Where’s Fashion’s “Empathetic Appreciation” for the Working Class?

The council-housed creative is the Fashion Industry’s latest golden child. There’s an ever-growing wing ‘representation’ of the working class in modern fashion media.

In September, Burberry was criticised for mocking the working class with its  takeover of Norman’s Cafe (pronounced ‘caff’ as opposed to ‘cafés’ by the way)– a simple, ordinary cafe with plastic chairs screwed to the floor. The Standard characterised the takeover as “a quintessentially British cafe getting the high fashion treatment”.

High-end labels, simulataneously unavailable and everywhere, capitalise on a concept of desirability. Young creatives warn against the perils of fetishising working-class aesthetics in high-end fashion.

Desperate to find delve into the minds of people who find inspiration in their working-class life– and who aren’t representing a high-end brand or magazine, I spoke to Louis George, an emerging creative, who has drawn on his lived-experience in art schools to the fashion industry of aestheticising real-life struggles. George’s exhibition “Empathetic Appreciation” sparks a conversation  about the thin line that the industry continues to cross.

Art School Perpetuates Class Divisions

“Ultimately fashion school is a tool, you just need to know how to use it to your advantage. As a part of the working class, you’re told that you have to either really try or you’ll end up like everyone else. I’m not going there to escape or to replicate other people’s art or be a part of a collective: I just want to make art I love,” he told me.

But George notes that “as much as I have strong opinions on fashion education systems, university is basically a bubble of creatives. It’s that sort of microcosm where you can throw yourself and see whatever sticks to the wall. My work will continue to be a representation of me because that’s what I enjoy doing most.”

JH: A lot of your work is a clear reflection of yourself as a member of the working class, how do you feel about this being portrayed in the media featuring people who aren’t from a similar background? 

LG: The system is deliberately in place in England to bring down anyone they can if they’re not wealthy. Life here, as well as many other places, is mainly based on class. So to choose to make something look or to buy something that already looks properly lived in as a way to appear working class or relatable is wrong.

It’s almost although they think let’s make this look like shit because that’s really in. Instead of going somewhere that’s actually like that because it’s not trying to be anything that’s beautiful.

Celebrities picked as the face of working class-inspired shoots don’t have an idea about what they’re trying to dress up as. These wealthy people are literally cosplaying as the working class. If this wasn’t the new popular thing to do, the wealthy would’ve looked down on the person they are emulating. 

JH: Do you think Art Schools are either catalysts for creativity or crushing creativity?

LG: I don’t know if Art School’s worked right for most. For me, the first year of college when I went to the Fashion Retail Academy, I did really well […] The second year of studying in London, I just wasn’t myself. And it wasn’t particularly the right environment for me, either.

Art School was constantly emphasising ‘how to’. How to be something else. Be creative, but just be yourself, but the “best” you – whilst you’re in a state of also being your “worst you”.

You’re going around and around in circles to the point where you get creatively drained. 

“Empathetic Appreciation”

George’s photography empathetically appreciates the working class. “The situations that I pull from are actually my life, do you know what I mean?”.

“The lorry that I used in the self-portrait is my Grandad’s and I thought the British flag looked kitsch.”

“When I thought about the football top shoot, I live really close to Fratton Park, so you see people either in a Pompey shirt or a top you’ve never seen in your life. That was kind of the vibe I was going for paired with the idea of street photography. You’ve seen someone, and you just take a portrait image of them. The amount of people you see filtering through that road (leading up to Fratton Park) on match day is crazy, I wanted to get the essence of that for the nine pictures.”

George decided to pursue photography simply because “I’m bad at making clothes but I know what looks good. So I’d rather just be able to convey what’s in my head through things that are already present”. He originally studied textiles at Havant College, but “didn’t have the knack for it”.

“Everyone else in class would make really nice dresses and all that sort of stuff. I’d come in with a blazer that was already made, and then try and tailor it to someone and it was dreadful. My teachers would try and tell me how to do a certain craft, but in the end, it just made things worse for me. I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it; I know what effect I want to achieve, but I couldn’t grasp the technicalities of it all. Bear in mind, that I can’t even thread a machine properly!” 

“I’ve always taken inspiration from Corrine Day; you know those pictures of Kate Moss taken by Day with the lights around her in her flat. As well as Tracey Emin, especially her My Bed installation that was featured in The Tate. I want to put my work through a lens of how their work would be taken today. Corrine Day’s photography is raw isn’t it, I wanted to do a staged version of her work for a shoot I did with my friend Kiera.” 

Photography by Louis George. Cover Image of Burberry.