Lonsdale (clothing)
Lonsdale is a clothing brand.
- For other uses, see Lonsdale (disambiguation)
History
Lonsdale receives its name from the eponymous Lord Lonsdale. Lord Lonsdale organised boxing matches in 1909 and was president of the National Sporting Club of Britain. Every boxer who became a champion and defended his title successfully three times received the Lonsdale belt. Bernard Hart, an ex-boxer, visited the Lord in the 1960s and asked for permission to use his name for a clothing brand targeted towards boxers.
Originally founded in London in 1960, Lonsdale produced boxing equipment, before branching out into sports and fashion clothing.
In 1979 Paul Weller of the band The Jam bought some Lonsdale-t-shirts and provided the brand with a good image, as a result of which also non-athletes started wearing the clothing. In the 80s and 90s Lonsdale clothing found favour particularly with Skinheads, Punks and Mods. Lonsdale articles have been worn by many famous boxers, including for example Mike Tyson, Henry Cooper, Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis.
A division of Lonsdale now produce football kits for Sunderland A.F.C., Birmingham City F.C., Brentford F.C., Swindon Town F.C., Millwall F.C. and Blackburn Rovers F.C..
The deal with Blackburn Rovers F.C. was extended at the start of the 2005/06 season so that they not only were the kit sponsor, but also the club sponsor.
The term “Lonsdale youth” has become a widely used synonym for teenagers with extreme right-wing tendencies in the Netherlands. A website, Lonsdalenews, has been set up to track racist incidents in that country. Right-wing extremists like tops bearing the Lonsdale logo, because a carefully placed bomber jacket can leave only the letters NSDA showing, one letter short of NSDAP, the acronym for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Hitler’s National Socialist Party.