THE ORIGINS OF CASUAL AND TERRACE STYLE

Casual is a subcultural movement that traces its roots to 1980s England, precisely in the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, at a time when violence between rival fans on the terraces of English stadiums reached perhaps its peak.

In response to this violent drift, Her Majesty's police sought to curb the problem by making random arrests among those who wore the colors of the teams they went to cheer, inside the stadium and in the areas surrounding it, regardless of whether or not they were part of a firm. Firms were the infamous organized groups of hooligans in the U.K, also popularized by more or less recent movies such as Green Street, the 2005 movie starring Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam that deals with the events around the world of a West Ham United firm, Green Street Elite, inspired by the Inter City Firm, a group active in London in the 1970s and 1980s whose well-known rivalry with the Millwall fans often resulted in clashes on the streets of the English capital. Legend has it that in the fights where ICF got the better of its rivals, its members would leave notes at the scene of the clash that read "Congratulations, you have just met the ICF."

To avoid getting into handcuffs, the ultras for their part adopted the simplest of solutions, evading the police by not wearing the colors of their clubs, and going to the stadium dressed as those who had nothing to do with the hooligan world, that is, as ordinary people who went to the game wearing middle-class “good guys” looks, with Ben Sherman sweaters or Fred Perry polo shirts. It was precisely from this new way of dressing at the stadium that the motto “dress well, behave badly” derived, for while it’s true that the hooligans’ outfits changed, the fights certainly did not.

Dressing well went to decline into the use of designer clothes, again in the 1980s, when English fans, in order to follow their team in away matches involving clubs across the Channel in European competitions, found themselves traveling to the fashion capitals of Italy and France, where they raided entire stores, entering them in large groups and stealing high-fashion garments. It was at that point that clothes from expensive Italian brands such as C.P. Company, Stone Island, Fila, Ellesse, Sergio Tacchini and Diadora went from being mere garments to symbols of a subculture, trophies to be displayed on the streets of England and which would soon become fashion for ultras all over Europe.

The aforementioned brands were then joined in the imagery of the casual subculture by others such as Adidas, Barbour, Ralph Lauren, Henry Cotton, Burberry, Aquascutum, Lyle & Scott, Umbro, Henry Lloyd, Paul & Shark, Lacoste, and The North Face, all of which was also fueled by the fact that bands such as the Stone Roses, and later Oasis, embraced this aesthetic and made it a real trademark. Britpop thus drew heavily from a subculture that previously, being close to the mod and skinhead milieu, was more into the sounds of precisely mod music, or punk.

The indie rock of the early 2000s also embraced the casual, so much so that the Libertines made a song about it, Hooligans on E. The title is a reference to the hooligans' habit of taking ecstasy before entering the stadium, to obviate the ban on alcohol consumption in stadiums imposed by the British Prime Minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher. In the lyrics of the song there is also a reference precisely to the casual aesthetic, as in the opening we find the line "Hooligans on E / Meat pies and Burberry / And Aquascutum if you're lucky."

Carl Barât and Pete Doherty's band will later be found with What a Waster in the soundtrack of another iconic movie for this subculture, The Football Factory, starring Danny Dyer, who would later also become the face of The Real Football Factories, a documentary series that looks at the life of the ultras in the various firms scattered around the United Kingdom.

In the series one can also easily spot an element that could be defined dogmatic when it comes to casual fashion: white shoes. The most popular designs include Adidas Stan Smith, Diadora Ed Moses and Borg Elite, Lacoste, and Fred Perry, all worn following what we might call an unwritten code that is perfectly embodied in the motto "Only white shoes."

While it is true that hooliganism is a phenomenon that is disappearing from the stands, all the other elements that make up the casual culture have, on the other hand, been the subject of a revival in recent times that has transcended the ultras world.