Fred Perry pulls polo shirt in US after link to far right
CLOTHING brand Fred Perry has withdrawn one of its polo shirts from sale in North America after it became linked with a US neo-fascist organisation.
The company, founded by and named after the British three-times Wimbledon tennis champion in 1952, dropped the black and yellow tops after they were adopted by the Proud Boys.
While members insist they are not white nationalists or ‘alt-right’, Proud Boys was classified as an extremist group by the FBI in 2018 and is listed as a hate group by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Centre.
In a statement on its website, Fred Perry said it ‘does not support and is in no way affiliated with the Proud Boys.
‘It is incredibly frustrating that this group has appropriated our black/yellow twin-tipped shirt and subverted our laurel wreath to their own ends.’
Describing the Fred Perry shirt as ‘a piece of British subcultural uniform’, the firm added it was ‘proud of its lineage and what the laurel wreath has represented for over 65 years: inclusivity, diversity and independence’.
The brand, which the late tennis and table-tennis champion began with Austrian footballer Tibby Wegner, said it would not sell the shirt in the US and Canada until ‘its association with the Proud Boys has ended’.
Chairman John Flynn first outlined his disapproval in 2017 when asked about links to the group. He said Perry, who died in 1995, ‘was the son of a working-class socialist MP who became a world tennis champion at a time when tennis was an elitist sport. He started a business with a Jewish businessman from Eastern Europe. No, we don’t support the ideals or the group’.
No love lost: Fred Perry, seen playing in the 1935 Wimbledon final – one of three he won – created a brand which bosses say wants no association with the Proud Boys