The colour of your wallet, how you hold your knife and your handshake: Etiquette expert William Hanson reveals the 12 silent ways everyone is judging your social class

  • In Britain we do judge a person by small, seemingly insignificant minutiae
  • William Hanson reveals the social faux pas you could be making
  • Braces are very upper class, as is a strong handshake 

The devil is in the detail. In Britain we do judge a person by small, seemingly insignificant minutiae. 

You may think you’re pretty recherché but are you more Elephant and Castle than Alnwick Castle? 

Let’s find out....

Fail to greet someone with a solid handshake and you may as well pack your bags and go home there and then, says etiquette expert William Hanson

Fail to greet someone with a solid handshake and you may as well pack your bags and go home there and then, says etiquette expert William Hanson

Handshake

You can tell so much about someone from their handshake. Too firm and perhaps they are over compensating; too limp and they’re bound to posses a rather timid personality. A good handshake is firm, but not too firm and comes from the wrist, not the arm.

Fail to greet someone with a solid handshake and you may as well pack your bags and go home there and then.

How you greet someone

It’s not just how we shake hands but what we say to accompany it. The upper classes will all say ‘how do you do’, which is rhetorical. ‘Pleased/nice to meet you’ is the definition of de trop.

Saying it is treated as rather suspect.

When the middle class Middleton family first entered into Prince William’s life, his peers referred to them as the ‘Nice to meet you Middletons’. Amongst other things.

Braces

Braces seem to be back into men’s fashion, even with the increasingly androgynous ladies’ fashion, too. But men, make sure your braces are NOT clip-on ones.

Ever been called a spiv? No? Well, wear clip-on braces if you want to become very familiar with the term.

Braces that fasten to buttons sewn into your trousers are much more PLU (as well as secure).

Colour of shoes

On Mondays to Thursday, it's a must to wear black shoes to the city. Brown shoes are only permitted from Friday and weekends

On Mondays to Thursday, it's a must to wear black shoes to the city. Brown shoes are only permitted from Friday and weekends

Perhaps one of the most silent of class signals is whether a person (male or female) wears brown shoes in London and big cities on a Monday to Thursday. Fridays and weekends are permissible for brown in town, however.

This stems back to the era when men would travel to their country pile from working in the city on Fridays. Brown shoes are for country wear; black for cities. If you were wearing brown shoes in London on a Saturday it was presumably as you had travelled in from the country.

This rule is less followed these days but the top tier still known.

HKLP

HKLP (Holds Knife Like Pen) is one of the most damning indictments that can be made of someone. 

For a start, a knife is a knife, not a pen. Secondly, you don’t have as much control of what you are cutting when HKLP.

Handbags

Placing bags on tables is just not on. A real lady knows that a handbag rests in her lap, when rummaging for something, and then is placed on the floor or the back of a chair when not in use.

Place it on the table – especially a dining table – will cause others in the know to reach for their own bags and withdraw the smelling salts.

Placing bags on tables is just not on. A real lady knows that a handbag rests in her lap, says William

Placing bags on tables is just not on. A real lady knows that a handbag rests in her lap, says William

Men removing jackets

This is now pandemic at black tie events: men turning up (often the ones with ready-made bow ties) and the moment they reach their seat, whipping off the jacket and sticking it on the back. So vulgar!

Once the dinner jacket is worn it stays on until you have returned home.

Pocket handkerchief

Forget what you see Craig’s James Bond wearing, white pocket handkerchiefs folded to show just one line is never encouraged amongst the upper crust. If you wear one, and they are an accessory (so not compulsory), then it must always be in a plume, and never with the edges showing.

Yes, the Duke of Edinburgh wears his in a straight-across line, but he is Greek.

Colour of wallet

Like with shoes, black wallets are always far smarter. Many can’t afford to have two wallets (one brown for country engagements, one black for everything in cities) so plumping for one in black leather is the best choice.

Hats must go back in their boxes at 6 o’clock William Hanson said, and he doesn't approve of women who wear floppy hats for an evening out

Hats must go back in their boxes at 6 o’clock William Hanson said, and he doesn't approve of women who wear floppy hats for an evening out

Watch

Big chunky timepieces are the reserve of the North Cheshire set. Similarly, the men there all have metal straps for their watches.

Etiquette expert William Hanson reveals the 12 silent ways everyone is judging your social class

Etiquette expert William Hanson reveals the 12 silent ways everyone is judging your social class

Something of a medium size and with a leather strap is preferred.

Hats in the evening

Young women now think it is smart to wear hats, usually floppy-brimmed ones, in the evening. Unless they have such an aversion to the sun that even at dusk they can risk sunstroke, hats must go back in their boxes at 6 o’clock.

Being over-dressed

Perhaps due to the downmarket celebrity culture we are now all engulfed in, people have started getting far too dressed up for evening events, particularly in the north (although not exclusive to). 

Many seem to put too much effort into their outfit – the biggest of social elephant traps, especially when in the country.

In essence, rustic, if not frumpy, country clothes will always be considered far grander than the finest threads from the city.

Even now at fashionable London dances and galas dowdy dowagers from the sticks, dressed from head to toe in taffeta, still have the edge over couture-clad WAGs of plutocrats and celebrities.

The skimpy little number from Brown’s that may very well be sans pareil in Islington will just be dismissed as merely slutty in Somerset. 

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