Lonsdale of London

Elfie LOVES sweatshirt or fleecy jackets that zip up, and refuses to wear anything else (um, except his zip-up jammies, I mean). So imagine my happiness when I found a cute little "zippy coat" at the thrift store for $4 with the Union Jack and patches and a cool "Lonsdale of London" brand on the front.

Elf loves it. He's so proud of it. I looked it up online to see if other people are selling these nearby, it's such a hit. That's when I came across a wikipedia entry about the brand name. Some Lonsdale clothes, if worn juuuust right, would have the German Nazi party initials showing on the sleeve, so they were really popular with the old skinhead types. Schools would ban 'em.

Lonsdale didn't specially want to be the official outfitter of the new SS, so it came out with an ad campaign with actors and sportspeople of lotsa different races and ethnicities in an effort to show that the company itself has nothing to do with any of this stuff. Result? It's still banned in schools, but now it isn't popular with the skinheads. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

We will enjoy the sweatshirt, but part of me wonders if I have to thoroughly research each product I buy to see if someone somewhere MIGHT think it's objectionable. And that feeling stinks, though I wouldn't want my children advertising Nazi values. Though it isn't fair to the Lonsdale company if they're specifically repudiating those values. Well... sometimes I am not sure what to think about anything.