It’s not recent in the least. It’s apparently been quite popular for the last few years. It’s associated with chavs but I’ve seen it on people I know who dress quite well. I don’t get the appeal.
Is it just a question of fashion with some high status people wearing it and then people of lower status wanting to look like them? If so, it’s a fashion that’s laste a few years already and I would expect its association with chavs to have killed any status-enhacing boost.
Its the signature check of a clothing company called Burberry that, about five years ago, became super-trendy among the young and hip set. It took about five minutes for other cheaper lines to start selling knockoffs. I think that the check is hip because it was supposed to indicate that the item was an authentic Burberry, and expensive, and full of British pride (or British adoration), etc. I really don’t think that the attractiveness of the check itself was the appeal.
I’ve met people who are closing in on 70 years old who are snobs about owning a Burberry coat, so no, it’s not new. The real thing is still expensive, though. Chavs wearing knockoffs doesn’t destroy that.
Is it easy to distinguish between the real thing and the knock offs? If it’s not easy, then all those people who pay high prices to be able to show off their high status clothing don’t gain much since their clothing is difficult to distinguish from chav clothing.
Sort of muses me does all the snob value, given that the stuff is made in Northern England towns - mainly the former mining communities, the men would go down the pit, and the womenfolk would work in the clothing trade.
Burberry is one of the few larger clothing factories left around these parts, all the others have gone to the far east, we used to have several hundred thousand working in this industry, and thats just the ready made clothing - add in the mills and the finishing and its several times more - all gone, 'cept for Burberry.
They do not have the same economic pressures due to the high mark ups - I can tell you that their specifications are very very tight indeed and the quality control is pretty ferocious, you can’t easily get hold of their seconds, not that they actually produce many seconds - the few that turn up usually end up being taken home by their workers, we have quite a number of Poland workers in the main Burberry factory.
Here’s a picture of the place
…and yes, this town is just about as down as a town can get, really was destroyed by the political closure of the pits by on Ms Thatcher - never ever will forgive that evil bitch.
