Was going to say this:- A good stance…but a little late. FP was co-opted by hooligans and skins aeons ago here in Britain. They like Doc Martens stayed REALLY quiet about that.
More info: https://theoutline.com/post/1760/fred-perry-polo-skinheads?zd=1&zi=hxygbyii
Yes there was red skins, queer skins, anti-fash skins yes…but I do find it odd how FP stayed so quiet about the fascist skins. Same with bomber jackets/Schott and Dickies and DMs…yes punks and others wore them, but the companies telling the fash to fuck off would have been powerful in the 80’s-00’s but instead they took their money and stayed quiet :-/
Bah. Much as I’ve long admired Fred Perry shirts, all my polo shirts have a little crocodile on them. And I’ll be keeping it that way, to avoid being mistaken for a fucking Nazi, and also disputes over which 20th C tennis player to support.
Ugh Fred Perry shirts have been skinhead shirt of choice for a long time now. At least 25 years. Strange that they finally realized this now
A lot of things get thrown around here. While I don’t care for overpriced polo shirts, Perrys are as much a Nazi symbol as DocMartens are or New Balance - meaning they are not.
Have a look into the history of hard mods, the skinhead culture, hooliganism, the casuals culture, even Brit Pop and the complex (ever-changing) codes of (in the beginning British) youth sub cultures.
Perry, Londsale, Ben Sherman and such have been outspoken against any affliction of their brands with rasists/nazis at least since the late 90s.
One can debate wether out of anti-racist/anti-fascist motives or to further their advanced into mainstream youth culture.
I would say probably both, knowing that back in the 80s/during the 90s those brands where mainly bought by rich old folks and a not really representative amount of (more or less poor) working class lads with a very short crop.
Anyhow, although I don’t care about capitalist marketing bullshit, I’d rather have a brand speak out against such an “misuse of brand” than suing people over name similarities or whatever.
Yep but Lonsdale is only because if you wear a jacket over a Lonsdale jumper the only 3 letters you can see are NSD which is is some right wing thing, which is why the Germans come over the uk for oi gigs and then go shopping in sports direct and buy everything in site, and take stuff back home for others as its over priced back home, but so much cheaper in the uk…
And Natzi swastikas have been replaced by thors hammer ink wise…
Because the fasisct had a good fashin sense. If you tried to wear elegantly especially if a guy, you’ll ended to look like an MSI candidate. See photo.
It’s the LONSDALE part, that looks like NSDAP…
I was thinking (purely hypothetically of course), one could start a fake auction for these shirts, and then contact all the bidders and offer them the shirt as long as they paid in bitcoin. Pull the auction at the last minute and repeat with different pictures etc. Bonus points for impersonating some right wing arse, so they get the bad publicity. Finally donate the money to a worthy anti-fash cause.
Nazis have always had a habit of stealing socialist fashion, as a sort of camouflage. They know they aren’t cool, that they are disgusting slugs, so they do their best to pretend to be like the cool guys. Imitation as a predatory tactic, it’s how being a skinhead went from being a anarchist/social awareness trend (“We cut off our hair to show solidarity with the poor and oppressed!”) to being appropriated by the nazis. Same thing happened to Fred Perry, German neo-nazis shamelessly appropriating left-wing styles first as deception, then as full appropriation.
At least I don’t see scumbags wearing Consdaple any more, but that may be because the scumbags dumb enough to wear that crap in public are now in jail, or are simply afraid to show their faces in my hood.
Can’t help thinking they may just switch to black and white.
Except for the originals, who hired Hugo Boss to design their SS uniform. These modern fascists are so lazy and brand-obsessed!
In the U.S., they’ve attempted to do that with the Carhartt brand of blue-collar workwear. It didn’t really take, because a lot of left-wingers liked it, too. It must be horrible to suddenly have your brand appropriated by the far right.
https://www.topic.com/decoding-the-language-of-extremist-clothing
Because they don’t want to make fascist uniforms at all, seems to be the thing. Just a bad look.
Dyeing black and white ones with a yellow fiber reactive dye would effectively get the job done.
They’ll use RIT though because they’re morons, and we’ll start seeing weak pale yellow ones.
This could be a strategy of weaponizing consumer capitalism to bankrupt them.
What do you wear in the colder months then?
I’ve hated jeans with a passion since I was a child (restrictive and worthless pockets, unless you go something like carpenter then I’d rather just wear standard cargo pants). I mostly wear a combination of cargos or khakis when I need long pants.
I don’t think polo shirts per se are really that big of an issue. It’s the brand that plays a role:
Because it’s gone mainstream.
Might be a nice shirt but WHERE IS THE POCKET? Men’s shirts should have pockets, that’s the law.
Well now you men know how it feels… 
