Fair Play and Fascism: The Development of British Olympic Team Uniforms 1908-1948

This essay looks at how British sporting ideals were embodied and given material form in the outfitting and presentation of British Olympic teams in the opening ceremonies of the modern games held up to and including those of London in 1948. An exploration of the formative development of Olympic ceremonial attire from the late nineteenth century provides a conceptual framework for examining how such clothing functioned as a conduit through which wider ideals of British nationhood were discursively produced in the twentieth century. To what extent did a historical model of British Olympic amateurism and its embodiment in the development of British Olympic team uniforms together operate as a counter to the aggressive body culture of fascist ideology in the 1930s?