Environmentalists bring schizophrenia to financial dressing
(posted 27-4-01)

Environmental activists and those in the financial community used to be very clear on how they dressed. But there is a feeling of sartorial schizophrenia now that the activists are targeting banks and investors.

This year, as last, many of those who work in London's financial district - the City - will go to work in disguise to avoid the modern-day punks and other mohican lookalikes who will try to Stop the City on Mayday. Last year, a banker we know, sewed leather elbow patches onto an old shooting jacket and stuck a Guardian rather than the FT under his arm to look like a lowly academic in tweed.

In April this year animal rights activists succeeded in barricading themselves into the Bank of New York's London office to protests at the bank's involvement in the Huntingdon Life Sciences drug testing company. They evaded security by dressing in pin-striped suits, traditional City attire. Sartorial Schizophrenia - suits you, sir.