August 9, 2014 |
I don’t think you can deny the effect of the fashion sense of the Cuban guerrillas of the 1960s. The way they wore their camouflage, the beards of Castro and his men, the hair and beard and personal style of Che Guevara are still iconic. During the Vietnam protests of the 1960s we looked a bit like the Cubans with our long hair, beards and fatigues.
I have a tie-dyed Che T-shirt and a Yippee “eat the rich” tee, and these come out of the closet on days when I am particularly revolted by the system, the government, the fashion world. Although Occupy Wall Street failed to overthrow anything, it did provide some lively moments and opportunities for dreamers to imagine a different world not ruled by the 1%. And maybe it made people wonder what they should wear when the revolution does come.
I don’t have a Guy Fawkes mask, but I do have some nice hoodies, an item of apparel that proved to be the most popular streetwear during the riots in England in 2011. They proved effective in disguising identity, especially when combined with a scarf and a watch cap. Maybe my Supreme “Illegal Business Controls America” hoodie would be the thing. But, if there’s shooting, I might pick a quieter hoodie, such as my grey cashmere Michael Kors hoodie, which is covertly luxurious, while for night fighting, my black Basquiat Sugar Ray Robinson hoodie and a pair of black Y-3 high-tops. Shoes you can run in are essential to the well-dressed revolutionary.
One of the most interesting trends of the late-20th-, early-21st-century epoch is the shift to a more casual-dress-style warfare. War conducted as if it were always Friday. As in many offices, on the battlefield we are seeing more and more sportswear and active sportswear, with combatants incorporating civilian items with great style. Flipflops, Calvin Klein T-shirts, ski masks. The past decades of American clothing end up being shipped to the Third World, where vintage Calvin, Tommy Hilfiger and Polo items can be seen on men carrying AK-47s. It reminds me of the “Members Only crimewave” of the 1980s, when many felons in police custody tried to hide their faces with their Members Only jackets.
Rebel armies and private armies in Africa tend to emulate the professional look of regular troops, but their personal flair makes the irregular appear so devil-may-care. Of course, camouflage makes sense for anyone killing people outdoors, but things are changing fast. Can it be long before urbane guerrillas are sporting Nick Wooster camo blazer and tie? Today, camouflage can really make you stand out in a crowd. In February 2013 Patrik Ervell showed camouflage based on ivy, something that might be suitable if one were mounting a siege defence of Downton Abbey.
Revolutionaries and resistance fighters often mix vintage with new, designer and a global range of military surplus – US Woodland, Digital Woodland, Asian Tiger Stripe, British Desert, often mixing styles. The Austrian Erbsentarn camo looks so modern you’d think it was Dries van Noten. The very op-art German Punktmuster, a dot pattern, might enable one to blend in with a contemporary-art museum. Russian MultiCam allows one to go out of focus, which can be handy at parties or when snipers are about. Some camouflages look really artistic. You might think you were wearing trousers designed by Anselm Kiefer.
Tradition has its place in any revolt, alongside utility, and one of the great symbols of popular revolution is the bonnet rouge[itals], the red liberty cap sported by participants in the French Revolution. It was a soft, conical, brimless, felt or knitted affair, based on the Phrygian cap of antiquity, which was worn in Rome by emancipated slaves as a symbol of their freedom. Women known as Tricoteuses sat around the guillotine, knitting caps as heads rolled. Before he became President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis was a United States Secretary of War; he insisted that a Phrygian cap be deleted from a sculpture of Freedom in the US Capitol, but it was frequently seen on the head of Miss Liberty on US coins, and the bonnet rouge still proclaims freedom on various coats of arms, including those of such hotbeds of revolution as Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua and the United States Senate. The poet William Blake wore a bonnet rouge to express his sympathy for the French revolution.
The revolutionary fighters of France were called the sans-culottes, as they wore workers’ trousers rather than the knee breeches of fancy men. They wore short jackets and clogs (sabots) that came in for sabotage. While they were throwing off their shackles, the women of the revolution also threw off their corsets, panniers, petticoats and crinolines. From 1789 onwards, women became more and more concerned with mobility and the freedom of movement to swing, say, a rolling pin or frying pan.
The French revolution, which symbolically peaked when the mob forced King Louis XVI to wear a liberty cap, had fashion repercussions throughout Europe. In England, dandies such as Beau Brummell replaced silk knee breeches with trousers, eschewing the powdered wig, and traded the silk brocades, velvets and brocades of the landed class for black, grey, buff and other less-flamboyant colours. Commerce, like revolution, was a serious business.
The best revolutionary look of my youth was the Black Panther Party. Black leather jackets, berets, shades, Afros, shotguns. Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver even invented the famous “penis pants”, for men only, where the johnson was worn outside the body of the garment. These trousers were revolutionary in their own way, but I wouldn’t recommend them for running wild in the streets, and jeans should never be tight enough to inhibit running or jumping. Sweatpants are ideal riot wear but polyester should be avoided by anyone handling Molotov cocktails. Personally I’ll be at the barricades in my Supreme camo cargo shorts.
The keffiyeh, which is often mistakenly associated by Americans with Palestinians, thanks to Yasser Arafat (I think that’s why the old Jewish lady punched me in the grocery store), is worn throughout the Middle East by Arabs, Kurds and Jews alike. It was also worn by TE Lawrence and Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. I like the wire-fence pattern, but have a new one by the designers threeASFOUR that features Islamic crescents, Jewish stars and crosses. It’s a good outlaw bandana that won’t offend any ethnic faction.
By Glenn O’Brien
