Fashion Fetishises The Working Class

Working-class aesthetics are the latest trend du jour as the industry continues to appropriate

Fashion is fickle. It steals, begs and borrows, often at the expense of communities that champion fashion in its truest form. Working-class people have long been on the outside looking in, with their style and cultural codes exploited for fashionable profit.

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If you grew up in the early noughties in inner city London like I did, chances are the sight of joggers tucked into socks with Nike Air Max’s and a Stone Island tracksuit brings back warm fuzzy memories. Throw in a Burberry cap and a pair of Calvin Klein boxers, and you may as well shout from the rooftops that you call the concrete jungle home.

Roadmen. Chavs. Rude boys. Dole-scroungers. Pram pushers. Labels and aesthetics used to demonise working-class people, particularly those from ethnic minority backgrounds, and working-class clothing have become the latest trend du jour — something that has been bubbling up for a while now. It’s a sense of fashion nostalgia that's ironic at its core.

Styles which used to be associated with urban groups have now been taken over by a flock of young media professionals, turning the clothes of the less privileged into costumes worn by those with privately educated accents who can tap into the bank of mum and dad should they ever need.

The axis has spun and things are different in today's fashion landscape from when I was growing up. 

The rise of working-class aesthetics has seen the identities of those previously at the bottom rungs of the societal ladder now finding themselves at the top, with the codes and cues created by this demographic going largely unrecognised. More often than not, the stylistic influence of working-class people is appropriated by high fashion brands with no credit given. 

Fashion's connection to class has become increasingly convoluted. In today's sartorial landscape, the rise of working-class aesthetics underscores a complex interplay between societal structures, cultural values, and individual expression. 

Fashion now serves as a platform where class boundaries are simultaneously reinforced, challenged, subverted and monopolised. Ultimately, class-based fashion underscores the enduring significance of clothing as a form of cultural currency, shaping how we present ourselves to the world and how the world sees us.

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Working class style as a visual language

Brits have always been preoccupied with class. Growing up I remember British working-class fashion being stitched into the very fabric of society, whether through TV shows, the news, or magazines that reinforced the social status, aspirations, and mundanity of the working class. 

Over the years, the stark class divide in Britain has consistently devalued the personal styles and fashion trends of the working-class community, deepening the divide between the haves and the have-nots. 

The fashion industry seems to turn a blind eye to class appropriation as long as there’s money to be made. It selectively adopts working-class trends and transforms them into high-fashion pieces for profit. Think: pre-1990s, do you remember seeing trainers and baseball caps on the runways? I bet not. 

Despite it being harder than ever to figure out someone's class solely from what they’re wearing, there's a dissonance between what fashion sells, who it sells to, and the class barriers being eroded, if not fortified, along the way.   

During the early 2000s, luxury and social class had a complex situationship.

Burberry faced a crisis when its signature check was labelled as the new 'chav uniform.' We may have soap actress Daniella Westbrook and her infamous 2002 paparazzi shot to thank for this, with the actress wearing a Burberry skirt and Burberry bag while lifting a child dressed in a Burberry kilt out of a Burberry buggy — peak noughties nostalgia. The image was printed by The Sun newspaper alongside the caption “chavtastic”, a look which remains iconic to this day.

We all know that Westbrook wasn't Burberrys intended target audience, that goes without saying. In the aftermath, counterfeit Burberry products flooded the streets, causing a decline in sales as the brand's affluent audience distanced themselves from the signature tartan print which had found favour with the working class. Chav anxiety ran high, brands didn’t want to be associated with a sector of society traditionally derided, and the very principles of luxury underwent a reckoning.

The nuances of class-based aesthetics

Fashion has long been infatuated with working-class culture, and the working class in fashion, a fascination that persists despite the decades that go by. However, there's a glaring double standard when it comes to the appropriation of working-class culture by luxury fashion. 

Why can some brands borrow cultural codes and visual cues from working-class people, but the same brands will throw a hissy fit when actual working-class people wear their clothes?

And why does it feel as if fashion has been, in a way, democratised with the rise of streetwear, yet the bones of fashion’s class system remain pretty solid?

The industry is rife with double standards. While it's deemed acceptable for high-end brands to borrow from working-class aesthetics, the reverse is met with uproar and attempts by brands to distance themselves from such associations.

This is cultural appropriation 101, seen in everything from the rise of ‘Blokecore’ and designers repackaging football hooligan aesthetics to throwing a luxury lens on blue-collar workers to Burberry collaborating with Gosha Rubchinskiy on a collection which donned the original nova check print to Vogue’s July 2005 issue featured Vicky Pollard, the fictional character from Little Britain who embodies all things chav.

If you thought that was bad then buckle up, because the glossy spreads and 10-page editorials that take place on council estates are likely curated and produced by individuals who would rather jump off a moving vehicle than set foot on a council estate unless it was for the pages of a glossy magazine.

And in another realm, FKA Twigs, who wears head-to-toe Burberry check in her Papi Bones video, alongside Shygirl, also draped in full-body Burberry, is pushing a pram around the outskirts of a council estate with a goat in tow; a reiteration of Westbrooks attire 20 years later that's at odds with Twigs’ upbringing as a bursary student at a private school in Cheltenham.

The intersection of wealth, culture, and style

Back in the day, the attitude towards those dressed in tracksuits was clear. Whether labelled as a chav, ghetto or seen as intimidating, trackies were a no-no. But for young British kids, being decked out in a fresh tracksuit was a source of pride. It still is. Existing against all odds was something to be celebrated, and the best way to do it was in a matching two-piece hoodie and jogger set from JD Sports or Footlocker.

But visible affluence served as a shield against trackie-wearing stereotypes, a rotten rhetoric that persists today. Clothing has always served as a conduit for self-expression and social commentary, and the implications of class-based aesthetics on perceptions of the working class have come full circle. 

How is it that designer tracksuits with a Cartier bracelet and Goyard bag frequently worn by HNWIs, or Lululemon leggings and Sweaty Betty sweatshirts worn by the middle class are acceptable forms of casual wear, but a grey Nike tracksuit worn by working-class communities are looked down upon? Make it make sense.

Affluent individuals often exhibit a tone-deafness by downplaying their privilege, and, as we saw in the Beckham documentary, many try to assert their affiliation with a different social class altogether.

When you've got nepo-babies declaring they're not nepo-babies running wild, Rishi Sunak wearing Sambas (poor, poor Adidas) in an attempt to be relatable, and Elon Musk downplaying his immense wealth by claiming to have experienced homelessness, aligning with working-class identities is a prevailing cultural narrative that sidesteps the realities of the lived working-class experience.

This tendency to minimize privilege stems from a desire to appear relatable, particularly for those in the public eye, and it's tone-deaf as fuck. And if you think we're in an era of post-appropriation in fashion, think again. Because we are far from it.

Prompting a reconsideration of its connection with the working class, fashion finds itself at a crossroads. While working-class individuals possess a keen awareness of acceptability politics, their own notions of style, aesthetics, and attire often face mockery and scorn from the mainstream. Unless the boots on the other foot and fashion have something to gain from it.

If we can bank on one thing, it's that the fashion industry is full of thievery. Anything of cultural value will be repackaged and commercialised by those at the top for mass consumption.

But what's truly troubling is the notion that an entire class of people can be reduced to an aesthetic that's homogenised on a global scale, with the upper echelons of society fetishing the working class as long as it suits them — and their bottom line.

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