From my latest viewing of British Style Genius: The Street Look, a BBC series on the history of British style, from the Street Look the the High Street, I'm reminded of why the British proletariat do it best.
In a country that was the first to behead their monarch but never actually get rid of monarchy, British society has always entertained a dichotomous relationship between an acute and entrenched class consciousness and a fervent spirit of rebellion against the symbols that represent their social and political oppression.
The transformations wrought by industrial capitalism and the trauma of the first and second world wars altered the British psyche. It seeded deep anxieties about the old world order that confronted them and their existence as wage labourers with small but growing disposable incomes granted them possibilities for change, and angst ridden desire for more.
This video reminds us that at least in Britain, fashion is nothing but the symbolic battles of the dispossessed. These battles have endowed the trajectory of British fashion with a symbolism and a profundity that professes to be the material record of the social and economic history of twentieth century Britain.
BEHOLD THE STORY OF EDWARDIAN PREP, MOD, SKINHEAD, AND YES, EVEN CHAVS.
British Style Genius: The Street Look from Zalvar on Vimeo.
In a country that was the first to behead their monarch but never actually get rid of monarchy, British society has always entertained a dichotomous relationship between an acute and entrenched class consciousness and a fervent spirit of rebellion against the symbols that represent their social and political oppression.
The transformations wrought by industrial capitalism and the trauma of the first and second world wars altered the British psyche. It seeded deep anxieties about the old world order that confronted them and their existence as wage labourers with small but growing disposable incomes granted them possibilities for change, and angst ridden desire for more.
This video reminds us that at least in Britain, fashion is nothing but the symbolic battles of the dispossessed. These battles have endowed the trajectory of British fashion with a symbolism and a profundity that professes to be the material record of the social and economic history of twentieth century Britain.
BEHOLD THE STORY OF EDWARDIAN PREP, MOD, SKINHEAD, AND YES, EVEN CHAVS.
British Style Genius: The Street Look from Zalvar on Vimeo.
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