Counting The Posh Boy Fashion Cliches You’ll No Doubt Have Spotted On Made In Chelsea

Oh Jamie, Jamie, how were you supposed to know, your jacket is too light, yeah? Fancy lads love their tailoring, and sometimes nothing is nicer than a smart jacket with jeans. It’s perfect for those chilly, yet unexpectedly sweaty days, when you’re transitioning between seasons or trying to cope with early onset ‘flu. But you need a dedicated smart jacket. When you wear half a suit, with a shirt and a tie, you have to wear the bottom of the suit too or you’re going to look like a disappointing and unambitious round of the children’s party game, Misfits. The jeans and businesswear combo is a bit cowboy slash insurance salesman. Like many posh boys past, he’s wandering around looking like a Brokeback Broker.

One can’t imagine many poshos found themselves forging through the automatic doors of the now defunct early 90s supermarket chain, Gateway - and yet many of them choose to dress just like the people who used to work on the cheese counter. The white, wide brimmed hat, used to conceal a hair net and make you look dignified and professional when cutting a massive chunk of gorgonzola is found nestling atop the most privileged and powerful heads of our generation. This look is almost too strong, so it’s best to play it down by unbuttoning everything and sticking on a pair of John Lennon style sunglasses. Imagine there’s no Chateau Lafite ’67…

If you’re a well connected boy about town, you’ll know that the only way to wear clothes is to put on too many, or ideally, not enough. You need to get your nipples out as frequently as possible, because they’re almost exactly the same size as a pound coin and you need to remind people that you are considerably richer than they are. Also, posh boys don’t care about the cold, because they either grew up in an Elizabethan manor house with nothing but an aga for warmth, or they’re almost always in Dubai, or Cannes, or a lovely hot bath.

The funniest and most sartorially on point way to demonstrate that you will never, ever, ever set foot in a Butlins holiday camp is to dress as someone who works there. We all know a posh boy with at least one pair of red trousers - and sometimes a spare for when pair one get covered in the consequences of ‘lash’. Cobalt blue and canary yellow also get a look in, and Stevie has kicked it up a gear with the poster paint colour holiday camp blazer. The Redcoats are famous entertainers - but what do the Coralcoats do? We’re guessing rap and poetry…

The upper classes know their wardrobe choices are, in isolation, worrying - which is why they buddy up and make sure their pal is on side to push their bold, individual choices. On its own, Proudlock’s skull print makes you want to hide under your bed until your Mum comes - when it’s juxtaposed with Jamie’s flowers, it looks about as threatening as the Liberty haberdashery department.

If the swanky set aren’t wearing all of the colours all at once, they’re making a moody style statement. Sam loves a black tee or jumper, because black makes you appear older - handy if you look so young that you seem to still be waiting for your chin to grow. The vibe is very starving artist, so to remind the world that you’re a creative soul, but one with money, you can hang a load of gold around your neck! Fashion Christmas.

In days of old, the former Etonian was known by the undone bottom button of his waistcoat. In this millennium, the signals are much more complex and challenging. A baseball cap might mean you’re Richard Branson, or it might mean that Richard Branson found you on Gumtree and is paying you in cash to help him move house. (It is thought that Branson once had a terrible experience with Pickfords and will never again use a legitimate removal company.) Posh boys flip their cap and get a little duck’s bum of hair sticking through the top, to minimise embarrassment when it is removed. Hat hair is for poor people.

This is a two fingered salute to ‘hard working families’ - even when they are forced to get up, the males of Chelsea like to feel as if they’re still in bed. This is why they’re so fond of any garment that involves quilting. It’s also great when they’re (often) accused of philandering, because they can defend themselves by saying, quite legitimately ‘Wasn’t that a dream? I thought I was asleep!’

The truly smart can’t resist the scratchy, slightly dog scented miasma of real tweed. But they know they’re not actually going shooting, hunting or fishing, unless going to Nobu counts. So they choose tweed-lite - fabrics that mimic the cosy qualities of tweed without taking anyone’s cheeks off. Mark Francis’ Harrington is the business, but then, most on point fashion choices are best left to MF.

You need to have quite the sense of entitlement to think the world is ready to deal with your bare feet in sweaty leather loafers, which is why it’s a look the posh boy loves so much. Going sockless says ‘I’m crazy, I’m laid back, I simply didn’t have time to get dressed properly because I was so desperate to get on Daddy’s boat!’ All posh boys claim to spend most of their lives with sand between their toes. Don’t look closely - it’s Athlete’s Foot.

Eddo’s jumper has more cables than all the computers from the nineties, put together. There are so many different surfaces going on that you fear it might be come sentient. At the very least, if you hug him, you’ll get exfoliated. Posh boys pay hundreds for these items, because they’ve had so many weird things knitted for them by their nannies that they think all clothes should feel bumpy.

Money + class = all the lambswool and cashmere. The MIC chaps might drive us mad, but when they’re not braying, bare chested and brightly blazered, we want to give them all hugs, because they feel so lovely and soft.

Everyone else got the memo that indie died a slow and painful death somewhere around the 2007 mark; except posh boys. Notoriously behind in their music choices (West London clubs are still playing Fatman Scoop ironically) it's reflected in their fashion choices, like these spray-on jeans from Myttons, worn disastrously with an Oxford shirt. See also: trilbies and 'distressed' leather jackets.