The Fred Perry brand found itself in the unwelcome spotlight this week when one of its brand ambassadors tweeted that he would no longer wear Fred Perry clothing in the US, now that the self-described “western chauvinist” Proud Boys group have adopted the black-and-yellow striped polo shirts as their unofficial uniform. The company has repeatedly distanced itself from the Proud Boys, describing them as “counter to our beliefs and the people we work with”.

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But the problem is bigger than Fred Perry alone. There are dozens of other brands today that are either intentionally selling clothing with far-right messaging or have been co-opted by the far right because of the symbolic resonance of their logos. This isn’t entirely new: the British brand Lonsdale became popular in German far-right scenes decades ago, for example, when youth discovered that a half-zipped bomber jacket over a Lonsdale T-shirt displayed the letters “NSDA” – the first four letters of the German initials of the Nazi party.

The past few years have seen a dramatic shift in the aesthetics of far-right extremism, as the far right has all but abandoned the shaved heads and combat boots of racist skinheads in favour of a broader style that blends in with the mainstream. The new aesthetic includes T-shirts and hoodies laced with coded far-right symbols sold by for-profit brands as well as the suits, jeans and haircuts popularised by the American “alt right”.

Smartness of dress has long been a far-right smokescreen: Hugo Boss, after all, manufactured the Nazi party’s brown shirts and uniforms, using pristine tailoring to mark a stark departure from the combat fatigues and drab colours typically favoured by armies. The Nazis wanted fashion to communicate military strength and aggression. The shaved heads, bomber jackets and combat boots that postwar neo-Nazis co-opted from British working-class youth in the 1980s aimed for the same aggressive impression, creating a uniform aesthetic that would come to dominate the far-right’s youth scene for three decades.

You can’t blame observers, then, for being surprised by the pressed khakis and white polo shirts worn by dozens of young men bearing flaming torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us” as they marched in Charlottesville in 2017. But the clean-cut look wasn’t coincidental. Far-right leaders knew all too well that the public would struggle to connect hate with a style of dress that looked more like the kid next door than the neo-Nazi of their imagination. So in the days leading up to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, a prominent neo-Nazi blogger instructed marchers to dress respectably, noting that their appearance was more important than their ideas in getting people to listen.

The transformation in aesthetics and style is part of a deliberate, top-down tactic on the part of the far right to appear more mainstream in order to make the public more receptive to their ideas. This shift normalises and disrupts the public’s ideas about what extremists look like and makes it harder to interpret and recognise the far right’s ideas as extreme.

The strategy wouldn’t have worked if it weren’t so appealing to a younger generation of people open to the far right but eager to shed the stigma of the skinhead look and blend into the mainstream. Having come of age in the social media era, young people are hyper-conscious about their own appearance and personal brand. Mainstreaming the aesthetic not only helps soften the far right’s message to outsiders, but also changes the conception of outsider and insider – enabling people to slip in and out of far-right modes in ways that would have been impossible in the past.

Today’s far-right youth can be mainstream in their appearance, but extreme in their ideas

Today’s far-right youth can be mainstream in their appearance, but extreme in their ideas. This is a radical change from the racist skinhead era, when the far right’s “uniform” aesthetic made extreme ideological views more transparent to teachers, employers, parents and peers.

What should companies do when they are co-opted by groups they find abhorrent? Typical strategies for brands have included formally distancing themselves from violent or ideologically extreme groups or trying to hire celebrity influencers to reclaim the brand. Such tactics have mixed success.

Instead, companies can take a cue from Lonsdale’s approach. After Lonsdale was co-opted by German far-right youth, the company refused to deliver clothing to shops associated with the far-right scene, funded counter-far right programmes and launched a pro-tolerance campaign: “Lonsdale loves all colours”. In turn, anti-racist supporters decided they should support Lonsdale and started wearing the brand. This effectively disrupted the significance of the logo, making it impossible to identify only with the far right.

Brand ambassadors and consumers can put pressure on companies to do more than issue public statements disavowing the values and actions of extremist groups who favour their products. Using the profits they earn from those groups to fund initiatives that counter hate is one place to start.

• Cynthia Miller-Idriss is professor of education and sociology at the American University in Washington, DC, and author of The Extreme Gone Mainstream