Patrick Macnee as John Steed showing Englishmen
everywhere how it should be done (sans balaclava)
I.
When I was a young child in the late 1960s, my mother always wanted me to wear a maroon-coloured balaclava on bitterly cold mornings when walking to school.
Obviously, I hated the idea and fiercely resisted her request to stand still as she attempted to pull on this face-concealing item of knitted headwear named after a town in Crimea, where poorly equipped British troops fought a famous battle in 1854.
It was, after all, only a five-minute walk to school and I lived in Essex, not Siberia. I wasn't going to freeze to death.
So, although there were occasions on which my mother succeeded in pulling the thing on, I invariably removed it as soon as I was out the house.
II.
I thought of this at the weekend when watching hundreds of black-clad anti-immigration protesters blockading roads at the Port of Dover and, the following night, kicking off against the police in Portsmouth.
Not all, but a significant number, were wearing balaclavas, and it appears that activists on both political extremes agree on at least one thing: namely, the balaclava is an essential element in the outfit of choice for today's fashion-conscious militant (be they members of Pussy Riot, Antifa, or the Patriot Platform).
III.
The British far-right, however, make a tactical error copying the uniform of the far-left.
For a movement ostensibly obsessed with defending national culture, the choice of a utilitarian, paramilitary aesthetic is a profoundly dumb move. In a bid to feel strong and appear intimidating, they merely look ugly and thuggish.
I don't necessarily wish to act as an unofficial style advisor to neo-fascists, but I would remind them that history shows that fashion can be a devastatingly effective political weapon, but only when it lends the wearer a certain fascination [1] - by which we mean a seductive charm or allure.
Some of the most successful activist movements of the twentieth century deliberately turned away from standard protest garb and instead chose to revolt into style. By adopting sharp tailoring or high-fashion outfits, these movements used immaculate dressing to command respect, disrupt societal expectations, and control their own media narratives.
IV.
By way of example, we might consider how activists involved with the American Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and '60s deliberately wore their Sunday best - smart suits, neat dresses, beautifully polished shoes, etc.
By presenting an attractive visual image, they cleverly obliged TV viewers at home and around the world to acknowledge their dignity and respectability and thus to sympathise with their cause.
At the same time, they made the baton-wielding police acting on behalf of Southern politicians and raging white counter-protestors hurling abuse and projectiles look hateful and unjustified in their use of violence.
This tactic was revived in June 2020, when - inspired by the sartorial excellence of the 1960s protestors - over a thousand sharply dressed men walked through Harlem in bespoke suits and vibrant prints for a demonstration in memory of George Floyd.
V.
An equally interesting example is provided by the sapeurs of the Congo, working-class men who transformed high fashion into an act of profound cultural resistance, using impeccable tailoring and vibrant elegance to defy colonial degradation and economic hardship [2].
Sapeurs regard dressing up as more than an excuse to mess up. For them, it's a fine art, an ascetic practice, a competitive performance, and a political statement. Their dandyism is an enduring form of anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian protest [3] and, in more recent years during violent civil conflicts, sapeurs have acted as models of calm and dignified restraint.
Their code of conduct strictly dictates not only that they should never wear more than three colours in a single outfit (so as to avoid clashing), but that a true sapeur must be a man of peace and impeccable manners. Strutting through war-torn streets, they chose to wield colour and beauty as a direct counter-narrative to the ugliness and violence around them.
VI.
If British anti-immigration groups such as Patriot Platform truly wish to affirm a distinct cultural identity, they would be better advised to learn from these sartorial models. In other words, they should abandon the thuggish anonymity of the balaclava [4] and instead adopt a classic English look.
Imagine the strategic disorientation if the blockades at Dover were manned by men styled after John Steed, for example. A battalion of dandies in impeccable tailoring, crisp bowler hats, and carrying tightly furled umbrellas would do far more to assert a traditional Englishness than any cheap face-covering.
Exchanging paramilitary ugliness for eccentric politeness and sartorial elegance would leave the Old Bill to line up against a crowd of dapper gentlemen, rather than faceless thugs, and they just might be persuaded to lower their riot shields and stand aside.
Notes
[1] I am referencing and part-paraphrasing Susan Sontag's 1975 essay 'Fascinating Fascism', which was first published in The New York Review of Books and later appeared in her collection Under the Sign of Saturn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980).
As Sontag reminds us, the SS uniform - "stylish, well-cut, with a touch (but not too much) of eccentricity" - was designed by Hugo Boss and was a look designed not only to make the wearer feel superior, but look supremely beautiful. See my post on this topic titled Fascism May Be Fascinating, But Do Not Become Enamoured of Power (20 March 2014).
[2] Sapeurs belong to a movement known as La Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes - a name that forms the acronym SAPE and thus conveniently plays on the French slang verb se saper (to dress up) and the noun sape (clothes). This sartorial subculture is centred in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo). Members are known as sapeurs.
[3] During French and Belgian colonial rule, African house servants were often given second-hand European clothes in lieu of wages. Early pioneers of La Sape took these garments and effectively weaponised them. By adopting and exaggerating the style of the white coloniser, they stripped away the latter's illusion of superiority. They proved they could look more dignified, more civilised, and far more elegant than the oppressors who claimed racial supremacy.
Following independence, DRC dictator Mobutu Sese Seko launched his Authenticité campaign, banning Western suits and ties in an effort to enforce cultural uniformity. In direct defiance of Mobutu, Congolese youth rebelled by wearing elite Western tailoring and La Sape became an explicit refusal to let a corrupt regime dictate personal identity, freedom, and expression.
[4] Having said that, I am aware why these men wear face coverings and want to protect their anonymity. We live in an age of mobile phones, CCTV, and highly sophisticated facial recognition technology allowing individuals to be photographed, identified, and tracked - not only by the police, but by political opponents.
The threat posed by doxing - the act of publicly revealing private or identifying information about someone online without their permission, usually in order to cause harm or harassment - is very real and provides justification for masking. However, I would still advise against balaclavas and paramilitary dress for the reasons outlined above.
