The Olympic games will, despite everything, be rather fun. This is so even though they will be tediously excessive. The absurdly lavish opening ceremony, for instance, will doubtless be an embarrassment that could have been avoided by keeping it simple. Asking the band of the Grenadier Guards to play a few tunes would have sufficed and been pleasingly British, modest and elegant. It would have offered a nice contrast to the totalitarian excess of the Beijing games.
Alas, the indignity will not end there. Consider the outfits the poor British athletes will be forced to wear. Unveiled, if that’s the appropriate term, today they appear to be inspired by the corporate branding of one of those insurance companies given a new, made-up, non-name such as Aviva or whatnot. Stella McCartney is responsible for this nonsense and had this to say today:
McCartney said she came up with an “untraditionally British” design which features a contemporary take on the union flag.
She said: “Something that was very important to me was to try and use that very iconic image but to dismantle it and try to soften it, break it down and make it more fashionable in a sense.
Jesus wept. Being a “classic”, the Union Flag has no need for a makeover since the whole point of classic things is that they are endlessly, effortlessly contemporary. It does not need to be dismantled. Nor is it really possible for the Union Flag to inhabit any zone, even of the comfortable variety.“I think that it’s so recognisable that I was able to play around with it a little bit and take it out of its comfort zone. Dismantle it, break it up into different parts and different colour forms and then bring it all back together and bring it back into the flag.”
All this, I’m afraid, is the sort of celebrity guff we had to endure during the dreadfully naff “Cool Britannia” period. Ms McCartney may consider her design “fashionable” but all that means is it is embarrassing and forgettable. Only an idiot would think it possible to “improve” red, white and blue by making them green and blue. One is only surprised Ms McCartney did not say her design makes the Union Flag more “accessible”.
Verily, we’ve come a long way from Paris 1924 or even Moscow 1980. Then again, since these games will be marked by a grim excess of corporate branding perhaps these dreary uniforms are in keeping with the spirit of the modern games. Bah humbug and, astonishingly, Ms McCartney may be even more annoying than either of her parents.
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