A new era of campaigning?

A new era of political protests is brewing, fashpolitico predicts that the tightening of public finances will lead to endless marches, sit ins and niche campaigns defending spending in areas you’ve never even considered.  But how should one campaign with style?  Fashpolitico stumbled across this biking protest recently.  Now quite clearly the assembled masses were far from fashionable, but they managed to cover off many of the key elements of a stylish, well organised protest:

A uniform approach: their number was small but matching outfits adds impact.

A logo, slogan and a website all help make the campaign memorable.

Finally the truly modern touch – stealing your opponent’s poster for your own ends.  It’s now just far to easy to replicate and warp a poster to your own ends.

All of this was set off with a Rage Against the Machine soundtrack – a cunning reference to the highly successful viral campaign for the Christmas number 1.  A truly stylish modern protest, concise, well executed with endless clever references.  Only their lack of fashion sense let them down.

Plenty of protestors – not so much fashion

Fashpolitico attended ‘the wave’ protest in December 2009.  Standing in London in the freezing cold for hours may or may not help fight climate change.  But the march was certainly an opportunity to seek out fashpoliticos.  Or so I thought, in reality climate change protesting is no where near fashionable enough.  But a few gems were found…

Vote blue, go green

Vote blue, go green maybe seen as the base from which Cameron rebranded and transformed his party.  But by far the biggest contribution of this campaign is in transforming protestor fashion.  With these new pioneers, bringing fashion to environmental protests, it is possible that the cause may look more desirable to the wider population. 

Looking blue

In perhaps a first in environmental protests, this protest had a dress code, blue.  Unfortunately there weren’t nearly enough bouncers enforcing the code and so some frightful blue wigs, not to mention blue faces, made it past the style police.  Thankfully there were some who managed to work the blue paint look.  An achievement which certainly caught Fashpolitico’s eye.

Simplicity works, a blue ribbon – the most basic of accessories, and an artistic blue wave.

Why paint your whole face blue, using more of the world’s resources of blue paint than necessary (and starting to work a smurf look) when a sharp clear line is effective and adds style?

The blue line is off set by this trench beautifully.

This protestor wisely avoided the difficult blue paint look and stuck to classics when introducing blue into her outfit.  A clean trench and plenty of blue jewellery do the job just as well – and are no where as difficult to look stylish in.

Co-operative fashion

Fashpolitico has more experience on marches and environmental protests than you’d expect (well Dr Martens were fashionable once before, and are always best worn at protests).  But corporate sponsorship from anyone other than the Socialist Workers is certainly a first for her.  Thankfully the Co-operative Bank is a more attractive sponsor, raising the standard in stylish sponsorship of protests:

Even the Co-operative Party got in on the act with a stylish logo.  Could this fringe political party become a force of influence again through its quality graphic design alone?

Banners which raise the style stakes

It wasn’t just the Co-operative Bank which raised the style stakes with their well designed banners.  Protestors are also becoming more inventive when it comes to getting their message across:

A great image, but doesn’t smoking add to CO2 emissions, thus devaluing your message?

Climate Rush also relied on historical images to get their message across.