I was mortified. Utterly mortified. I’d gone along to the excruciatingly charming wedding venue in Oxfordshire – not far from where Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron live – to see how my brother was doing with preparations for the reception the following day, and the moment he spots my shoes, he bursts out laughing.
They were brand new and up until then I was reasonably pleased with them, even if they were a bit on the tight side because the store didn’t have the style that fitted so I’d had to choose another. I’d picked them up from a discount store in Cheltenham, where I’d accompanied my other brother to pick up the suits for the wedding. (He drove there in a hired Toyota Aygo, the brand behind this truly revolting ad. I found UK drivers utterly terrifying – far more speeding and dangerous overtaking than I’ve encountered in SA – but that’s another blog entry altogether.)
I wanted a decent pair of trainers and the discount store had a sale. Of course, we were in a hurry, and of course they didn’t have my size, and then they couldn’t find the matching left shoe in the style I wanted. Eventually they produced a pair in a style similar to what I wanted – but not identical, a mistake as it turned out – and because we had the wedding rehearsal with the frightfully posh lady vicar to get to, I grabbed whatever they had available and ran. As it turned out, the pair I grabbed was a pair of Lonsdales… and Lonsdales, as it turns out, are a brand worn by chavs. Or to quote my brother: “Sarah, did you know that Lonsdales are a chav brand?”
I didn’t.
Now, “chav” is of course a very loaded term. Regardless of its origins – and The Guardian agonises them over here – it’s filled with snotty classist judgment. Chavs are frequently defined in terms of the brands they favour, so it’s hard to escape the conclusion that they’re an invention by the bourgeoisie offended by the consumption patterns of the sort of people who should have the decency to fade into the background, not marry footballers, that sort of thing. (Oh yes, and chavs were the ones who, in many cases, bought the News of the World.)
(Here’s the ultimate chav wedding, if you’re interested.)
Even though I know all of this, there was no way I wanted to be regarded as having made a chav brand choice. I ripped off the Lonsdales the moment I could and swore never to wear them again.
The £15 I spent on them – they were originally £49 – would have to be written off. My mother tried them on and they gave her blisters and they’re languishing in her cupboard somewhere because she insisted on bringing them back to South Africa rather than chucking them away or leaving them out for the hotel cleaners.
How could I of all people – working in the ad industry as I do, anglophile that I am – have made such an arse of myself in quite this way? When my brother laughed at me, I felt an intense and immediate sense of raw humiliation. I’d made a classic mistake. I’d bought a brand without understanding the cultural context.
If I’d wanted to do ironic-chav, I would have, but I didn’t. In the UK, I don’t feel comfortable enough with what’s accepted and what isn’t to play around with identity. I’d happily wear a South African brand, because even if nobody else knew what it was, I would, and I’d be confident about the set of signifiers I was choosing to use to convey a message about how I see myself. I wouldn’t wear a Burberry cap, though. Or Juicy Couture velvet tracksuit pants, or Ed Hardy (God forbid) or any of those brands which convey the notion that the wearer falls a little short in matters of so-called Good Taste.
I don’t often have moments of brand clarity like that. I’m so used to living in a branded universe that I sometimes forget the power of brands, which both help us define ourselves and navigate our way through the world. Ever found yourself in a supermarket in a foreign country where you don’t recognize any of the brands? It’s disconcerting. You have no idea what you should be buying; every purchase is fraught with an element of fear. That’s why brands are useful. They’re reassuring. They help you choose, so they save you time. And when you use them, you don’t need to second guess yourself.
I had a comparable moment of angst years ago, when I bought something from Mr Price in Rosebank and then went to ridiculous and inconvenient lengths to hide the plastic bags because I didn’t want to be seen with one of them. Now that shopping at Mr Price is a point of pride, I feel perfectly comfortable about flaunting my dodgy discount purchases. But not back then.
Eventually I found another pair of trainers, for £7, in the Tesco in Abingdon. Nothing great (or even in the same galaxy as great) about them at all, but the main thing was this: there was no logo on them. No brand, no indication as to their origins. They were purely functional. I was thrilled.
I still got very sore feet, because, as it turned out, they were crap. But I didn’t have to worry about being ashamed of the brand I was wearing. And that’s what mattered.
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