For something that can mean so many different things to different people, the union jack once again appearing in public spaces cannot be ignored. It is there in the crowd shots of the Euros, referred to in the “N” of the logo for the newly launched GB Radio, on the face masks of MPs (Boris Johnson’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it rectangle detail andMatt Hancock’s in-your-face affair) and in the background at political press briefings. A recent government decree that it should be flying from all government buildings in England, Scotland and Wales means that it will be more visible than i has been in years.
In fashion terms, however, the flag’s biggest starring role recently was during Dua Lipa‘s victory performance at the Brits. The singer had an Amy Winehouse beehive hairdo and wore a Vivienne Westwood union jack suit jacket, decorated with chains and worn as a dress. Later, in her Future Nostalgia medley performance, she ripped it off to reveal a similarly patterned skirt. On the surface, it was a cleverly knowing performance: a postmodern sartorial pop-culture bomb that connected the eras of the Who to Ginger Spice. A V for victory for sure, but, in 2021, after Brexit, the increasing momentum in Scotland for independence and a legacy of far-right associations, can it really be worn with only one context and meaning?
“The context of when and how it is employed or made visible and by whom is still a source of tension,” says Liza Betts, who lectures in fashion cultures and histories at the University of the Arts London. This tension comes from its dual role: as a symbol for celebration and silencing.
After the second world war, it was used on “Victory”-themed designs, while in the “swinging 60s” it was elevated to cool status, via Twiggy’s Mary Quant dress and Pete Townshend’s jacket (referenced by Lipa).
But if those eras were a jolly-hockey-sticks celebration of the flag, the 70s era deconstructed the flag’s meaning – in part through the nascent punk scene. “It ripped up the flag both literally and metaphorically in anti-establishment gestures of anarchy and rebellion,” says Alison Goodrum, author of The National Fabric: Fashion, Britishness and Globalisation.
Yet in the same decade, the flag’s symbolism was adopted by the National Front and in the 1980s by the British National Party, a stain that was, for some, reflected in some of the values around the Brexit campaign.
“Brexit certainly politicised the flag more and tied it directly to an openly xenophobic British identity,” thinks Kehinde Andrews, professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University. “The National Front clothed themselves in the flag and the slogan ‘Keep Britain White’. There certainly were echoes in the Brexit campaign.” Andrews says the sight of the flag is “jarring” to him.
At the height of the chaotic Brexit tensions, Stormzy headlined Glastonbury wearing a vest emblazoned with a union jack logo. In this context, the Banksy-designed garment had an extraordinary, transformative effect, taking some of the symbolic power of a hoodie and repurposing the flag for the times. “It was intended to provide a disruptive commentary on inequalities in both the justice system and the arts,” says Goodrum. Indeed, the look of the union jack on the vest, faded with monochrome colour, was as far away from the bright reds and blues of the nationalistic flag as you could get. “(It) felt like more a critique of the nation, rather than (an) embracing of it,” says Andrews. “It was a complicated version of the flag, like being black in Britain always will be.”
The fracturing of “Britishness” has not just arisen because of political divergence around Brexit, it has also been because of identity narratives brought about by the drive for Scottish independence and also the pandemic, during which we have become more isolated from one another.
Lipa may have referenced the union jack dress Geri Halliwell wore at the 1997 Brit awards, but that was a very different time and mindset. Cool Britannia was a dominant ideology where Britishness was celebrated. “[Halliwell] was riding on the wave of transnational [identity],” says Betts. “British culture was being courted, but we find ourselves in a very different place right now.”
Indeed, Halliwell’s own telling of how the dress came to be speaks to the relative optimism and naivety of the 90s. “I hadn’t worked out what I was going to wear and I had this stylist bring me this tight little black dress,” she explained in the 2007 Spice Girls documentary Giving You Everything. “I was like, ‘It’s a bit boring isn’t it?’ and I said, ‘Why don’t I put a union jack flag on it?’ and she went: ‘No, that’s racist’. And I was like, ‘What? That’s stupid.’ So I put a peace sign on the back.”
For some, such as Prof Angela McRobbie of Goldsmiths, University of London and author of The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change Lipa’s Ginger Spice-referencing Brits outfit was an error. “It crudely played with the idea of contradiction – national pride but in a youthful, disrespectful or irreverent mode, where the entertainment industry perceives an appetite for post-pandemic celebration.” McRobbie calls it a “comforting fashion performance but a cultural mistake”.
The union jack as a worn garment continues to push buttons. In 2021, it highlights the questions around the concept of “patriotism”, but, as Betts asks, “What does that really mean today?”
