latin and Mediterranean cultures.

News to me. We frequented different clubs it seems.

[quote] during a match Fowler used homophobic gestures to a rival player Graeme Le Saux (who wasn't gay but who read the Guardian, so was - you know - obviously a pansy) and there was a big fuss.

This happened during a Liverpool vs. Chelsea fixture c. 1999. Fowler bent over on the pitch in Graeme’s direction, displaying his arse as an insinuation and a taunt, to seemingly no reaction. Later in the match, however, Graeme retaliated by smashing a forearm into the back of Robbie’s head, for which Graeme got sent off. Different times.

I'm a fan of suit dudes, but in this case... no. Pass!

[quote] Louche, laddy, and a bit lary, these likely lads wanted to live it up and in largesse,

See ya later, alliterator!