Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille for BuzzFlash: Neo-Fascist Fashionistas Use High-Profile Brands to Recruit New Members, a Conscious Attempt to Normalize Hate
October 19, 2020
The Proud Boys adopted a polo shirt worn by Proud Boy member on left. This particular style has been discontinued in the US and Canada by the Fred Perry company because of it being co-opted by the armed militia group. (Anthony Crider)
By Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille
Fashion as an expression of one’s individuality – think Billy Porter and Paloma Elsesser -- can be powerful, political and personally liberating. Fashion as an expression of a group’s identity can be powerful and intimidating. Connections between fashion and fascism go back decades. And some high-fashion brands have benefitted from that association. Rooted in European fascism of the 1930s and 1940s, within the American right, there has been a resurgence of neo-fascist groups using high-profile brands to recruit members. Immediately after the first presidential debate and practically before each party’s spin doctors could start spinning, and the gasbags could begin dissecting, the far-right neo-fascist group, the Proud Boys, began selling t-shirts with “stand back, stand by” emblazoned on them. The slogan emanated from the debate, after moderator Chris Wallace asked Donald Trump if he would condemn white supremacists. In a convoluted response that blamed violence on left-wing groups, Trump said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”
According to CBS News, “Amazon, eBay, and other online retailers are pulling merchandise from their sites emblazoned with the words ‘stand back’ and ‘stand by’ and displaying the insignia of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group.”
In today’s Tic Toc, Instagram, social media-dominated world, hate groups are using popular brands to target new recruits; mostly boys and young men between the ages of 10-30. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Howard Graves, noted that racist groups are more and more conscious of using the appeal of popular fashion brands.
As Manjima Bhattacharjya wrote in her Firstpost column titled “Dressed to kill: The age of high fascism and fashion are inextricably and insidiously linked,” “The Italian fascist party through the 1930s and 1940s systematically employed the fashion industry as a tool to mold the cultural expressions of nation, class and gender in the ‘new Italy.’”
After the Nazi occupation of France, “Hitler used fashion as propaganda, organizing photo-shoots of stylish people in Paris alongside his soldiers, to show that people were living happily under the occupation. He recognized the importance of the fashion industry in Western Europe and considered moving the French fashion industry to Berlin.” Back home in Germany, Hitler “established the German Fashion Institute with full state support, decreeing that German women should wear only German designs made with German materials. Hitler loathed French fashion, it seems, seeing it as creating a type of liberated womanhood that did not suit the German woman and her role in society — to be ‘robust, athletic, young wives and mothers.’”
Bhattacharjya also described some fashion brands as being particularly “complicit with fascist regimes.” Although often covered over by history, Balenciaga, for example, was known for making dresses for the wives of Nazi generals. Coco Chanel allegedly made money off the Nazis during the war and received their patronage because of her German officer lover. … One of Hugo Boss’s first big contracts was to supply brown shirts to the Nazi party. Through the 1930s and ‘40s they produced and sold Nazi uniforms using the forced labor of incarcerated Jews (mostly women) from Poland and France.”
Neo-fascists Co-opting Fashion Brands
On October 8, Glossy’s Danny Parissi reported that “Groups like the Proud Boys have a long history of co-opting fashion brands and aesthetics to appeal to potential new members, and that aesthetic has been moving further toward high-fashion. (The polo sells for $90 at Bloomingdale’s.) For the brands who these groups latch onto, the association can be hard to shake.
The Proud Boys have taken to wearing the Fred Perry brand of preppy street-wear. Fred Perry, the son of a working-class socialist member of parliament, who became a Wimbledon tennis champion, founded the Fred Perry brand. The Guardian recently reported that the brand pulled a famous polo shirt design after it became a de facto Proud Boys uniform. In September 2019, “The company has halted sales of the black and yellow top [with the laurel wreath logo] in the US and Canada, after it was adopted by the neo-fascist organization the Proud Boys.”
A week before the presidential debate, the Fred Perry brand issued a statement saying: “Fred Perry does not support and is in no way affiliated with the Proud Boys. It is incredibly frustrating that this group has appropriated our Black/Yellow/Yellow twin tipped shirt and subverted our Laurel Wreath to their own ends.”
The statement pointed out that “The Fred Perry shirt is a piece of British subcultural uniform, adopted by various groups of people who recognize their own values in what it stands for. We are proud of its lineage and what the Laurel Wreath has represented for over 65 years: inclusivity, diversity and independence. The Black/Yellow/Yellow twin tipped shirt has been an important part of that uniform since its introduction in the late 70s, and has been adopted generation after generation by various subcultures, without prejudice.
“Despite its lineage, we have seen that the Black/Yellow/Yellow twin tipped shirt is taking on a new and very different meaning in North America as a result of its association with the Proud Boys. That association is something we must do our best to end. We therefore made the decision to stop selling the Black/Yellow/Yellow twin tipped shirt in the US from September 2019, and we will not sell it there or in Canada again until we’re satisfied that its association with the Proud Boys has ended.”
It would be very difficult to pursue any legal action to stop right-wing groups from co-opting fashion for branding and recruiting purposes. Julie Zerbo, a lawyer who specializes in fashion and is the founder of the popular Fashion Law blog, said “A brand owner can’t sell a shirt, generate revenue and profit, then sue for trademark infringement from legitimate consumers of their product. That’s not to say that Fred Perry’s counsel may not come up with a creative cause of action. But sometimes the threat of litigation is just a way for brands to be very clear about where they stand and what their values are.”
“The appeal [of the Perry shirts] for the Proud Boys seems to be in its laurel wreath logo—a sports reference inconveniently reminiscent of Nazi imagery—and specific color combinations,” fashion historian Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, author of Worn on This Day told Fast Company. Fast Company’s Elizabeth Segran noted that “Adolf Hitler’s ceremonial flag, for instance, featured a black swastika in the center of a yellow wreath.”
According to Fast Company, “Chrisman-Campbell says the strategy goes all the way back to the heyday of Klan leader David Duke, who frequently wore polos. ‘[This] is a conscious attempt to normalize hate,’ she says. ‘Rather than wearing white hoods or aggressive skinhead gear—think: buzzcuts, tattoos, swastikas—the modern far right strives to look as bland, inoffensive, and middle class as possible.’”
Glossy’s Parissi noted that “Dr. Martens, whose boots have been a staple in British and American fashion for decades, has long been dogged by associations with Neo-Nazi groups and skinheads, who adopted the Doc Martens boot as part of their aesthetic in the 1980s. That association has followed the brand ever since. In 2017, the brand was criticized widely for a billboard showing a black boot with red laces, a color combination that is often worn by skinhead groups, with the red laces specifically denoting that one has ‘spilled blood’ for the cause.
Fast Company’s Elizabeth Segran pointed out that “Sports brand Lonsdale … became associated with neo-Nazis who half-zipped a jacket over the logo, leaving only the letters NSDA, the acronym for the German Nazi party. But since the mid-2000s, Lonsdale has focused on diversity in its advertising and sponsored charitable campaigns supporting immigrant and LGBTQ rights. This approached worked: The brand is no longer a darling of the far right.”
“It’s tough to put a real number to how aesthetics play into recruitment,” the SPLC’s Howard Graves told Glossy. “They don’t share their membership rosters with us, obviously. But in around 2018, there was a massive internal debate among these groups, that they dubbed the ‘Optics Wars,’ about how they should present themselves. For a long time, groups like the Traditionalist Workers Party and the League of the South had this militaristic, black, tactical look that was very scary. But groups like Identity Evropa dress very cleanly and have a completely different aesthetic that’s more clean-cut and approachable.”
Some brands have issued statements refuting the use of their clothing as tools of neo-fascist recruitment. But it’s hard to keep up with the fashion statements of the alt-right, what with Hawaiian shirts, New Balance sneakers, and polo shirts, and no doubt there will be more. And, as Howard Graves comments, “The furthest reaches of it are out of the brands’ hands. If the Proud Boys want to keep saying they love Fred Perry and wearing Fred Perry, they’re going to keep doing it. They’re relentless. But I tend to think that an open refutation of groups that are co-opting your brand for fascism is the least you can do and heartening when I see it.”
One of the characteristics of the current Right in America is its decentralization. Some of these groups are very much local and homegrown, others are networked across the country, but they all still need expressions of group cohesion. Fashion can help to serve that purpose whether it’s polo shirts, tee shirts or a brand of shoe.
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