‘Made in Chelsea’ and the Appeal of Britain’s Posh Young Things

In late 2010, on the verge of signing a contract to appear on a new reality TV series about fashionable young people in one of London’s wealthiest boroughs, Ollie Locke, then 23, had a moment of hesitation.

Locke — with his glossy hair falling past his shoulders, Queen’s English and predilection for wearing designer shirts open to the sternum — worried that he might be depicted as garish, affluent, out of touch with the common man. He voiced his concerns to an executive, Locke recalled in a recent interview, who reassured him by explaining that it was basically out of his control: The show could only make Locke appear that way if he already had those attributes.

When “Made in Chelsea” premiered in the spring of 2011, Locke had a starring role among a coterie of chic socialities. The show was a stylized observational documentary in the style of MTV’s “The Hills,” and a consciously upper-class counterpoint to “The Only Way Is Essex.” — “Made in Chelsea” followed Locke and his circle as they navigated the often tumultuous ups and downs of friendships and relationships, all while dining at London’s swankiest restaurants, sipping cocktails at exclusive nightclubs and cheering on polo matches.

The formula has been an enduring success. “Made in Chelsea” is one of Britain’s longest-running reality TV programs; it has had dozens of seasons over the past 13 years and has ranked among the top unscripted programs on its home channel, E4, every year since its debut, even as it has gently changed with the times.

“It’s amazing,” Locke said in a recent video interview from a resort in Barbados, “because we didn’t think it was going to work at the beginning. We thought it would be kind of a funny show that people would laugh at for six months and then move on with their lives.”