A BLEAK DECADE

The rise of the City and the fall of the unions, the wider retreat of the left and the return of military confidence, the energy of a renewed entrepreneurialism and the entropy of a new, entrenched unemployment – more than twice as high even in the mid-80s boom as when Margaret Thatcher took office in 1979 – all make the decade feel like the hinge of our modern history.
BANG! A History of Britain in the 1980's, Graham Stewart

 

A montage clip of Thatcher's Britain

In conjunction with such social reform and unrest, football spectator attendances were at a regular high. Predominantly working & lower-middle class men used following/supporting the sport as recreational escape, offering a sense of belonging, identity, and camaraderie. Football firms were appearing and expanding in numbers, as the social pattern more publicly spilled into gang culture and hooliganism. Street/casual wear was initially dictated or derived from 60/70’s gang persona created by the likes of the mods, rockers, skinheads etc. On the back of such political and social tension, fashion, particularly of the average male, was about to change.

The gap between the social classes, the imbalance between aspiration and reality, was clearly evident. You sense through the fashions of the time that the lower class male was conscious of his perceived standing. Using the Aristocracy as a reference, the use of established luxury/heritage brands was an obvious tangible way to depict ambition, success, and breed confidence. This also started to create a vehicle to fuel common competitive characteristics, the ‘one-upmanship’ mentality, yet in a materialistic form.