You know that yearning you've had for Victorian workhouse fashion?

[squoosh]

Well yearn no more as someone has created workhouse inspired clothes for you!

www.workhouse-england.co.uk/index.html

Look at this gorgeous 'Workhouse Garment'. Doesn't it jauntily evoke despair and grinding poverty? A snip at £220.

I mean it's great it's all handmade in the made in the UK n'all but surely this must be where hipster fashion jumps the shark. Or jumps the pauper.

I agree with previous posters that is very good to see people trying to make quality clothing that will last, made by people (presumably) earning a reasonable wage and (presumably) working in decent conditions. But I also agree with other posters that the brand name is in very questionable taste. (I didn't mean to be flippant when I criticised the styling of the models earlier.) Is the name just meant to be a very clumsy play on words? If so, it doesn't - erm - work. They surely can't be deliberately contrasting themselves with modern sweatshops? Or with Victorian workhouses, where people on the whole did dirty, mindless tasks, not skilled tailoring?

I agree that if people are talking about the branding rather than the clothes then they've got something very badly wrong.

But I still like the look of the clothes. I also like to support new UK businesses - not the ones that ship in from Bangladesh, add a few buttons and call it 'British' but the ones that really do source and manufacture here. But it's bound to cost more.

The concept and marketing, sorry

No problem

There isn't many of the garments that I like, but love the fact they are made in England.

Actually, "Set in a converted 18th Century Victorian Slaughterhouse'

I guess Slaughterhouse clothing doesn't have the same ring then?

If you ignore the hipstery styling, the individual pieces are nicely designed, with interesting details and what looks to be high-quality construction methods. The pricing is in line with somewhere like Brora, and not unreasonable for British made clothing.

I don't care for the name particularly, but I don't get the outrage either.

What is this thing about hipsters? I don't get the hostility. The ones I've encountered are unfailingly polite and make great coffee.

I rather like most of it, and am keen for them to do well. Useful utility garments made in decent fabrics in the UK by non-sweat labour has to be an improvement on most of the High Street multiples.

Sacha Baron-Cohen is working on something linked to this somewhere, I'm certain...

The ones I've encountered are unfailingly polite and make great coffee.

Personally I can't help but hold the handlebar moustaches against them, though.

It's true that your common or garden hipster is often a perfectly innocent soul, but there is a known streak of pretension (and a tendency to bore on about the latest things they've 'discovered', or worse yet, 'curated') associated with them.

What's so offensive MumBod?

Workhouses weren't all that long ago. They were horrific places. Something to be ashamed of, not used as some kind of quaint marketing strategy for expensive clothes.

I dunno. Some things just push my buttons, I guess.

When I buy clothes on the high street I do so knowing they've probably been made in conditions that truly are Dickensian. I feel far more uncomfortable about that than I do about the marketing techniques if a company that at least seems to be trying to do things differently.

of a company

I don't know if anybody saw my post yesterday but I included a direct quote from the website:
"We have stripped it all back to rediscover what the name Workhouse evokes".

What do you think it evokes? Affluent 30-somethings wandering around like an extra on Peaky Blinders, or a grim time in our social history encompassing desperate misery, fear and poverty?

Clothes remind me of All Saints. You wouldn't want to miss with this chap in his shacket would you...

store.workhouse-england.co.uk/product/british-worker-shacket

I saw your post and I've already agreed about their marketing. But I still come back to the fact that they're trying to produce well made clothes using British fabrics and skilled tailors, paid a fair rate for the job (or at the very least, the legal wage). I applaud them for doing that.

And yes, it means they're expensive. The reason clothes are as cheap as they are is because they're being made on the far side of the world by people enduring the same misery and poverty of which you speak.

I'm sorry if that sounds preachy - and trust me, I'm as guilty as anyone here.

I agree 100% with @MumBod
I think it's appalling.

I too agree with MumBod. The styling and concept is utterly offensive. Workhouses are a shameful part of our history and people suffered and died horrifically.

It's no different, as far as I'm concerned, to launching a brand called Bedlam or Belsen and styling the models to look like inmates.

I agree re unethical clothing production. I doubt we'll see beautiful and intricate £200 saris produced by a company called Sweatshop anytime soon.

It's the way the era of workhouses and working class clothes has been romanticised, as well as the talk of 'stripping back and 'evoking what workhouse means' which marks it out as pretentious toss to me.

And I agree about pretentious tosh. But which is more appalling - their marketing or the high street selling clothes made in Victorian workhouse conditions? Say what you like about their marketing - I won't try and defend it but I do wonder if we're directing some of our outrage at the wrong target.

There is plenty of outrage directed at unethical working conditions. You can be outraged about two things at once.
Tbf I am not outraged or appalled by this Workhouse lot; more that I roll my eyes and think it's all pretentious wank. The clothes don't appeal to me, and I don't have the budget for them anyway so I'm hardly their target market.

I think we can do better than just being outraged. We can wish companies well if they're trying to operate more ethically and to produce well made, home grown clothes - even if we can't afford their prices ourselves or even if the clothes and presentation aren't to our liking.

Anyway I think it's time for me to move on as I've now come full circle and I'm even starting to bore myself. Good day to you all.

It's the way the era of workhouses and working class clothes has been romanticised, as well as the talk of 'stripping back and 'evoking what workhouse means' which marks it out as pretentious toss to me.

This. Couldn't have put it better