Keeping it real... posh

There was a time when you could spot a posh person a mile off. Literally, because their trousers were pillarbox red and they were braying or bish-bash-boshing their way to the bar at the Trafalgar pub on the King’s Road. They were rampant and honking and annoying. Nowadays, the gilded elite are quite a different breed; subtler, more nuanced, some might say nicer. They have fragmented and spread across London. They are no longer just Sloanes but artists and writers and thinkers. They are more interesting and interested and, would you believe it, they’re sometimes even cool

It’s little wonder Tatler magazine is doing so well. The chronicler of all things posh sells 84,000 copies every month and is shortly to be the subject of a three-part documentary on BBC Two, called Posh People: Inside Tatler. For almost a year, a camera crew followed the magazine’s staff as they went about their everyday jobs of writing about Britain’s grandest families. Interest in the lives of the New Posh has never been greater.

How did this happen? Made in Chelsea showed privately educated toffs being just as silly, insecure and unlucky in love as the rest of us. It was only their cut-glass accents that differentiated Binky, Spencer and co from their The Only Way Is Essex counterparts. How accessible ‘posh’ suddenly seemed. But while Channel 4 positioned Sloane Square as the Sugar Hut of SW3, beyond the confines of reality TV, the young upper classes have been getting out of the Royal Borough as fast as their wellies can carry them, to Dalston, Brixton, Borough and beyond. The latest colonisations are in Peckham, where the New Posh (NPs) congregate at Frank’s rooftop bar; and Hackney, where you’ll find them twerking at warehouse raves or at The Dolphin pub, downing pints of craft beer in a mixture of Grandpa’s hand-me-downs and 1990s sportswear.

The parents of 1980s Sloane Rangers would buy them flats off the King’s Road (Lady Diana Spencer’s was on the Old Brompton Road when she first moved to London). Made in Chelsea has spawned the fabulous illusion that this is still the case, but in fact these days few Sloane parents can afford it. More to the point, even if they could, their children are choosing to househunt on Kingsland Road, E8, instead; not only for reasons of class and wealth camouflage, but because those areas are seen as more vibrant and fun. And now that the London Overground goes from Clapham Junction to the depths of East London, it’s never been easier to conquer new territory.

It would be wrong to say that the New Posh are just like you and me, however, because they’re not — one day they will inherit 1,000 acres. They will always belong in the countryside, where for generations they have pursued activities that mostly involve killing things. In the past, this meant they were easy to spot in the capital — you just needed to look for telltale mud on their boots to know that come Sunday morning, those chaps holding court at the Cadogan Arms would be back by the fire with Mummy and Pa. Now NPs are camouflaged into London life. The ones who live East wear beards and baggy jumpers; those in journalism sport mud-coloured jackets and shirts with frayed collars; the ones in fashion have severe haircuts and wear Nike High Tops, just like everyone else. But for all their careful blending in, unlike their new friends in EC1, NPs still quietly return to the countryside for weekends, to wallow in Floris-infused baths and throw house parties for 20 friends.

But outside the family HQ, their socialising happens in places their parents have barely heard of. ‘One friend of mine doesn’t see me any more because she’s too frightened to come south of the river,’ says one ex-Bedales Peckham resident. ‘It’s ridiculous because actually she’d know everyone round here.’ The other day I drove from Kensington Square to Dalston, taking an elderly friend to see her niece’s new play. We got lost and had to stop to ask for directions two or three times. Each time we did so, the voice of the helpful young person on the street was more RP than the last. It was as if we were driving towards Kensington, not away from it. ‘You never bump into people like this in Kensington any more,’ lamented my passenger, who has lived there since the 1930s. ‘So this is where they all are!’

Don’t be deceived by the postcodes. The numbers may be high — SE11, N16 — but once over the threshold, so is the spec. Sleek Poggi kitchens and high-thread-count sheets are the norm. Sure, they may have to Uber a bit further to get home, but the parties are the same as those their parents threw, starting at supper and going on till dawn. The difference now is that it’s no longer cool to display any evidence that your life is more comfortable than your neighbours’. ‘It’s incredibly bad manners to have a designer handbag at our age because it’s saying you’ve spent what most Londoners earn in a month,’ one 25-year-old NP assures me.

Which brings us to another big difference: work. Previously it was infra dig to have to earn a living; now it’s considered unattractive to lounge about all day playing the guitar. The New Posh recognise the importance of work — just not office jobs. They want to be creative, doing music (Tatler favourite Jack Guinness is a party DJ; NP Lady Mary Charteris is in the band The Big Pink with her husband Robbie Furze), sculpture, jewellery design, campaign journalism, acting — a volley of talented young actors has recently emerged from Britain’s top public schools and done well in Hollywood: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne. As to whether their art is any good or anyone reads their articles, that’s not the point. Their work makes them interesting and good company, far more so than previous generations of monied layabouts.

Outwardly NPs may appear to be penniless, like the rest of their generation, but it’s more out of sympathy than actual poverty. Which is one way to spot them: they like to ‘shop poor’, going to Lidl to buy Prosecco and sauerkraut but giving themselves away at Walthamstow market, where they pay £3 for a punnet of mushrooms with genuine mud on them. Despite this, ‘real’ hipsters/artists/journalists mostly welcome them, either because they have no idea how posh these people really are, or because they are charmed and won over by their flawless manners and radiant skin — the telltale signs of a very expensive education and a childhood spent mainly outdoors. Or maybe they’re just being ironic.