"Identifying Far-Right Fashion" with Bellingcat Researchers

About this episode

The episode discusses the role of fashion in far-right movements with insights from Bellingcat researchers.

This week, we were discussing what role fashion plays for far-right movements. We spoke to Bellingcat's resident experts on the subject. Michael Colborne has been investigating far-right networks for years and Youri van der Weide has just completed a deep dive on russian neo-nazi paramilitary groups with merchandise embedded within their business plans. The talk was hosted by Charlotte Maher on Thursday October 23rd 2025. Music featured is courtesy of Artlist. Recorded live in the Bellingcat Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/bellingcat Links discussed: Some reading material from Michael: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691196152/the-extreme-gone-mainstream?srsltid=AfmBOor44s08b3e358d6Glak2OUrwrrtBkmbtU7BfSKwRoZ3QvNqj-Wa The Extreme Gone Mainstream, Cynthia Miller-Idriss (2019) https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=stuff--9780745644233 “Why Clothing is not Superficial” in Stuff, Daniel Miller (2009) https://doppelhouse.com/the-chosen-few/ The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football-Fan Graffiti and Street Art, Mitja Velikonja (2021) https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801448904/political-aesthetics/#bookTabs=1 Political…

People in this episode

Host: Charlotte Maher

Guests: Michael Colborne, Youri van der Weide

Topics covered

• far-right movements
• fashion
• investigation
• neo-nazi groups
• merchandise
• cultural analysis

Keywords

• far-right fashion
• Bellingcat
• neo-nazi
• investigation
• cultural war
• merchandise
• fashion theory

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bellingcat, Bellingcat Discord Server

Books & works: The Extreme Gone Mainstream, Stuff, The Chosen Few: Aesthetics and Ideology in Football-Fan Graffiti and Street Art, Political Aesthetics, The New Obscurity in Style. Alt-right Faction, Populist Normalization, and the Cultural War on Fashion from the Far Right

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