More Dutch stories?

It is in the interest of every brand - and the balance sheet of the company that owns it - for it to enjoy popularity. It can also be against a brand's interests - and those of the company that owns it - if that popularity is of the wrong type.

Towards the end of last year, Burberry admitted that sales in the UK had suffered because its brand had become too closely adopted by - and associated with - 'chavs': brand-conscious young people of questionable intelligence far removed from the company's intended, elite (or elitist) target market. As is increasingly evident in Germany and the Netherlands, Lonsdale is the latest brand to face such a quandary.

Lonsdale

  
While latest sales may contribute to a healthier-looking income statement at its parent, Punch, the fact that many of these are deriving from neo-Nazi and white supremacist Dutch and German youngsters constitutes a 'time bomb', Gé Grubben, spokesman for the anti-racist organisation, Landelijk Bureau ter bestrijding van Rassendiscriminatie (LBR), told the online newspaper Nu.nl this week.

The Lonsdale brand has become associated with racist sentiments as a result of it being worn with a slight modification - introducing a 'P' into the logo after the 'SDA' sequence (to form the sequence 'LONSDAPLE') has allowed extremist groups to use it to demonstrate their allegiance to the views of the NSDAP, a German quasi-political 'national-socialist workers party' whose policies and symbolism are heavily redolent of those of the Nazi party.

Although the roots of the party are in Germany, their views have spilled over into neighbouring Holland, prompting Gebben's statement. Originally an English brand associated with boxing, Lonsdale's name was brought to mind at the weekend as around 20 'Lonsdale youths' clashed with approximately 60 young men of Turkish origin in the Dutch town of Vernay. "Most of them haven't got any ideology, but they could develop one", Gé Grubben tells Nu.nl.

To read this story for yourself, in its original version, click on the link below (left) to see it on the Nu website. Alternatively - and From Europe With Love declines to direct you to any NSDAP-sympathetic site - click on the link below (right) to visit one of the few Lonsdale sites currently operating - in Japan.