The past, as we are continually reminded, is a different country. Even so, there are moments that you look back on and wonder just what thought processes were at work. A prime example of this would be in November of 1989 when someone at the BBC fashion series The Clothes Show thought that it would be a good idea to spice up a look at the latest trends in stockings by plastering swastikas over everything.
OK, let’s give all this a bit of context. The Clothes Show was a very middle-of-the-road fashion series that ran for years and at its peak, it was a big thing, even extending to running weekend expos at the NEC in Birmingham. In typical BBC style, the show managed to tread the fine line between fancy, exotic and eye-wateringly expensive designer fashion and more accessible high-street trends, allowing the viewers to vicariously appreciate haute couture while not feeling bad about shopping at Top Shop. The series was popular enough to allow it to feature little vignettes tied to other popular TV shows, with the stars of those shows popping up to do a bit of lightweight and humorous fashion modelling.
So it was that the show ended up using the stars of the sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo to show off the latest stockings. All well and good, you might think. Stockings have long had a connection with sexiness – especially when combined with suspenders, a combo regularly referred to as ‘all the gear’ by girly magazine readers of a certain age at the time. What better way to feature them without seeming exploitative than by satirising the whole idea of their erotic appeal with characters from a popular comedy series?
For those of you unfamiliar with it, ‘Allo ‘Allo was a staggeringly popular sitcom, written by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, that ran for nine series between 1982 and 1992. It had what some people might think was a dubious concept for a comedy show, being based around the French Resistance during World War 2. It was, shall we say, ‘broad’ comedy, with exaggerated performances and in its defence, the show treated everyone – the French, the Nazis and the British – as buffoons. Nazis were not exactly unknown as comedy figures at the time – everything from The Producers to Hogan’s Heroes and Dad’s Army (also written by Lloyd and Croft) would mock the Third Reich, understanding that by making something beyond the pale for comedy, you simply give it power. Humour is a great demolisher of power. We might be better off remembering that these days, where entire subjects seem off-limits even for piss-taking comedy.
The two characters featured in The Clothes Show clip were Gestapo officer Herr Flick, played by Richard Gibson, and his lover Helga Geerhart (Kim Hartman), who was known for stripping down to her lingerie to seduce him. You can see why they might have been the logical choice of characters for a piece on stockings – she was known for sexy lingerie anyway and a clip where she gets Herr Flick hot under the collar wearing fashionable stockings probably seemed very amusing. They might be Nazis, but they were comedy Nazis, so who could be upset? As it turned out, the answer was ‘quite a few people’.
For reasons unknown, the clip is absolutely awash with swastikas. I wonder if the fashion houses whose products were featured knew that this would be how their clothing would be presented? I’m guessing not. There are more swastikas than could ever be considered contextually acceptable. Helga has seven on her outfit and there is even one on the handkerchief that Herr Flick mops himself down with. This feels like more swastikas than you would see in ‘Allo ‘Allo itself – though I may be wrong – and here are being shown out of context. Viewers who found Nazi comedy distasteful could easily avoid the sitcom, but this orgy of swastikas appeared on The Clothes Show unannounced. More to the point, though, the swastikas here seem fetishised – they appear as part of the sexy lingerie’s design and one shot lovingly focuses on the symbol as part of a garter. The clip feels less ‘Allo ‘Allo and more Salon Kitty. What on earth were they thinking? Unsurprisingly, some viewers took offence.
Open Air was a BBC daytime show that was a cross between This Morning and Points of View – a show that allowed viewers to phone in with their comments on BBC TV shows and sometimes debate with producers who usually could barely disguise their contempt for the proles and the idea of having to explain themselves. As you can imagine, it attracted plenty of moaners with petty complaints (‘my favourite show started five minutes late’, ‘my copy of the Radio Times had a creased cover’, that sort of thing), while never leaving anyone satisfied at the end – most complaints were met with variations of “sorry you didn’t like it but tough shit” messages. In one episode I remember, a complaint about sport dominating schedules was somehow turned around by everyone involved in the show to moaning that there wasn’t enough sport on the BBC. You can imagine.
Anyway, as people complained about the Clothes Show swastikas, Open Air dutifully found alternative points of view (a French woman who thought that it was all a bit of fun, and if she wasn’t upset by it, what are the British moaning about?) and the usual throwaway apology from the producers. Presenter Eamonn Holmes does his best to take it all seriously – he would later go on to work for GB News, where Nazis and complaining are the order of the day, but back in 1989 he was still a popular young TV host who regularly popped up on lightweight daytime TV pap. These were the days before OFCOM was there for people to complain to and so this was the end of the matter.
The Clothes Show carried on as a BBC show until 2000, then had further runs on UK Style and Really. The Clothes Show Live event continued until 2016. As far as I am aware, they avoided any further shoots that were connected to extremist and genocidal political ideologies (thus missing the chance to tell us that Khmer Rouge is this season’s colour), but if anyone knows otherwise, let me know.
Like what we do? Support us and help us do more!
