Fashion: Toon Armani: Saturday in Newcastle toon, and the lads have one thing on their minds: if you're not wearing a designer T-shirt, you're not a Geordie. Tamsin Blanchard explains

Disposable income. That's the key to Lads' Heaven, aka The Toon, aka Newcastle upon Tyne, home to that passionate band of football supporters, the Toon Army. It is also retailers' heaven, a place where men's clothes sell - even the kind of clothes recently revealed on the Paris and Milan catwalks. For the men from Newcastle and Sunderland are Britain's leading tag hags.

Each Saturday, Newcastle's fashion-conscious go out shopping for clothes to wear that night. And it is the male of the species who is the big spender. While Geordie women are spending under pounds 50 on a whole outfit in Top Shop, their partners are cruising the posh shops of High Bridge, spending twice that on a T-shirt.

Twentysomething Mr and Mrs Barber are typical. Their shopping lists one Saturday afternoon: Mrs Barber - one dress, one pair of thigh-length socks and a bag, all from Top Shop, pounds 46 for the lot. Mr Barber - two T-shirts from Reporter at pounds 69.99 each, and a sweatshirt from Marcus Price for pounds 89.99, adding up to pounds 229.97. And he is still looking for designer jeans and the must-have shoes, pounds 110 plus, from Timberland. After that it will be off home, change, and back out for the night. On Fridays, the revelry begins at around seven o'clock, when gangs of lads and lasses meet at the monument in the centre of town. But on Saturdays, it starts even earlier. By four o'clock, the Barbers are long gone, the city centre is almost deserted; everyone is getting dressed in their new acquisitions.

Newcastle has its own version of the Italian passeggiata. There might be fewer balmy nights on which to parade the streets, but this year-round fashion parade is for the hardy. By six o'clock the gangs are clocking each others' new outfits. But this is not a city for setting trends - to be cool is to adhere to the uniform of the moment.

This month, that means mini-skirts (the local Top Shop has a choice of more than 60 minis) and thigh-high socks for the girls. For the lads, it's a well-pressed shirt worn untucked - although some bars require shirts to be tucked in - over jeans (Armani, Valentino or Replay) and Timberlands. Jackets are rare, despite icy winds blowing in off the sea, even in the summer. In the Bigg Market, around which much of Newcastle's nightlife revolves, labels and logos are essential for men - the bigger the better. The result? The Bigg Market lads all look pretty much the same.

The posh shopping street is High Bridge. But there are two differences between this street and any other posh shopping area in Britain. First, the assistants are not aloof and intimidating; they seem to want you to spend, if you are male. The second difference is that, with very few exceptions, the designer clothes shops are for men only.

Strand sells labels including Paul Smith, Katharine Hamnett, Stone Island, Dolce e Gabbana, Dries Van Noten and Comme des Garcons and trade is brisk. Neil Symington, the shop's manager, says vanity is the reason: 'Newcastle men are so vain. When they're out at night in bars, their clothes are about status.'

David Dalby, the shop's owner, is just back from watching the international men's catwalk shows and placing his orders for summer 1995 at Romeo Gigli, Costume Homme and Dolce e Gabbana: 'In Newcastle, they spend more on clothes and social life than in any other city,' he says. 'But they're not really tuned into what is happening on the catwalks And it is difficult to translate what happens on the catwalk to England, where we have two weeks of summer a year.' Although Strand's customers buy Arena, it is Stone Island and Ralph Lauren that really sells.

Nevertheless, Strand operates an interest-free store card system and there are regular customers who think nothing of spending pounds 100 every week. A Comme des Garcons shirt costs more than pounds 120. Another, by Nigel Curtiss, is marked pounds 244.99. No, the decimal point is not in the wrong place. 'We have lads come in here who are spending everything they earn on clothes. But that's what it's about. You've got to look good,' says Symington who, in pounds 700 worth of Comme des Garcons, Paul Smith, or Dries Van Noten, finished off with a pair of Yohji (Yamamoto) shoes, does, of course.

'Geordie men spend more per head on clothes than any other men I know,' agrees Bruce, a half-American, half-Geordie shop assistant at Replay, High Bridge's newest shop and the jeans company's flagship store. This is why Replay chose to open in Newcastle before London. 'Potentially, there is a massive market for us in Newcastle,' says Robert Brown, sales director. 'People here have disposable incomes and their main priorities are going out and buying clothes.'

The average price for a pair of Replay jeans is pounds 70-pounds 80 (a pair of Levi 501s costs around pounds 40) and there are 40 different styles in the range. The shop also sells womenswear, but tucked away at the back; this is not the priority. 'It's the lads up here that spend,' says Brown.

On another warm(ish) Newcastle Saturday he's proved right. The lasses are intent, as usual, in putting together an outfit to pull in that night, and trying not to top 50 quid. The lads want something classier to drink in and to bar hop in (although pub-charging would more accurately describe the activity). Both sexes are on the prowl, their appetite for fashion insatiable.

But in the Toon, nobody shops till they drop. It is not a case of 'I shop, therefore I am,' but instead, 'I shop because I'm off out tonight in whatever I buy.' In retail heaven on the Tyne, shops shut sharpish. The notion of Saturday late-night shopping (now practised at Milton Keynes) would seem 'off 'is heed'. The point is to be off out early and to get your new clothes seen by as many people as possible.

(Photographs omitted)