Wear it loud, wear it proud: how marchers for Gaza are bringing ‘protest dressing’ up to date

Fashion has always been political. Now, demonstrators are putting pro-Palestinian slogans and symbols on their clothes – and not just for marches

It’s early afternoon at the latest national march for Gaza in central London. A man is wearing a sweatshirt bearing a photograph of Hind Rajab, the five-year-old girl who was killed in the Gaza conflict last year along with family members and the paramedics who tried to save her. He doesn’t want to be named. But it is, he says, his attempt “to keep her memory alive, until we get justice … Whether it takes one month, one year, 100 years, I’m not giving up. I’m not going to stop wearing this until the killers are behind bars.”

It’s a heart-rending example of a phenomenon common to all these marches over the past two years: people are here to call for an end to the war and the Israeli occupation, and many are using their clothes to bolster their message.

Marima (left), with a friend, and the Rev Poppy Hughes marching on 6 September in London. Photographs: Ethan Parker/The Guardian