In 2004, Burberry’s now departed chief creative Christopher Bailey was promoted from design director to creative director, with the more or less explicit aim of containing the house’s rising image problem. The Burberry check had become associated with, on the one hand, the nouveau riche who flaunted wealth through excessive logo wear, and on the other, ‘chavs’, the predominantly white working class British youth associated with football hooliganism, antisocial behaviour and petty misdemeanours. Burberry’s UK sales were falling and the house was looking for a drastic image change, resulting in some surreal initial collections from Bailey, that stood out only for their saccharine Britishness. Fast forward fifteen years to the unveiling of Burberry’s collaboration with Gosha Rubchinskiy, at the designer’s Spring/Summer 18 show in St Petersburg. Rubchinksiy has often stated that his aesthetics are inspired by the figure of the ‘gopnik’, the Russian equivalent of the chav and the imagery accompanying the Burberry collaboration was shot on a football field – a clever nod both at Gosha’s own reference points and the image that Burberry tried so hard to shed. Despite the fact it was released under a Russian designer, the Gosha x Burberry was an important reclamation for British working class identity: ironic proof that a chav is only a chav when (s)he’s not in fashion.