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 Aesthetics, Crispin Sartwell (2010)

Elke Gaugele, “The New Obscurity in Style. Alt-right Faction, Populist Normalization, and the Cultural War on Fashion from the Far Right,” Fashion Theory, 23:6, 711-731, DOI: 10.1080/1362704X.2019.1657262, 2019.

Youri's investigation into Maskov: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/03/06/unmasking-maskov-how-bellingcat-found-a-man-outfitting-russian-neo-nazis/

A couple of weeks ago New America talked to us about mapping these Russian paramilitary networks: https://rss.com/podcasts/bellingcatstagetalk/2212437/

Youri's latest article on Rusich: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10/21/how-a-former-political-hopeful-helps-russian-neo-nazi-group-rusich-sell-its-online-merch/

Hate symbol directory: https://globalextremism.org/global-extremist-symbols-database/

Expo sweden: https://expo.se/

Tenepod a suggestion from an audience member as a decent guide for historical far right/nazi eastern European stuff: https://tenepod.libsyn.com/

Political aesthetics

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