As series created for her first solo exhibition 'Classics', these paintings of young men wearing leisurewear reflect on English society and its class system. This is a system that has undergone significant shifts in the last forty years beginning with the decline of the industrial working classes under Thatcherism, through the Blairite proclamation, "We are all middle-class now" (in fact spoken by former ship steward and later Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott) through to the divisions exposed by debates around Brexit. Whilst Delia Smith was teaching a generation born in the 1940s and 1950s how to improve themselves, their children born in the 1970s were embracing rave, jungle and UK garage, reading The Face and i-D, and saving up to buy clothes that would signal a rejection of their parents aspirations and their embrace of an alternative imagined community. UK garage in particular encouraged a careful consideration of self-fashioning, mixing pricey labels such as Moschino and Gucci with more easily affordable brands like Kappa and Reebok, a strategy to enable living the champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget. Garage and the clothes associated with the scene had a celebratory feel, reflecting the cheeky optimism heard in the D.J. Luck and M.C Neat's lyric "With a little bit of luck, we can make it through the night". Blakeley's portraits of young men wearing tracksuit bottoms, hoodies and trainers is a deadpan presentation of this counter-culture that enabled a break away from the middle-brow aspirations of parents.