I was barely 13 years old when I was shipped off to boarding school in Heidelberg, a small but sophisticated university town known to Americans more for its castle ruins and romantic ambience than anything else, I believe. Among other attractions, it sports the longest car-free shopping street in Europe, where consumerism runs unchecked.

Coming from a rural village I was singularly unprepared for what awaited me at the all-(rich)-girls school: a beehive of communication via fashion items, be they certain clothes brands, certain kinds of shoes, (preferably horse bit loafers,) headscarves (the kind of silk squares worn by the Queen of England were all the rage in 1965,) hand bags and watches (the latter having a whole language of status levels of its own.)

It took a crash course to understand the code – and a code it was, opaque to anything but insiders and for them a language expressed with precision. Items signaled (economic or social) class hierarchy, family background (think signet rings) or even geography (certain things were worn by northern aristocracy, others by southern multimillionaires.) People like me could learn that language by being thrown into that environment, but might as well have embroidered outsider on every piece of my clothing for lack of the relevant outfits.

It brings a blush of shame to my cheeks even now to think how I longed to have some of these things, begging my mum for those shoes and saving up to get the imitation version, which made me an object of ridicule by the in-crowd before I could even wear them in. Longing to own equaled longing to belong. To my eternal relief that belonging never happened – I am shuddering to think what it would have meant to be a classist, or part of an exploitative class, or a potential supporter of right wing policies.

What remains is a desire to dress in ways that are all but associated with the uniform of an elite, instead expressing my individual taste, one which isn’t tied to any other “class” either.

All this came to mind when I came across the riveting essay attached below. Coded fashion statements are back – although they probably have never disappeared, I’ve just grown oblivious. I strongly recommend reading the piece, because it reveals how much the lack of historical knowledge about the language of fascism prohibits us from understanding the full force that is unleashed.

Call me a fascist: from Melania Trump to Ayelet Shaked

Clothes items can tell the world about your beliefs, as we know from MAGA hats and, as we saw during Trump’s speech at the Republican Jewish coalition last weekend, certain kippot.

Coded fashion items signal not just membership in a class, a group, or an organization, but they can serve as dog whistles.

For the far right industry in Europe sales of coded items, many of which valorize violence, also provide the funds fueling their political activism. https://newrepublic.com/article/153161/far-rights-secret-weapon-fascist-fashion.

Some of them are forbidden to wear in Germany in certain public places because they use Nazi symbols – which makes them all the more desirable to certain populations. “Using style to express and conspicuously display group identity and to make a political statement is integral to subcultures,” says Molnar, a sociologist at the New School. What’s more, she adds, because members of far-right groups are often only infrequently connected face-to-face, with much of their interaction online, “their like-mindedness and shared values can be (visibly) expressed and experienced through consumption.”

There might be no direct link between the message on someone’s T-shirt and actual extremist violence. But as a gateway to enter a supremacist universe these fashion statements should be taken seriously. (Photo below was taken day before yesterday in NYC, posted on Twitter.)

https://www.salon.com/2018/04/21/the-rise-of-fascist-fashion-clothing-helps-the-far-right-sell-their-violent-message/

And, equally importantly, we should familiarize ourselves with what the more nuanced codes mean: Mealnia Trump’s I really don’t care logo on a coat worn during a visit of incarcerated children at the US border was, after all, a fascist motto.  

It is an English version of the Italian me ne frego (tonally closer to “I don’t give a damn”)  which became a fascist call for arms since the end of WW1. Italian writer and translator Giovanni Tiso describes the history of the use of the phrase, from the time it was chanted by Italian special forces to signify that they didn’t care if they should lose their lives in battle, through Mussolini’s elevation of the slogan to “the philosophy of his regime”, signifying an acceptance of violence and, later, a detached moral autocracy. The phrase has survived as a marker of ideological nostalgia, and can be found nowadays on t-shirts and other neofascist merchandise. (Cited from the article at the top of the blog.)

There are even guides now to the different dress codes for different right wing organizations …https://www.topic.com/decoding-the-language-of-extremist-clothing

Here’s an example…..

Let’s hope Woody’s prediction bears out.

And here’s more resistance music from the world capital of fashion, France. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2WdCgAEXDA

Images today are gathered from the web.