Punk is defined as anti-fashion. It emphasises individual freedom and non-conformity. The disciples of punk proclaim DIY and thrift shopping as its ethos. In the 80s, punks would cut up and destroy clothing, then hold them together with safety pins and chains. The idea wasn’t to be pretty, but to shock and offend. The movement championed pushing boundaries, and it was only a matter of time before the fashion world embraced it. Doc Martens, a Londoner’s staple, were the original worker’s shoe that punks adopted. In 1994, Elizabeth Hurley adorned the iconic Versace dress which was held together by ‘punk-esque’ gold safety pins. The movement has undoubtedly infiltrated high-end fashion. Its impact was even honoured during the 2013 Met Gala, where the theme was ‘Punk: Chaos to Couture’. Yet, the knighthood of punk would not be possible without its Dame.
Vivienne Westwood was a working-class schoolteacher before becoming the godmother of punk. British fashion was plain skirts and sombre blouses before Westwood came along. She made it something more. She embodied the rebellion of the working class, and her clothes sought to provoke. Her boutique, simply titled ‘SEX’, was lined with fetishwear and lingerie. The interior design consisted of phallic grafitti and mannequins wearing bondage gear. The clothing sold were rubber dresses and spiked stilettos, and t-shirts with nipples stamped in the front. Westwood was a provocateur and would often sew onto her garments controversial motifs like images of Karl Marx or even the Nazi Swastika. She wasn’t content with just ruffling some feathers, she wanted to anger the masses.
The industry initially rejected Westwood, yet LFW is now defined by her innate weirdness and streaks of controversy. London’s street style can be easily distinguished from its sister cities, through the donning of loud and zany prints coupled with maximalist accessories, which depart from recent minimalist trends. Londoners find joy in the eclectic as they layer leather jackets and blazers, and add some frills and feathers to their ordinary outfits. Clearly, London style is defined by rebellion – working-class rebellion. However, once the city of punks, London has strayed far away from its roots.
The art world is in disarray and working-class designers are being suppressed. Creative institutions that are tasked with nurturing the next generation of creatives are now in turmoil. Britain’s Universities are losing their learning ethos as they trend towards a business-oriented model that heavily relies on tuition fees. Art and fashion schools are the hardest hit, as they can no longer depend on government grants while the arts budget is relentlessly slashed. These schools are forced to turn to wealthier students just to maintain revenue. Working-class students are the unfortunate collateral damage.
We are losing out on visionaries such as Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, and Alexander McQueen, all of whom came from working-class families. They pushed the culture forward and created era-defining collections. One of Westwood’s first creations was the ‘Anarchy’ shirt which had an image of Karl Marx and the sentence ‘Only Anarchists are Pretty’ boldly sewn on. McQueen treaded Westwood’s footsteps as he developed a reputation for controversy. His first collection sent models down the runway wearing see-through clothes with bruises and bloodied wounds. Their revolutionary creations shaped this industry. Without Westwood’s daring punk exploits from ‘SEX’ or McQueen’s controversial ‘Nihilism’ and ‘Highland Rape’ collections, London Fashion Week as we know it simply would not even exist.
Despite their contributions, the government keeps isolating the working class from the arts. Since 2010, grants and lottery money to the arts have fallen by £178 million. This widespread defunding has led to a 37% reduction in state schoolers selecting creative GCSEs while private schools remain unaffected. The working-class students who do overcome the odds and pursue creative degrees are still faced with an uphill battle. Central Saint Martins, ‘the’ institute for fashion in London, has become a social hub for wealthy students. Some have teams of assistants and hordes of seamstresses labouring over their final projects, while less advantaged students are forced to crowdfund for materials and maintain jobs to fund their livelihood. Art is meant to be the equaliser between the rich and the poor, but if the assault on arts continues, we will be headed for a world where only the rich can afford to create.
The government’s decision to increase tuition fees for higher education is another obstacle that the working class will have to overcome. The increase will equate to higher student loan repayments for working class students. That hurdle alone might stop some students from considering a university education. The policy will also signify dire consequences in the creative industry. A recent report by the Sutton Trust highlighted class inequalities present in the creative industry. Their report found that young people from working class backgrounds were being ‘blocked’ from entering the industry. Only 7% of Britain’s population were educated in private schools, yet they make up 43% of best-selling musicians, and 35% of BAFTA-nominated actors. The odds are already stacked up against working-class creatives, and the tuition fee increase will be another barrier that is created by a long line of disappointing policies.
The elitist nature of the fashion industry is a well-known fact, yet it is perplexing. The industry is heavily guarded from the working class, but when they require inspiration for their next collection, it is the working class they turn to. The humble tracksuit associated with urban groups, derogatorily referred to as ‘chavs’, have been repeatedly appropriated by high-end fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton. The garment has been rebranded as ‘jogging trousers’, and ‘track tops’ and slapped on with a £2000 price label. Not only is the ‘chav’ style stolen, and to a greater extent their identity, but they are also priced out of attaining the fashion they inspired. The working class is the blueprint, and they continue to be vilified.
In the 2000s dupes of Burberry clothing flooded the markets, and the brand were horrified by the labelling of their signature ‘checks and stripes’ as the new ‘chav uniform’. The mere association with the working class caused a steep decline in sales and their upper-class customers distanced themselves from the brand. They launched a huge re-brand and minimized the use of the ‘checks and stripes. Yet today they sell ‘chav-style’ tracksuits for £1000. High fashion brands will always exploit the working class, yet when it’s time to give credit, these same brands will turn a blind eye and proclaim themselves visionaries.
The fashion world remains a paradigm of exclusivity. Privilege and nepotism will get you through the right doors and lead to the best jobs. Occasionally, few would fall through the cracks and upend the fashion world, but those cracks are now vaulted shut. In the 80s, struggling young designers, such as McQueen could rely on unemployment benefits as their main source of income. Today’s unemployment benefits would not be enough to cover half a week’s rent in London. Working in the fashion world also comes with the expectation to work for free. Unpaid internships and free photoshoots are the most effective way to build a portfolio, but that is not a reality feasible for working-class creatives.
TJ Finely and Hannah Garner are recent graduates of Central Saint Martins who had to survive on scholarships and hardship funds. They were interviewed by Dazed for their “Class Ceiling” series, and they begrudgingly explain that the only way to get a foot in the door is to experiment and ruffle up some feathers. They scoff at the bleakness of their future in fashion. For them, debt is a certainty, while success is chained to societal hierarchies. Yet, while they are here, they keep pushing the envelope further. In their graduate showcase Finley and Garner sent out a swarm of dishevelled-looking models seeming as if they had been impaled by pipes while they carried flags stating ‘Fear the Working Class’. They provoked and angered the crowd and were glad to do so. Sadly, we may never get to see where their transgressive visions lead, as Finley is already resigned to his 9-5 fate.
The suppression of working-class designers is an immeasurable loss to art. It was the punks from ‘SEX’ and McQueen’s hooligan status that catapulted British fashion to icon status. They are the hallmarks of the fashion industry, and there will never be another like them. Not due to a lack of provocateurs and artists, but because of a system that will always work against them.
This is what is refreshing about London-based writer Lauren Bulla’s debut poetry collection Porcelain Cherries, which transmutes all this into an aesthetics of introspective self-exploration and care. She refuses to be structurally contained by the alleged emotive limits of gen-Z brainrot speak and irony politics, instead honing her voice – which she proudly tells me was never classically trained, is simply the voice she speaks to friends with – into a humbly generational one, something youthful and refreshing as a result. ‘That these hyper fixations / are only a bit of momentary fun.’ The line would be as at home on a Tumblr blog as a page of print, yet successfully appropriates and refracts social media’s pseudo-psychological jargon to interrogate through experience what it means to fall in love. ‘So close to tasting it, the very thing we’re both afraid of…’
The youthful authenticity of Bulla’s voice does recede in places, often giving way something more motherly and protective, as if she is guiding the reader through the highs and lows of modern love with a tender, if stern, hand: ‘I hate to inform you that, not without heavy cleansing / and deep dedication will you rid yourself of [regret’s] implicit stick.’ If parts of the collection then read as sinewy strings of maternal advice, there is also a certain irony in this posturing as the collection’s inaugural poem, “Six creams and six sugars”, opens with ‘My mothers voice / reminding me to be safe […] Take care of your heart / and your mind / you’ve only got one of either.’
There is thus a genealogy of feminine care to Porcelain Cherries, of girls supporting girls, as the chronically online would put it. On the book’s back, Bulla confides, ‘If nothing else, I hope this collection gives you authority to laugh in the face of heartbreak.’ Humour in the face of the collective cataclysm that is modern dating – ruined by the false sense of abundance created by dating apps and our online over- connectivity – becomes both weapon and cure, a panacea that turns pain into triumph. And it is in finding these moments of triumph through all the fog that Bulla is at her best. The collection’s final poem, “If my past lovers ever saw me – adapted”, represents the auxesis-like climax of all the emotional labour done hitherto. ‘If my past lovers saw me today […] They’d know this is because I found ways to reframe the thrashing I’ve endured […] Now I am my own lover / and there is nothing more powerful.’ Take yourself seriously, she implores, but also don’t: you must laugh and live with yourself before anybody else can.
Image – Photograph by Nial Hall. Retrieved from Reuters.