North: Fashioning Identity, an exhibition examining representations of the north of England and Northerners in photography, fashion and art. At this exhibiton I concentrated on the way the children were dressed and also the way the children were photographed. The first thing that I noticed is that the boys are wearing sports clothing and also sports brands and are photographed in gangs or pairs looking as though they are just handing around on the streets up to no good. There’s been a lot of talk recently about cultural appropriation in fashion, fuelled in part by the seismic shift in menswear to embrace urban sportswear and ‘Lad’ culture, both ignored or derided previously for their social stigma.
Things are different today. The axis has spun, as it seems to do every so often, and those previously at the bottom now find themselves at the top. Now everybody loves the Working Class. ‘Roadman’, a word I first remember hearing in the early 00s (but much like ‘Rude Boy’ it had probably been around a lot longer) to describe a street-level dealer, is now being quoted by trusted media outlets as ‘on-trend’.
In the 21st century the view that “boys wear anything” and girls care about fashion and get dressed well is outdated and boys like to be seen in the latest sports wear and develop their identity based on them. Brands are a capitalist symbol that discloses a persons wealth value.