“Ah, I only have fond memories of the 1984 Salcombe Rugby club tour. We put in some absolutely wonderful performances on that travel. I even scored five tries in one match, against St Trinfords. Hang on. What’s that I see? It must be one of my fellow players, for why else would one be donning a hoody emblazoned with the details of that fantastic tour? The initials on your top can only mean that you are John Williams; our masterful prop. How are you, John? It’s been years...”
This is the transcript of a particularly awkward confrontation between a young gentleman wearing a Jack Wills hoody and a confused, southern rugby player. It took 20 minutes for the poor lad to convince him that he was not John Williams. On this occasion, I may have made it up, but these misunderstandings must occur tenfold every day.
You may be surprised, as I was, to learn that Jack Wills was only formed in 1999. However, through clever viral campaigns, including giving the head boys and girls of public schools free hoodies to flaunt to their minors, Jack Wills turnover must surely be as high and dramatic as the comb-overs of the girls who wear it. Some people are so desperate to purchase anything Jack Wills related, that they are delighted when given the opportunity to fork out £5 for a tin of paperclips or £6.50 for some, probably shoddy, plasters, with an emblem of a disabled pheasant on. We are all still waiting in avid anticipation for the Jack Wills branded fax machine (£399.99) and the limited edition Jack Will striped wheelie bins, for all those households who feel physically ill looking at their standard, government blue bins.

Every so often, a catalogue, and I use that term very lightly, is shoved through your front door. Whilst some of the content is utilized to sell you the garments, the majority of the pages are filled with snapshots of the world’s most middle class porno: a grubby public school boy comes to fix an airy vixen’s arga. However, the underlying sexual tension just proves too much, so they end up frolicking in her barn, with the mud-caked John Deere and Daddy’s gun just out of sight. Fortunately, it ends on amiable terms, as the final photo is always that of a communal sing-song round a campfire on an empty beach.

The very few pages dedicated to the actual Jack Wills clothing are laughable. For a start, the models seem to be wearing every item of ‘Fabulously British (But made in a humid sweatshop by Chinese children)’ clothing. Ever been dressing up for a formal event and after putting on your shirt and tie, just thought you should be wearing a pair of garish check shorts and flip flops instead of the matching suit trousers? No? Well you must have considered complimenting your swimwear with a thick, tweed blazer? Wrong again? Of course I am. While they want to portray a sense of British eccentricity, the ending result is the models looking like they’ve just escaped from an 18th century lunatic asylum.
A rather irritating consequence of Jack Wills growing popularity is the numerous other outlets attempting to mimic their success. Take Hollister. Another shop similar to JW: full of your decent, staple clothes, in which a logo of an animal somewhere at the top of the food chain can add a couple of notes to its value. When I visited the Manchester branch, you had to queue just to gain entrance to the products. This wasn’t because it was too busy, but to try and create an atmosphere of exclusivity. In hindsight I have a sneaking suspicion that they might be onto a winner with that idea, because there simply isn’t enough queuing involved in high street shopping. Yes, you do get to wait in line for the checkouts and the fitting rooms, but is that enough for the modern day shopper, who thrives on being sandwiched between two strangers? After you’d been permitted to enter the shop floor, it struck you how dark it was, as another part of the decor was to have eerie rays of lighting up shelves and prices. Why should you bother with a fully lit shop, when you can just have various lamps illuminating the shelves? I imagine the desired effect wasn’t to disguise the basic nature of their clothing, in which a check shirt is considered risqué, under a hazy mask of pretension, but it managed to achieve this.

However, the thing I despise most about Jack Wills is their overall attitude towards clothes. When it comes down to it, the primary functions of clothes are to protect your modesty and to help maintain a suitable body temperature given the external climate, but they also add to your character. Surely what you choose to wear should be an individual statement of who you are, not who you should be. They shouldn’t act as an invitation into an elite group. The main problem with brands like Jack Wills is that they prey on teenager’s fears of not fitting in. Their ‘seasonnaire’ garb and catalogues brimming full of smug arseholes, are just ploys to make teenagers feel redundant and irrelevant, so they can present their clothing as a lift up onto a higher rung of the social ladder. They’ve taken everything wonderful about fashion and just...hang on. Is that a giant, striped paperclip for £1.50? Uh, just ignore what I was saying. I’ve been converted!