If New York has wannabe celebrities in Dimes Square then London has litty lengy football scarves around the head cheeky chappies sitting in the corner of The Shacklewell Arms reading neo-Marxist theory 78 ignored Hinge notifications smirks at you as you walk past The Pineapple link-up bois. Though that might sound like incoherent drivel to anyone who doesn’t live along the orange Overground line, accounts like @socks_house_meeting, @real_housewives_of_clapton, and @dalstonsuperstoned have managed to distil these kinds of hyper-localised social signifiers into memeable content.
Their lo-fi Instagrams spoof the micro-cultures that have collected around The Pavillion in Broadway Market, Jolene in Newington Green, and the French House in Soho, satirising the lifestyle and fashion obligations that come from participating in such a niche (creative industries, media-adjacent) bubble. The familiarity is all part of the fun: it’s either you or the guy you once dated or your flatmate that’s just moved to London and now spends their Sundays wearing an Acne Scarf in Donlon Books. And the truth of those simulacrums – like all great works of art – feels unsettling.
But it’s all in good humour because the people that tend to double-tap those posts are precisely the ones that are being parodied in the first place. They know what it means to drink Chin Chin wine and eat small plates of foraged bush finds for £23 because they’ve all signed the tappy tappy social contract. But nowhere are these sorts of personality markers more curated (and often more transparent) than at fashion week, where people dress with calculated intention. In the gallery above @socks_house_meeting turns their attention to showgoers, models, and street stylers on the AW23 circuit.