the working class aesthetic is cool now?

this video is sponsored by Squarespace have you seen recently how Runway shows have Incorporated working class Aesthetics into their looks I mean there was the Balenciaga yellow vest sold more than thirteen hundred dollars recently I was watching a Fashion Week reel on ID and so that I have no clue who this person is but what what is that another real from them shared fashion designer Jeremy Scott wearing the same type of t-shirts that people at my Village pubs wear so what is going on is that cultural appropriation because playing or cultural appreciation and why is it so difficult to talk about the working class as an aesthetic so these are the questions we're going to ask ourselves today in a tick tock video produced by Hackman one of their members described what she called Berlin poverty play by that she means the Tennessee young urban berliners have to cosplay your poverty aesthetic to dress with worn out second-hand clothes to complain about rent and gas prices but once they go back to their family her home for the holidays their insta screams middle class or upper class even she said that because playing a working glass aesthetic served to give those people strict credibility in a city that has a very important political history that as she says has anti-capitalism in its DNA I found that notion of street credibility super interesting and I have also seen it in other places in the west not so much in Paris to be honest but more in places like Brooklyn especially Williamsburg and a little bit here as well in Barcelona now those people don't look like the working class look like today they look like the 1980s to 2000s working class aesthetic that is exactly the aesthetic that was portrayed in that controversial photo shoot Kim K did with Kanye a while ago they were posing in barely furnished rooms wearing Walnut clothes and people didn't like it obviously the most common criticism I saw was why do you guys try to look like normal people so Street Credibility relatability basically average people do not want to look rich and you know that's understandable it's kind of a basic survival mechanism isn't it now the problem with rich people using working class aesthetic isn't limited to appropriation in fact if you're one of those people who believe we are too harsh with billionaires well I'm happy to tell you that the hate is reciprocated rich people do not like poor people a really great book came out in France recently and I hope it will get translated it's called Serbia lyrics to serve the rich but there's also Erwin Jones chavs that is a classic on the topic of class contempt so for example I found out in hackmag's Tick Tock video I showed you earlier that Urban Outfitters describes its consumers to Wall Street as follows the urban customer we always talk about is the upscale homeless person who has a slight degree of angst and is probably in the life stage of 18 to 26. homeless referred to the fact that their consumers pay rent they don't own a place but you know you you could have picked a better objective maybe I found another example of class content in one of teenual's videos in which she talked about female rappers simultaneously using sex workers aesthetic most of sex workers being work in class and expressing disdain for those same workers in their lyrics or in interviews the combination of appropriation and class content means that the way rich people are going to use the working class aesthetic is going to be very different from what it actually is it won't be authentic in his book on taste French sociologist Pierre bourgeo theorized that the pure gaze of the bourgeoisie is inherently different from the functional gaze of the working class what distinguished the two was the Primacy of form of a function for the first and a function of a form for the second the Bourgeois prioritizes form like you know there's nothing functional about going around with a lion's head stuck to one stress all red paint all over one's body now you could say that sex workers who are again mostly work in class also prioritize form of a function but it's not true the pleaser shoe for example is engineered in a way that maximizes comfort and yes the form looks great too but no worker would wear it if it wasn't comfortable enough similarly when a British Union member was interviewed on TV about an ongoing rail strike one Twitter user commented standing there in a 390 pounds coat isn't helping you cause about striking for pay Rises the first thing that I found interesting is that if you live in the UK you know that the brand The North Face is often associated with Working Class People and second thing is that Aesthetics preside a North Face character is a good quality coat that one can keep for longer so we have this image of the working class family buying a lot of fast fashion but it's not really accurate right working class lower middle class hassles keep and reuse and recycle everything they can in fact most things have more than one function in her autobiographical novel The Years French author annierno described that everything had to be put to use the pen case the love home paintbox the packaging from Lupita biscuits nothing were thrown away the contents of night buckets were used for garden fertilizers the dung of passing horses collected for potted plants newspaper was used for wrapping vegetables dyeing shoes wiping one's bottom in the laboratory now the passage I read from the years depicted the 1940s at that time globalization wasn't as strong as it is today capitalism and captives opulence wasn't as strong as it is today that means that the statement like the Bourgeois prioritizes form and working classes prioritize function isn't exactly true for instance Chris moles the person that co-founded the Amazon labor union is often seen wearing Gucci Versace so luxury Brands big logos visible label tables have become a working class fashion stable but maybe we shouldn't be too critical about it as Alessandro has territory explained by appropriating Bulger culture working class youth are temporarily escaping their own situation of disadvantage to which there will be inevitably pushed back because the Terran on which taste and choices are made will shift under their feet on the other hand when Bourgeois people adopt the culture of the working class they are leaving behind the privileged position to which they will return she therefore wonders is it right to chastise the working class for internalizing certain behaviors and tastes when they are not in control of this process but victims of it so yeah the form versus function Paradigm is a bit more complex than it seems and you know what reducing the aesthetic of the working class to something that is functional can become a bit problematic why you will ask because it means that ultimately what is aesthetically pleasing is the function that the form only valorizes the function what let me give you an example you've probably seen the Soviet Union posters of working men and women those pastors are beautiful the aesthetic is beautiful at least I find them beautiful but what I love about them is how the form so the material the design the colors enhances the function which is industrial work in other words the working class is beautiful when it works when it produces value when it has a function on the other hand the working class is perceived as ugly when it doesn't work it doesn't produce value and so it doesn't have a function so for example it it isn't employed now look at these two pictures I found the one on the left here in Barcelona and this one in Berlin so that is the type of working class that can be represented in the public space they are both great beautiful that's why I took a picture of them but you would never never see a monument representing a an employed man or a sex worker so does that mean that there is no Beauty in that okay tell me how you feel when you see this I saw it when I went to the MoMA in New York last year it was set up and photographed by Jeff wool and it is inspired by Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison the novel is great the picture is great it was located in a very dark room and it represented a black working glass man living in an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights operated by Powers stolen from the city's electric grid the book the picture Isabel adults you guessed it invisibility and I don't want to say too much about it because I've been thinking about a video I want to make and I'll elaborate a bit more in that one but other example one day I came across this Instagram page which gathers a collection of all pictures taken by a photographer running the page I was skeptical at first because I believed it was yet another middle class guy glamorizing the working class but I was wrong Rob Bremner simply took pictures of the people around him throughout his life and it's beautiful as it is what's beautiful about it in my opinion is the fact that remna knows the people he takes pictures of and in the comments section other people share how it reminds them of this or that member of their family bremner's work is valued by the people around him and sure we can politicize it we can intellectualize it but it doesn't need that to be valuable if that makes sense to conclude I find a way the working class plays with Form and Function to be inspirational Del de facto source of inspiration for High Fashion debt then translate into everyday fashion at a time where fast fashion is being criticized on all levels the working class aesthetic and practices of buying second hand repopularizing all Trends refurbishing experimenting is regaining popularity so it's an opportunity for those of us who are not working class anymore or have never been to actually engage with the working class to understand its values and Beauty instead of either mocking it or fetishizing it for Street Credibility of capitalist gains I'm starting to work on a really cool video that uses some of the things we talked about today a new way of envisioning fashion I'm really excited about this video it will be out at the end of the month hopefully so if you don't want to miss that subscribe to the channel if it's not already done anyway that's it for today I hope you enjoyed it as always the conversation continues in the comments section don't forget to like to know I've already asked you to subscribe did Judo a big thank you to my patrons for their support and a special thanks to top tier patrons Christopher Benjamin Oswald Carla and Perry and finally before I leave I'd like to talk to you about today's sponsor Squarespace questpace is an all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online you can create your own website around your preferred aesthetic from a catalog of templates and use it as a landing platform for all the activity you do YouTube online shop Blog podcast photography Etc once that is set up you can connect all your social media accounts and share content between different platforms Squarespace can also help you create effective email campaigns to really connect with your community finally they had this very cool feature where you can connect and learn from all the creators like who will show you how you can best use the platform if you feel like Squarespace is made for you and you want to check it out go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you've experimented and you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com Alice keppel to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain thank you Squarespace for sponsoring the video that is it all I have to say now is seti

Channel: Alice Cappelle

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Id: 8hnnQrL57hM

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 28 2023