Why the working class has become the ultimate fashion subculture

The working class, probably the most dominant influence on modern dress today.
Walk down the high street and look into any store, you will most likely find at least one piece of clothing directly relating to the chav subculture, if not a whole collection.
Modern culture is littered with trends, picked up and dropped off at the speed it takes to update your twitter feed, yet there is one subculture that has out lived them all.
The chav subculture seems to be a recurring dominance that the fashion industry has never seemed to get rid of and it wouldn't be the same without it.

Luxury sportswear, the sneaker renaissance, 'high-low' wardrobes, the 90's revival, all have been derived from the working class culture, and they represent possibly the largest style movement of modern life.

For years, this culture have been bringing together top designer brands such as Moschino, Armani and Versace, with a wardrobe filled with sportswear such as Nike, Reebok, Fred Perry and Champion.

The jogging bottoms, hoodies, tracksuits and sneakers, are the wardrobe staples of which the poorer, urban communities wear as a part of their culture, but now the typical 'chav' subculture has evolved to include higher class brands.

Burberry is a key designer brand that faced significant identity crisis when their signature tartan print suddenly became popular amongst the British youth group known as 'chavs'. This almost caused big problems for Burberry as this was not the market they wanted to aim at. However, young people's desire for something new and radical business tactics allowed them to use this change of market to their advantage to avert total brand meltdown. 

Never did we think that we would be taking fashion advice from a subculture predominantly known as lower class, nuisance causing urban youths, however many designers are now taking this as valuable inspiration for their collections.
The popularity of urban sportswear has rocketed, and this can be seen directly through the catwalk.

Designers such as Gosha Rubchinskiy are now walking models at Paris Fashion Week with jeans tucked into their socks. Almost every major fashion house now have their own line of sneakers whilst a brand like Palace are making shell suits.

The chav culture is being redesigned and re modelled all over the world, by so many brands, so does this mean that chav no longer has such negative connotations is once used too hold? Because everyone is somehow bringing this style into their own wardrobes, does this mean the chav subculture is no longer one of its own. Is it just fashion?  

By Megan Hinchcliffe

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/03/18/working-class-fashion-subculture/

http://www.endclothing.com/gb/adidas-x-palace-shell-track-top-az6589.html

http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/464470

Journal progress

Chav subculture research

Sportswear Luxe Trend

Gosha Rubchinskiy

Manchester subculture research

By Becky Padgett

Chavvy Chic

"For years, the British population has been crossing the road to avoid that ominous gang of hooded youths, buying into the media fuelled fear surrounding that figure that will supposedly terrorise and assault us – the Chav."

For years, the 'chav' subculture was a symbol of all things unfashionable. The typical chav uniform includes; tracksuit bottoms, trainers, hoodies and a knock-off Burberry cap. The Burberry plaid became synonymous with the underprivileged youth of Britain. Chav's are associated with the British working class youth and uneducated 'yobs', typically 'on the dole' in a council house. They are usually found watching trash tv, not working, hanging out on street corners and dropping out of school. 'Chavettes' are usually teen mothers. Peer pressure is amongst most chavs to participate in common chav behaviour that give the subculture a bad label. These activities include loutish behaviour, violence and particular speech patterns. Comedians such as 'The Wee Man', Vicky Pollard from Little Britain and Devvo, all act as stereotypical 'chavs' as a comedic act.


But what about the sportswear luxe trend? Do the British public avoid leaving the house in casual sportswear for fear of being wrongly judged? Or is it now considered 'trendy'? Sportswear luxe is a new developing trend on the high street and designer fashion scene. It is now considered 'cool' to sport the Adidas 'three-stripe' as bloggers and influential celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, are now donning the Adidas trackpants with everyday wear. So is the 'chav subculture' entering our everyday fashion, but rebranded? For example, vintage Reebok and Gosha Rubchiskiy are now using fashion photography as a way of approaching social media with their vintage tracksuits and skinhead models.

Posted by Rebecca Padgett

Chavvy Chic. (2016) Notjustalabel.com. [Online] [Accessed on 13 December 2016] https://www.notjustalabel.com/editorial/chavvy-chic.

Chosen subculture- Chav's

As a group we discussed what subculture we would want to do for our final project and decided on chavs, we thought this would be a very broad subculture to research further. The definition of a chav is normally a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes. Some say chavs wear fake designer clothes as I way for them to connect with society or get attention while other say they are trying to create their own rebellious type of style. The word 'chav' is connected to communities that have suffered social deprivation, which is why most come from lower working class backgrounds, because of the environment they are brought up in Chav's normally participate in crimes such as vandalism and shoplifting due to peer pressure. They feel as if they need to act a certain way to fit in which is why they can act rude and aggressive. 

The stereotype of a chav is to dress in branded sportswear, with tacky jewellery and hairstyles such as a high ponytail or shaved head.

Posted by Phoebe Paton.

The Male Lolita

Lolita fashion is quickly gaining vast popularity within Japanese street style and is constantly evolving with the addition of numerous sub categories. One of these is the Male Lolita, and although commonly promoted in fiction, comics and animation, the style is still relatively unpopular within Japanese street style. However it is a growing sub category of Lolita fashion and is known by several different names.

These are Ouji, Kodona, Aristocrat, Dandy, and Brolita.

Ouji

Ouji, meaning 'prince' is a Japanese fashion that is considered the male version of Lolita fashion and takes its style from the Victorian era and young boy's clothing at the time.

Kodona

Kodona is a word used by people outside of Japan to describe gothic and Lolita clothing. The literal meaning however is 'someone being at puberty age who is neither an adult nor a child'. It is recognised as a fashion outside of Japan, but not so much in its country of origin.

Aristocrat

Aristocratic style is a lot more mature than pure Lolita style, however it does link to the male Lolita style when considering the gothic elements and colour palettes. It does link strongly with the Western 'Romantic Gothic'.

Corsets, fitted jackets with tail coats, frilly shirts, top hats and veils are some of the more common items of clothing worn.

Dandy

A Dandy is a man who finds physical appearance to be of high importance. The style was mainly around in late 18th and early 19th century Britain, and can now be linked to the male Lolita style with the jackets, knee high socks and frilly shirts.

Brolita

Unlike the more masculine forms of Lolita above, Brolitas are the ones who go the extra mile to look more feminine by wearing outfits including dresses and wigs.

Just like the female Lolita, they enjoy dressing in very fine Lolita clothing.

References

Kawacura, 2015, Decoding the Male Lolita, Kawa Cura Kawaii Curation, http://www.kawacura.com/3500, 28/11/2016

Brolitas (Male Lolita), Fandom, http://elegantgothiclolita.wikia.com/wiki/Brolitas_(Male_Lolita), 28/11/2016

Posted By Megan Hinchcliffe

Male Lolita

Our group was given the subculture ‘Male Lolita’ to research into. To start off I wanted to find out what the term lolita stood for, in Cambridge dictionary it stated it was “a young girl who has a very sexual appearance or behaves in a very sexual way”. However when further researching it I found out that Lolita fashion is a subculture in Japan highly influenced by the Victorian and Edwardian era. The subculture is best known for its cross over into Gothic style and the wide array of sub-styles represented by it’s practitioners. The fashion normally includes skirts or dresses to their knees, a petticoat, long monochromatic socks, and a wide array of accessories covered in lace or ribbon. Often looking childlike or like a doll.

A male Lolita is not as popular as a female and has far less information online, however from finding pictures I discovered they also wear knee high socks with Victorian style shorts and jackets. They also look doll like with the frilly shirts and ribbons round their neck. Most their clothes seem to crossover into the gothic subculture as they dress mainly in black or white.

The news media in Japan usually portrays Gothic/Lolita as they have previous youth cultures: as a social problem and a moral panic that embodies the declining morals of Japanese youth. Over the past few years Lolita-related books, movies, comics and internet sites have rapidly increased at a great rate, but most activity has occurred in the past six years, during which two hit Gothic/Lolita-oriented magazines went on sale: Gosurori (the Japanese abbreviation for Gothic & Lolita) and The Gothic & Lolita Bible.

As a youth culture, Gothic/Lolita dates back to the 1990s. It was first inspired by devotees to Mana, the cross-dressing guitarist for the Japanese rock band Malice Mizer. The name indicates its distinctive hybrid style: it combines gosu, a Japanized version of Western “Goth” fashion, music, and hobbies with Victorian/Edwardian-inspired doll-like clothes and fairy-tale motifs called rorīta, or “Lolita”

Refrences

Gagné, I. (2008), Urban Princesses: Performance and “Women's Language” in Japan's Gothic/Lolita Subculture. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 18: 130–150. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1395.2008.00006.x

Posted by Phoebe Paton. 

Perv Subculture Presentation

We were asked to produce a PowerPoint presentation on our given subculture. We were given the subculture of the Perv. Here is our 5 minute presentation. Our feedback from this was that we needed to look into the past of agent provocateur, the recent books of 50 shades of grey and look into the current perv subculture more to see who they are wearing right now. - Becky