No matter how genuinely interesting or original a piece of clothing, music, art or writing is, your success is capped – both monetarily and in terms of reach – unless someone further up the social food chain can profit from it. Part of the reason why this problem still prevails is that we are obsessed with acceptance; people who have been left on the outside naturally crave to be let in, and it’s difficult to trust in the power of our own ideas when they have been diminished for so long.

Now, it’s easier than ever to access alternative ideas – and it’s also far easier to get away with packaging yourself as subversive when you aren’t, as social media seemingly flattens social divides and places us all on the same platform. Where we apply trickle-up theory, we are, more often than not, actually referring to a fetishisation of youth culture, regardless of social class. [...]