‘Lonsdale youth are potential time bombs’ was one of the headlines on April 4, 2005. This concerned Gé Grubben of the National Office for Combating Racial Discimination (LBR) about the right-wing extremist and racist behavior that these young people have recently exhibited. However, two years later people think differently about this, given a press release of March 30, 2007, where research shows that Lonsdale youth rarely have a connection with the extreme right. What follows from such messages is confusion, because what are Lonsdale young people, what do these young people stand for in life, why does he or she wear Lonsdale clothing? One thing that is certain is that Lonsdale youth are linked to a specific subculture. They all have a certain taste in music, namely hardcore, and use a different way of dancing. Moreover, they are characterized by the same costume: bald heads for the men, women with shaved hair, wearing bomber jackets, army clothing and chests.
This article concerns the clothing brand Lonsdale, which was originally a clothing brand for boxers, and the way in which this brand has been incorporated into the gabber subculture, which ultimately led to the so-called Lonsdale youth in the Netherlands . It is important to first explain the theoretical concepts of clothing and subculture. The next chapter will discuss the rise of the clothing brand Lonsdale and the skinhead scene. Finally, we look at the time when the so-called gabbers were known in the Netherlands, including a second revival of the gabber subculture that was considered that of the Lonsdale.
The meaning of subculture and clothing in the context of young people
‘A contemporary image of the difficult search for the meaning of the concept ,subculture,. If we can no longer read a subculture as one story, then it is impossible to be unambiguous about it.’ (Ladda)
The youth of today is a well-known statement, but where does the term youth originally come from?
From the 15th century onwards, the idea arose that children had their own needs and their own bodies and therefore could not be compared to adults. The reason for this conceptualization of childhood was the rise of education and the belief that children needed to be educated for a long time before they could actually take on adult roles and responsibilities. Initially, only children of wealthy parents could afford this. However, with the advent of mass education, the term youth became virtually universal in which the social and psychological development of the child is central (Valentine ed, 1998).
The study of youth culture originated in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. Initially from the sociology of The Chicago School, where youth was seen as a problematic category (Bucholtz, 2002). Youth studies were therefore related to disciplines of criminology, sociology and psychology, and this was reflected in studies of deviant and criminal behavior. This changed from the mid-1970s through the CCCS, the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies. From here, the concept of subculture was applied to studies of youth. The CCCS has interpreted the concept of subculture from subcultures that emerged after the end of the Second World War. These had names such as the rockers and the teddy boys, and consisted of young people who were mainly part of the working class. In addition to their work, these young people were involved in resistance against society and they also demanded their own culture, lifestyle and living space. This fact has since always been used to describe the later youth subcultures that emerged. Subcultures are therefore defined as ‘a group of young people who jointly hold certain values and norms, use the same language and symbols and have their own lifestyle that expresses itself in the form of beliefs, music and clothing’ (Ladda).
Wearing certain clothes is therefore connected to the subculture in which young people feel at home. Clothing is one of the ways in which subcultures communicate, as the famous Italian writer Umberto Eco illustrated with his statement: I speak through my clothes. What clothing is worn or not is a conscious choice and young people do this to construct their own style. In this way, they also acquire their own identity that grants them ,relative autonomy, within a social order (Hebdige, 1979: 102).
The rise of the clothing brand Lonsdale and the skinheads
“I’m a fighter, I’m a winner,” says Lonsdale’s website. This statement is related to where the name Lonsdale originally comes from. Lonsdale owes its name to Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale (1857-1944). This man was the founder of organized boxing in Great Britain. Sportswear was also produced from here, which was also referred to as Lonsdale. This sportswear was introduced in England in 1960 and the emphasis was, of course, on boxing clothes. This meant sports pants and sweaters with hoods, on which the Lonsdale name was printed large. In those same years, the brand was particularly popular among British working-class youth. The clothing brand Lonsdale was associated with sportsmanship and perseverance due to its background in the boxing world. This was the main reason for the popularity of the clothing brand.
Initially, the brand was worn by hip young people, the so-called mods. These mods did come from a working-class background, but they did not want to disguise this. When a number of these mods developed into the first generation of skinheads around the end of the 1960s, the clothing brand was included in this new group of young people (Duursma, M., 2003). When this group emerged, which eventually came to be called the skinhead scene as a whole, these young people were mainly concerned with left-wing activities. Many skinheads were involved in demonstrations, especially against racism. However, it was the case that violence played an important role for them, and the skinheads quickly built a formidable reputation. Partly because violence was important to them, they wore Lonsdale, because this clothing brand matched their street fighter mentality. However, this mentality, this attitude, was noticed by the media, among others. The violence of the skinheads therefore received negative publicity again and again and this subculture soon collapsed.
When a new kind of music genre became popular in the 1970s, namely punk, the skinhead scene was quickly revived . This punk music was also called Oi! named. It was fast and very loud music that was characterized by its own way of dancing. There was mainly rough dancing and this fit very well with the image of the skinheads. These new skinheads were simultaneously given the well-known uniform in the same period. Namely a shaved head, army clothing and chests. Skinhead, and in particular its appearance, became attractive to some radical young people. When there was an economic crisis in Great Britain in the late 1980s, this was accompanied by structural unemployment. Many skinheads themselves were also victims of this. This situation was characterized by the expression of political messages that were mainly of a right-wing extreme nature. Once again, many fights were the order of the day and skinheads showed violence, sometimes with racist aims.
The origins of the gabber subculture, resulting in the Lonsdale youth
The young people in the Netherlands, who now wear Lonsdale clothing, are quickly labeled as skinheads. The current popularity of this clothing brand is due to a revival, but not of the skinhead scene, but of the gabbers. There are still skinheads in the Netherlands, especially the Oi! skins. Now it is true that most of them adhere to right-wing ideas and may be patriotic, but they have and do not want to have anything to do with the goons who adopt the clothing style of the skinheads.
In the early 1990s, a new youth subculture emerged in the Netherlands. This subculture was called gabber and quickly developed into the most important subculture in the Netherlands. The subculture consisted of young people who you could not miss. These gabbers had a uniform appearance, just like the skinheads. Initially, boys shaved their heads and wore Australian tracksuits and Nikes. Girls shaved their hair and braided the remaining hair into thick braids. Later, the tracksuits were, often partially, exchanged for the black bomber jackets. In other words, the young people were characterized by sweatpants with a bomber jacket on top. Gabbers stood out in terms of appearance, but also in terms of behavior. Many of them clearly showed their patriotism, which contributed to the idea that gabbers were right-wing extremists. Their appearance did not do much good for that idea, as gabbers had a Dutch flag on their bomber jackets and were bald. However, it often involved an individual who had right-wing extremist ideas and wanted to express these through clothing. What did this subculture entail? The gabbers wanted to stand out against other subcultures with their own dress code, the same taste in music, their own language and their drug use.
In the late 1990s, the gabber subculture completely collapsed, but it only took a few years for it to come back. This time in a slightly changed version. Now the clothing brand Lonsdale became extremely popular in the Dutch gabber subculture. Now it was the case that the clothing brand was already popular within the skinhead scene, some of which were right-wing extremists. Because of them, the brand acquired the same image. Many of these skinheads used the clothing brand Lonsdale as a right-wing extremist symbol. For them, the letter combination NSDA- in the brand name LONSDALE was a reference to the NSDAP, the National Socialist party of Adolf Hitler. The clothing brand, but also the young people who wear it, have therefore been given a right-wing extremist label in the Netherlands. This also gave rise to the definition of the Lonsdale youth given by the media.
Who are these Lonsdale young people? What still characterizes them is that, just like the guys from previous years , they have an age range of 15 to 25 years old and they all love hardcore music. Only a small number of these young people use right-wing extremist symbols such as swastikas in addition to their Lonsdale clothing. Those who do this do so purely to provoke and have often deliberately chosen these symbols. They also want to distinguish themselves from other young people through their appearance, for example from the hip-hoppers. The main reason they wear Lonsdale is because they like it. In addition, they think it is cool clothing. The clothing that Lonsdale youth wear therefore has more to do with age and the search for their own identity. The young people actually just want to be heard and seen. They are therefore mainly looking for themselves and they therefore identify most easily with young people who have similarities with them. Above all, a large part of the group, given its age, consists of followers and many of them do not even wear Lonsdale every moment of the day or they wear it next to completely different brands such as G-Star (Youth Affairs Unit of the DOEN agency, 2004).
It follows that the composition of the group is very varied, the only binding factor of these young people is the preference for hardcore music. The majority of Lo nsdale youth follow the new trend and copy clothing and attitude, without giving it a much deeper meaning. So what does the Lonsdale subculture actually mean? According to Johan Vermeeren, who specializes in youth cultures at the Youth Affairs Unit of the Haaglanden police, Lonsdale contains the largest and most influential subculture that now exists among native young people in the Netherlands. According to him, there are a number of young people within this group who, partly through their clothing, actually oppose foreigners. However, he believes that the majority of this subculture consists of hangers-on.
As mentioned earlier, only a small proportion of young people within the Lonsdale subculture are consistent in their expression of clothing and behavior that characterizes this group. The stereotypical image of this subculture can therefore no longer be promoted.
One thing that is certain is that Lonsdale youth should always be mentioned in brackets. There were and still are many misunderstandings about these young people. There is no such thing as a Lonsdale youth. It is a subculture characterized by young people who are looking for their own self. They want to belong to a group and by wearing Lonsdale clothing they actually belong somewhere, they are part of it. They label themselves and they are proud of it. They think Lonsdale clothing is cool, it gives them a status. However, many of these young people probably do not even realize whether or not they belong to this subculture and what it means to them.
Above all, the majority are known to wear Lonsdale because they like it. They give it no meaning . These are the ones who often wear it in combination with other brands.
The Lonsdale subculture cannot therefore be seen as something demarcated. Some young people are fully involved, others are not, but most are mainly runners. It is a volatile phase of life for many young people.