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The complicated history of the Fred Perry polo shirt A symbol of all countercultures, first left and then right
October 2nd, 2020
Author
Lorenzo Salamone
https://www.nssmag.com/en/fashion/23747/fred-perry-polo-shirt
In 2020
everything is political, even clothes. Recently, for example, Fred Perry had to
withdraw a black and yellow polo shirt from the North American market because
it had become the unofficial uniform of the Proud Boys, a radical alt-right
group also mentioned by Donald Trump in his last presidential debate with Joe
Biden. The removal of polo from the market is perhaps the brand's first move to
redefine the culture surrounding its polo - a common item in itself but on
which layers of political meanings have accumulated over the years, first left
and then right.
Le origini
In the
1960s, in England, the children of immigrants from Jamaica and Barbados, who
came to Europe after World War II, introduced musical genres such as ska and
rocksteady among the young people of the English working class, and the
aesthetics that became known as that of the rude boys. Influenced by American
jazz culture, the rude boys of Jamaica dressed in tailoring suits, micro-ties
and felt hats. Don Letts, director of the documentary The Story of Skinhead
recalls those years:
«You could
see the music was bringing these different cultures together […]. Politics
wasn’t really something that we talked about. […]They went for things that were
associated with the English upper class and looked clean and sharp but were
more affordable, and Fred Perry was definitely one of those things».
The polo
shirt was a central garment in this movement originating in the working class
because on the one hand it was an economic version of the shirt - garment much
more expensive at the time - and on the other it was associated with the world
of tennis, a sport typical of the English elite. Fred Perry was an athletics
brand, its name still linked to the aristocratic imagery of Wimbledon, and his
products far more accessible than the expensive suits that mods of the time got
made at Savile Row. The white polo became therefore both the symbol of a social
aspiration through which young people of the street could appropriate the
visual language of the higher classes, and a distinctive and identitarian sign
of their generation and class of belonging. It was at this time that the Fred
Perry pole was associated with the left-wing political movements.
Meanwhile,
the political situation in the United Kingdom was beginning to become turbulent
at that time, with a climate of distrust and xenophobia that resulted, in 1968,
in a famous speech by the conservative Enoch Powell, which went down in history
as the Rivers of Blood speech. The MP drew the coals of intolerance, drawing a
gloomy picture of immigrants who came to England stealing work from white
Britons, and further tightening the already problematic attitude that part of
society at the time had towards multiculturalism.
Stadiums,
clubs and shaved heads
The
aesthetics that the children of migrants had brought to England, of that
working class that was now internally divided and full of hostility towards
multiculturalism, then flowed back to the young white and disillusioned of the
industrial cities of the north of England who found in football a valve of vent
to their problems, their isolation and anxiety about the future – issues that
emerged in the violent culture of hooligans and skinheads. Fred Perry's polo
shirt, already, acquired new cultural meanings as it laid the groundwork for
the birth of the casual hooligan aesthetic that over the decades would
incorporate brands such as Stone Island and Lionsdale.
At the end
of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s the main groups of hooligans were
formed, having already behind a tradition of clashes and violence: between '61
and '68 there was an average twenty-five violent episodes each football season.
In the early 1970s, cultural tensions were rising, choirs and racist abuse were
commonplace for footballers of Afro-Caribbean origin and, as always happens in
times of economic hardship, far-right groups were experiencing a new life. The
U.K. National Front, the main of these groups, recruited new members right at
the exit of the stadiums and, to attract young people, began to open clubs in
the various cities, where they could gather, listen to live music and dance.
The only requirement: to be a party member.
The strategy began to work and more and more
young whites from the northern English working classes joined the party.
Meanwhile, the term skinheads, born around 1968, had become increasingly
popular as the ranks of the movement swelled. Their main trait, as the name
implies, were the shaved heads while their uniform consisted of jeans or
military trousers with suspenders, Dr. Martens boots and the inevitable Fred
Perry polo shirt covered by a bomber jacket or a harrington jacket, whose
collar and tennis inspiration were the synthesis of the motto: "Dress well
and behave badly". The multicultural element of this proletarian aesthetic
disappeared both in terms of inclusivity and musical: the musical genres Oi!
were born and punk rock, a mixture of rock played in National Front pubs and
stadium choirs.
In 1979,
when Margaret Thatcher implemented her neoliberal and isolationist policies in
the United Kingdom, neo-Nazi and far-right demonstrations increased
dramatically. Amid those demonstrations, skinheads began to appear whose
outfits were becoming increasingly politicizing, associated with members of the
National Front. Skinheads hanged in the streets of Bethnal Green, harassing
Bangladeshi immigrants and citizens of Afro-Caribbean descent. It was at this
time that the skinhead aesthetic forever linked to right-wing nationalist
movements.
From UK to
USA
When Ronald
Raegan became president of the United States in 1981, his conservative policies
gave new impetus to that neo-Nazi substrate that had remained, until then, more
or less dormant in the United States. A historical and cultural juncture that
allowed the skinhead culture to spread overseas with all its various cultural
significances – including the now iconic Fred Perry pole. Young white
right-wingers, rejected by the anti-Republican values of punks, found skinhead
culture a cultural platform to express their identity. So much so that when the
Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the leading civil rights organizations,
inserted Fred Perry and Dr. Martens into their skinhead identikit in the early
1990s.
A new change
came in the 1990s and early 2000s. The youth subcultures of past decades became
a visual archive of reference that the Brit Pop generation exploited in full,
stripping it in part of its political connotations and transforming it into the
mainstream image of the English rock singer. Pete Doherty and The Libertines,
Oasis, Blur and later Amy Winehouse all appropriated the edginess of the
skinhead movement - retaining the idea of rivalry and social anger of the
working class but eliminating the nationalist element that survived within the
more underground circles that were increasingly extreme in England as well as
in America. The Fred Perry polo shirt at that time became a symbol of the
British style whose political resonance remained, due to its mainstream
commercialization, at least partly indistinct.
Today,
groups known as the alt-right, such as the Proud Boys, are not too proud to
associate directly with neo-Nazis, even if their political ideals are
completely aligned with this political ideology. Although the skinhead culture
has come to an end and the movement loses relevance, the visual and identity
imagery of Fred Perry's polo has migrated to groups like theirs, following the
ideal union trait of white supremacy.
Members of
the alt-right prefer to reconnect with the social anger of 1960s skinheads to
say they are going against the system - without obviously realizing that they
are cultivating retrograde, conservative rather than progressive values. Each
of these groups feels the need to create a sense of internal cohesion that is
developed through rituals (beating and getting beaten, swearing,
demonstrations) and through a uniform, Fred Perry's yellow and black polo
shirt. A type of unofficial cultural twinning to which the brand has given in
recent days a strong and decisive cut withdrawing from the market from the
pole. A noble move by Fred Perry that will help to give visibility to the
movement – whose members could now react by further reinforcing the cultural and
ideological imagination of which the Fred Perry pole has been forcibly
cloaked.
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Fashion …
or fascist? The long tussle over that Fred Perry logo
This article
is more than 3 years old
The polo
shirt has been sported over decades by pop stars, football fans, ska-lovers and
gay revellers, but now also by the far-right Proud Boys
Nosheen
Iqbal
Sun 4 Oct
2020 08.30 BST
When British
tennis champion Fred Perry became the first player to win a career grand slam
in 1935, he might have hoped his legacy would be defined by the stunning bit of
history he made, still just 26 years old. It’s unlikely he could have predicted
his name would be used in 2020 to uniform a far-right male militia jacked up on
violence and misogyny. And yet, Proud Boys, an organisation allegedly founded
as a joke by Gavin McInnes in the run-up the 2016 US election, has become
instantly recognisable by its allegiance to Fred Perry’s black and yellow trim
polo, forcing the brand to publicly distance itself and announce last week that
it had withdrawn sales of the shirt in the US and Canada a year ago.
McInnes, 50,
is the Scottish-Canadian co-founder of Vice Media, and lives in Brooklyn. He
believes western culture is under siege and that feminism is a cancer. His
group, much like an enraged Reddit sub-forum given vein-popping physical form,
has been described as an alt-right fight club and hate group by Southern
Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), as white supremacists by Joe Biden,and classified as
an extremist group by the FBI – even though McInnes rejects the notion that
Proud Boys are racists . It is not, by a long stretch, a good look for Fred
Perry.
“It is
incredibly frustrating that this group has appropriated our black and yellow
twin-tipped shirt and subverted our laurel wreath to their own ends,” the
company said on its website last week.
The
statement added: “We are proud of its lineage and what the laurel wreath has
represented for over 65 years: inclusivity, diversity and independence.” Fred
Perry is unequivocal that it has “absolutely nothing” to do with Proud Boys and
that “that association is something we must do our best to end”.
That
embroidered circular flick, modelled on the original Wimbledon logo, has been
adopted by many subcultures since the first polo was launched in 1952.
“It is easy
for the piece to be taken up as uniform because it is designed to look like
one. It is stern and sensible and needs a distinctive kind of look to pull it
off. That look is not a very large and very aggressive and very pink man,” said
fashion writer Tony Glenville.
In May, Fred
Perry launched a new line with a publicity shoot featuring only models of
colour. In pure Twitter bait, fury and counter-fury spewed online as some white
customers claimed they would boycott the brand for “spreading diversity
bollocks”. In a statement to Dazed and Confused magazine, Fred Perry replied:
“We believe actions speak louder than words … Our real fans know what we stand
for, and their response to this speaks volumes.”
It is not
the first time the brand has been fashionable for groups on the fringes of
society; part of the appeal of a neat, utilitarian Fred Perry polo is that it
is subversively nonconformist. There is an ironic fashion joke at play: the
aesthetic might look objectively square, but its spirit is rebellious.
Few brands
have been tussled over as hard by competing subcultures. From tennis nuts to
Jamaican rudeboys, skinheads, mods, ska-punks, indie kids and Camden popstars,
all have done the Perry polo before Proud Boys came along. The brand has been
worn by racist skinheads before McInnes’s lot and, despite its current wobble,
is certain to be worn by music fans for some time still.
Amy
Winehouse sported hers all over London and ended up collaborating with the
brand in 2011 on a collection of Perry classics with Winehouse twists (collars
turned up, sleeves capped in semi-sheer fabric). The line still sells well,
particularly in the Far East. Damon Albarn, Britpop’s poster boy for the
knitted cotton Perry pique shirt, was able to request a specific style of eight
shirts which he wore for Blur’s reunion gigs in 2009.
Musicians
have been essential to the brand’s credibility, be it the Specials and the Jam
or Arctic Monkeys and Skepta. In a project for the brand’s 60th anniversary in
2012, Don Letts made a series of films tracing the line of cultural scenes and
musical hierarchies that emerged in Britain since the teddy boys of the 1950s.
Fashion was key, but it’s intriguing to see how little the look has shifted for
Perryheads, whether they’re on scooters revving around Southend in the 60s or
dancing at the 100 Club in the 90s.
Perry was
the son of a textile factory worker born in Stockport. He first became a world
table tennis champion at 19 before going on to win three consecutive Wimbledon
titles. Despite his record-breaking success, he was treated with contempt by
the elite who ran the sport in Britain. To Andrew Groves, professor of fashion
design at Westminster University, it is this contrast between Perry’s underdog
status and unquestionable personal glamour that has helped define the brand.
“The
working-class authenticity of both Fred Perry the man and Fred Perry the brand
allows it to resonate with each new generation,” he said. “Its no-nonsense
design has enabled it to be reinterpreted by each emerging subculture in a way
that gives it additional layered, and sometimes contradictory, meanings. Fred
Perry was worn on the terraces at Chelsea but also in the gay bars on Old
Compton Street; by skinheads at NF rallies but also by Jamaican rudeboys.”
Perry was a
heartthrob: he dated Hollywood actresses, including Marlene Dietrich, and
married four times. He moved to the US and took up citizenship there before
launching his sportswear line with Australian footballer Tibby Wegner in the
late 1940s. The company was kept in the family until Perry died in 1995, when
it was bought by Japanese company Hit Union.
Groves
believes the brand has been able to transcend each decade because of the way it
has been reinterpreted by new fashion tribes. “It’s ironic therefore to see
this particular shirt adopted by the Proud Boys,” he said, “given that within
gay culture, a black polo shirt with yellow tipping on the collar usually
signifies that the wearer is into watersports.”
What Fred
Perry would think about all the symbolism at play on his bestselling shirts is
another matter.
Style wars
New Balance
In the early
00s, the athletics brand was adopted by neo-Nazi groups in Germany. The company
clawed back credibility by sponsoring anti-racist music events.
Burberry
The Burberry
check, whether real or counterfeit, became so synonymous with football
hooligans and thugs that in 2004, two Leicester pubs banned any customer from
wearing the pattern. It was a long crawl back to its contemporary reinvention
as a super luxury British brand.
Stone Island
In the
mid-1980s, the then obscure Italian sailing label became huge on the terraces
with football casuals, who matched designer clothes with lairiness. The look
went “weekend suburban dad” after some time, but the brand was given a
surprising new twist when the rapper Drake began wearing it.
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