1
00:00:09,167 --> 00:00:13,319
ln 1 909, a millionaire French banker
called Albert Kahn

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00:00:13,367 --> 00:00:16,996
set out to create what he called
an archive of the planet.

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00:00:19,207 --> 00:00:21,482
The 72,000 colour photographs he collected

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00:00:21,527 --> 00:00:26,237
reveal a dazzling variety
of costumes and fashions.

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00:00:27,407 --> 00:00:32,242
All over the world, it's clear
that clothing defined national identity.

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00:00:34,047 --> 00:00:39,121
To a truly astonishing extent,
people were what they wore,

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00:00:39,167 --> 00:00:43,319
from Tunisia to Mongolia,

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00:00:43,367 --> 00:00:45,358
from Morocco...

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00:00:46,647 --> 00:00:48,080
...to lndia.

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00:00:51,727 --> 00:00:57,484
But today, a century later, Albert Kahn's
project would be more or less pointless...

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00:00:59,807 --> 00:01:01,843
...because these days
most people around the world

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00:01:01,887 --> 00:01:04,196
dress in pretty much the same way...

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00:01:05,647 --> 00:01:08,923
...the same jeans, the same T-shirts.

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00:01:08,967 --> 00:01:13,518
ln other words, the West's way.

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00:01:16,607 --> 00:01:20,486
In this series I'm identifying
the six unique factors -

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00:01:20,527 --> 00:01:22,882
I'm caIIing them the kiIIer appIications -

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00:01:22,927 --> 00:01:26,556
that ensured
that the West dominated the rest.

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00:01:26,607 --> 00:01:30,077
And I'm asking,
if we Iose our monopoIy over these things,

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00:01:30,127 --> 00:01:34,484
couId Western civiIization itseIf
be consigned to history?

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00:01:39,087 --> 00:01:44,207
The first four killer apps
were competition, science,

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00:01:44,247 --> 00:01:48,445
the property-owning democracy
and modern medicine.

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00:01:48,487 --> 00:01:51,365
Yet in the first half
of the 20th century...

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00:01:52,567 --> 00:01:56,162
...despite the dominance
these killer apps had brought it...

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00:01:57,847 --> 00:02:02,637
... Western civilization managed
to tear itself apart in two world wars.

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00:02:07,247 --> 00:02:13,083
It took the speciaI magic of the fifth
kiIIer app, the consumer society,

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00:02:13,127 --> 00:02:18,804
to turn the West from unbridIed
destruction to rampant consumption.

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00:02:46,807 --> 00:02:52,882
All around the world, fashions
are converging on a Western template.

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Just what is it about our cIothes
that peopIe can't seem to resist?

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00:02:57,847 --> 00:03:01,044
Are they dressing Iike us
because they want to be Iike us?

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00:03:01,087 --> 00:03:04,602
Because, after aII, this is
about much more than just cIothes.

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00:03:04,647 --> 00:03:08,925
It's about a whoIe popuIar cuIture
that extends through music and movies,

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00:03:08,967 --> 00:03:11,765
and that cuIture carries with it
a subtIe message.

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00:03:11,807 --> 00:03:14,560
It's about freedom,
the right to wear whatever you Iike,

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00:03:14,607 --> 00:03:16,643
even if it is
what everybody eIse is wearing.

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00:03:16,687 --> 00:03:18,086
It's about democracy,

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00:03:18,127 --> 00:03:20,322
because onIy those movies and songs

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00:03:20,367 --> 00:03:22,801
and cIothes that peopIe actuaIIy want
get made.

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00:03:22,847 --> 00:03:24,997
And, above aII, it's about capitaIism,

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00:03:25,047 --> 00:03:30,963
because, after aII, corporations have to
make money from seIIing stuff Iike this.

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00:03:31,007 --> 00:03:32,645
ln the second half of the 20th century,

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00:03:32,687 --> 00:03:37,317
the only real rival to Western
civilization would be communism.

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00:03:37,367 --> 00:03:42,122
So, which would win -
socialism or shopping?

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00:03:47,967 --> 00:03:55,476
By 1 900, the world had been economically
integrated in a way never seen before.

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00:03:55,527 --> 00:03:58,883
The different bonds
that linked it together -

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00:03:58,927 --> 00:04:01,885
railways, steamship lines and telegraphs -

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00:04:01,927 --> 00:04:05,840
were almost entirely Western invented
and Western owned.

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00:04:09,327 --> 00:04:15,641
But perhaps the most remarkable expression
of this first globalization was sartorial.

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00:04:19,567 --> 00:04:21,080
With extraordinary speed,

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00:04:21,127 --> 00:04:26,076
a mode of dressing that was distinctly
Western swept the rest of the world,

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00:04:26,127 --> 00:04:31,042
consigning traditional clothing
to the dressing-up basket of history.

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00:04:34,407 --> 00:04:39,401
This picture, taken in 1 921,
shows two royal heirs,

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00:04:39,447 --> 00:04:46,398
Crown Prince Hirohito of Japan and Edward,
Prince of Wales, the future Edward Vlll.

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00:04:46,447 --> 00:04:48,278
The thrones they stood to inherit

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00:04:48,327 --> 00:04:52,036
could scarcely have been
further apart from one another.

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00:04:52,087 --> 00:04:57,081
But here they both were in London,
dressed by the same Savile Row tailor.

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00:05:02,007 --> 00:05:05,317
This is Henry PooIe's Iedger
from the earIy 1920s,

57
00:05:05,367 --> 00:05:08,996
and you can see
the absoIuteIy huge order of cIothes

58
00:05:09,047 --> 00:05:12,084
that the Japanese pIaced
for the Crown Prince Hirohito

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00:05:12,127 --> 00:05:14,516
when he visited Europe in 1921 .

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00:05:14,567 --> 00:05:19,322
They ordered everything under the sun -
uniforms, waistcoats, fIanneI trousers.

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00:05:19,367 --> 00:05:23,326
Here's just a singIe Iine -
a fancy cashmere suit, a bIue cIoth suit

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00:05:23,367 --> 00:05:25,119
and a striped fIanneI suit.

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00:05:25,167 --> 00:05:28,637
This was a comprehensive attempt
to give a Western makeover

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00:05:28,687 --> 00:05:31,042
to a future OrientaI emperor.

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00:05:36,527 --> 00:05:39,803
And Hirohito wasn't the only
foreign dignitary queuing up

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00:05:39,847 --> 00:05:42,964
for an immaculately tailored English suit.

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00:05:43,007 --> 00:05:46,966
Preserved in the basement here
are thousands of suit patterns

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00:05:47,007 --> 00:05:52,081
for customers from all over the world
who came to get the Western look,

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00:05:52,127 --> 00:05:55,437
from the Emperor of Ethiopia
Haile Selassie...

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00:05:57,127 --> 00:05:59,163
...to Buffalo Bill.

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00:06:01,127 --> 00:06:04,437
Hirohito's desire to wear
the Iatest Western styIes

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00:06:04,487 --> 00:06:08,719
was part of a standardizing trend
that was sweeping the worId.

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00:06:11,407 --> 00:06:16,720
The Crown Prince couldn't exactly turn up
for golf at Gleneagles dressed like this.

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00:06:17,927 --> 00:06:21,636
lf you wanted to look the part
in a Western-dominated world,

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00:06:21,687 --> 00:06:23,917
then you had to dress like...

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00:06:23,967 --> 00:06:26,401
Well, like this.

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00:06:28,367 --> 00:06:32,246
British cIothes, of course, were about
much more than just economic modernity.

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00:06:32,287 --> 00:06:37,236
Nowhere were the subtIe gradations of
the cIass system more cIearIy articuIated

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00:06:37,287 --> 00:06:39,562
than in carefuIIy taiIored cIoth.

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00:06:39,607 --> 00:06:42,883
As these wonderfuI iIIustrations
from the 1920s show,

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this was a time when you reaIIy
couId judge a chap's status

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00:06:45,727 --> 00:06:47,479
by the cut of his suit.

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00:06:52,327 --> 00:06:55,956
Unfortunately for Hirohito,
and for the Japanese in general,

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00:06:56,007 --> 00:07:01,843
it was also a time when it was no less
natural to judge a person's worth

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00:07:01,887 --> 00:07:03,718
by the colour of his skin.

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00:07:13,367 --> 00:07:17,758
WhiIe Hirohito headed back to Japan
with his bespoke Western suits,

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00:07:17,807 --> 00:07:22,005
the future King Edward VIII
set off for a fancy-dress baII

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00:07:22,047 --> 00:07:24,800
with his chum ''Fruity'' MetcaIfe.

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00:07:26,887 --> 00:07:29,959
They were both dressed
as Japanese cooIies.

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00:07:30,007 --> 00:07:31,406
As far as they were concerned,

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00:07:31,447 --> 00:07:36,316
that was just about as absurd as Japanese
dressing up in Western cIothes.

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00:07:36,367 --> 00:07:41,441
Indeed, Edward wrote to his mistress
that Hirohito was a ''prize monkey''

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and that the Japanese
were prone to ''breed Iike rabbits''.

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00:07:44,687 --> 00:07:46,325
Oh, dear.

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00:07:46,367 --> 00:07:48,358
(SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY DRUMMING)

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00:07:50,767 --> 00:07:52,758
Since the time of the Meiji Emperor,

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the Japanese had been striving
to leave behind their traditional culture

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00:07:57,207 --> 00:08:01,598
so they would no longer be treated
like second-class citizens.

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00:08:01,647 --> 00:08:05,242
But donning Western clothes
just wasn't enough.

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To be treated as an equaI, it seemed,

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Japan wouId have to acquire the uItimate
Western power-dressing accessory -

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00:08:13,127 --> 00:08:14,321
an empire.

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00:08:17,247 --> 00:08:22,116
ln 1 904, Japan launched a surprise attack
on the Russian fleet

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00:08:22,167 --> 00:08:25,000
at Port Arthur in Manchuria.

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00:08:27,447 --> 00:08:32,885
Four decades later, its imperial ambitions
culminated with another surprise attack -

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00:08:32,927 --> 00:08:35,805
on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor.

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00:08:44,607 --> 00:08:51,399
The outcome was defeat, humiliation
and occupation by the American victors.

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00:08:53,927 --> 00:08:56,282
But the occupying forces in post-war Japan

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00:08:56,327 --> 00:08:59,717
weren't interested in the traditionaI
taiIoring of SaviIe Row.

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What they wanted was
a more democratic styIe of dress,

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00:09:03,647 --> 00:09:06,115
the kind of gear a guy couId work in.

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00:09:09,367 --> 00:09:14,646
By the end of World War ll, the look
of the West was no longer European.

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00:09:14,687 --> 00:09:20,205
ln this photo, Emperor Hirohito is still
dressed pretty much as he was in 1 921.

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00:09:20,247 --> 00:09:24,479
But he's no longer standing next
to a member of the British Royal Family.

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He's standing next to the victorious
American General Douglas MacArthur,

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who's in standard duty uniform.

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No tie, no formality.

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Now peopIe who aspired to dress and Iive
as Westerners no Ionger Iooked to Britain.

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They Iooked to America
and a new re-cIothing of the worId.

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After the Second World War,

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the image of Western civilization
was made in America, not in Europe.

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The American ideal of ''smart casual'' -

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unfussy, convenient
and comfortable off-the-peg clothes,

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00:10:23,567 --> 00:10:25,478
ready-made for everyone -

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00:10:25,527 --> 00:10:28,246
goes right back to the
American War of lndependence.

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00:10:31,367 --> 00:10:33,562
Before the American RevoIution,

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00:10:33,607 --> 00:10:36,041
Iuxury cIoth and cIothes
were imported from Britain,

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but during the RevoIution

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Americans were discouraged
from emuIating British fashion.

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The new United States wouId weave
its own cIoth, make its own cIothes,

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00:10:45,287 --> 00:10:47,403
design its own fashions.

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00:10:47,447 --> 00:10:50,086
SheItered behind
a protectionist tariff waII,

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00:10:50,127 --> 00:10:51,765
the American textiIe industry

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00:10:51,807 --> 00:10:56,517
wouId become one of the foundations
of an extraordinary economic miracIe.

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00:11:02,967 --> 00:11:05,003
To an extent that's often overlooked,

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00:11:05,047 --> 00:11:10,121
the United States was a country
built on cotton and cloth.

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00:11:18,727 --> 00:11:21,321
Southern cotton fieIds
provided the raw materiaI.

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00:11:21,367 --> 00:11:22,766
African-Americans,

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00:11:22,807 --> 00:11:25,799
Iike the ones who toiIed here
on this pIantation near CharIeston,

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00:11:25,847 --> 00:11:27,246
provided the Iabour,

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00:11:27,287 --> 00:11:30,006
and Northern textiIe miIIs did the rest.

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00:11:30,047 --> 00:11:34,279
For a time, cotton was king
of the US economy.

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00:11:39,607 --> 00:11:44,681
Pretty soon, every major American city
had its own garment district.

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00:11:44,727 --> 00:11:48,720
Then US manufacturers
made the crucial discovery

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00:11:48,767 --> 00:11:50,678
that the range of human proportions

146
00:11:50,727 --> 00:11:53,195
is rather smaller
than you might have thought.

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00:11:53,247 --> 00:11:54,726
lf you could standardize sizes,

148
00:11:54,767 --> 00:11:59,636
then you could make clothes cheaply,
on an industrial scale.

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00:12:01,487 --> 00:12:05,526
The idea swept America,
and it didn't just apply to clothing.

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00:12:06,687 --> 00:12:10,919
You could have a standard house,
and a standard car, as well.

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00:12:14,127 --> 00:12:16,721
The whoIe idea
of the American consumer society

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00:12:16,767 --> 00:12:19,679
was that everybody
shouId have a piece of this action.

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00:12:19,727 --> 00:12:22,878
Everybody shouId have a car,
everybody shouId have a garage,

154
00:12:22,927 --> 00:12:25,999
everybody shouId have
consumer durabIes, a big fridge,

155
00:12:26,047 --> 00:12:28,515
everybody shouId have a Iawn
that they couId mow on Sunday

156
00:12:28,567 --> 00:12:32,958
and, of course, everybody shouId have
a desirabIe suburban residence.

157
00:12:37,967 --> 00:12:40,242
That mass consumerism
and standardization

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00:12:40,487 --> 00:12:43,524
could somehow be reconciled
with rampant individualism

159
00:12:43,567 --> 00:12:47,526
was one of the smartest tricks
ever pulled by Western civilization.

160
00:12:49,047 --> 00:12:54,405
And the key to understanding how it was
done lies in that very word - Western.

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00:12:55,807 --> 00:12:58,605
(CATTLE MOO)

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00:13:02,407 --> 00:13:05,160
Because it was here in the Wild West

163
00:13:05,207 --> 00:13:10,122
that the ultimate
universal Western garment was born -

164
00:13:10,167 --> 00:13:11,805
jeans.

165
00:13:21,607 --> 00:13:24,405
They started life as the
no-nonsense clothing of cowboys

166
00:13:24,447 --> 00:13:28,486
riding hard through big country,
and gold-digging miners.

167
00:13:28,527 --> 00:13:32,202
For Americans
they symbolize a frontier lifestyle

168
00:13:32,247 --> 00:13:35,159
of raw freedom and boundless opportunity.

169
00:13:35,207 --> 00:13:37,641
(INDISTINCT)

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00:13:41,807 --> 00:13:46,517
But how did these denim waist overalls,
as they were originally called,

171
00:13:46,567 --> 00:13:49,718
come to be so globally popular?

172
00:13:51,607 --> 00:13:54,519
BIue jeans are cheap to make,
comfortabIe to wear,

173
00:13:54,567 --> 00:13:58,037
easy to cIean and very hard-wearing.

174
00:13:58,087 --> 00:14:00,806
What's more,
virtuaIIy anyone can get into them.

175
00:14:00,847 --> 00:14:05,523
But then so are workmen's overaIIs of
the sort that we used to wear in Britain,

176
00:14:05,567 --> 00:14:08,286
not to mention farmers' dungarees.

177
00:14:08,327 --> 00:14:12,161
Why was it American cowboys'
work trousers

178
00:14:12,207 --> 00:14:14,038
that came to dominate
the worId of fashion?

179
00:14:14,087 --> 00:14:18,239
WeII, the answer Iies in two of the 20th
century's fastest-growing industries -

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00:14:18,287 --> 00:14:20,517
movies and marketing.

181
00:14:25,367 --> 00:14:27,927
ln trailers for movies like Giant,

182
00:14:27,967 --> 00:14:32,961
screen icon James Dean advertised
Western civilization's new look.

183
00:14:36,887 --> 00:14:42,439
Since anyone could afford a pair of jeans,
you too could be Jimmy Dean.

184
00:14:56,847 --> 00:14:59,361
And thanks to good marketing,

185
00:14:59,407 --> 00:15:03,878
these all-American clothes appealed
just as strongly to non-Americans.

186
00:15:03,927 --> 00:15:07,920
Even those on the other side
of the lron Curtain -

187
00:15:07,967 --> 00:15:11,004
or rather, the denim curtain.

188
00:15:15,127 --> 00:15:18,915
Teenagers in the Soviet Union
and its satellites in Eastern Europe

189
00:15:18,967 --> 00:15:22,084
were crying out for jeans.

190
00:15:22,127 --> 00:15:23,879
The really puzzling thing

191
00:15:23,927 --> 00:15:26,805
is that the United States'
principal rival in the Cold War

192
00:15:26,847 --> 00:15:31,716
couldn't replicate these
supremely simple items of apparel.

193
00:15:31,767 --> 00:15:36,397
Just why was it that Russians
couldn't make jeans?

194
00:15:37,567 --> 00:15:39,239
You might have thought

195
00:15:39,287 --> 00:15:43,200
that the transformation of jeans
from work cIothes into fashion items

196
00:15:43,247 --> 00:15:44,726
wouId have heIped the Soviets.

197
00:15:44,767 --> 00:15:49,204
After aII, the Soviet Union was
supposed to be the proIetarian paradise,

198
00:15:49,247 --> 00:15:53,445
and jeans are rather easier to make
than, say, a three-piece suit.

199
00:16:00,767 --> 00:16:04,396
Yet it turned out
that, in the fashion stakes,

200
00:16:04,447 --> 00:16:09,316
the Soviet Union wasn't so much the
Eastern enemy as the West's ugly sister.

201
00:16:15,087 --> 00:16:16,759
Ugly and dumb.

202
00:16:16,807 --> 00:16:19,037
Because somehow the Communist bloc

203
00:16:19,087 --> 00:16:22,159
failed to grasp the appeal
of an item of clothing

204
00:16:22,207 --> 00:16:24,675
that could equally well
have been made to symbolise

205
00:16:24,727 --> 00:16:28,276
the virtues of the hard-working
Soviet proletarian.

206
00:16:38,687 --> 00:16:44,080
lnstead blue jeans, and the pop music
with which they were inextricably linked,

207
00:16:44,127 --> 00:16:48,598
became the quintessential
symbols of capitalist superiority

208
00:16:48,647 --> 00:16:50,558
and Western freedom.

209
00:16:51,927 --> 00:16:53,804
Forget nuclear warheads.

210
00:16:53,847 --> 00:16:56,600
Jeans were the ultimate Cold War weapon

211
00:16:56,647 --> 00:17:00,037
because they actually got launched
against the Soviets.

212
00:17:04,407 --> 00:17:06,796
(SIRENS)

213
00:17:12,487 --> 00:17:16,400
lf you were a student living behind
the lron Curtain in the 1 960s,

214
00:17:16,447 --> 00:17:20,326
you wanted to dress
like all the young dudes in the West.

215
00:17:21,327 --> 00:17:24,637
You really didn't want to dress
as a Young Pioneer.

216
00:17:25,847 --> 00:17:27,246
(IN GERMAN)

217
00:17:27,287 --> 00:17:30,245
Stefan WoIIe was an East German student
at the time.

218
00:17:30,287 --> 00:17:32,721
(TRANSLATION)

219
00:17:54,767 --> 00:17:58,760
Throughout the Eastern bloc,
black marketeers sprang up

220
00:17:58,807 --> 00:18:05,076
who would exchange jeans with visiting
Westerners for fur hats and caviar.

221
00:18:12,887 --> 00:18:15,117
The communist authorities
were only too aware

222
00:18:15,167 --> 00:18:19,206
of the threat that the jeans genie
posed to their system.

223
00:18:21,487 --> 00:18:23,682
But what could they do?

224
00:18:28,287 --> 00:18:33,281
This rather hideous buiIding used to house
the worId's most boring media outIet,

225
00:18:33,327 --> 00:18:37,843
Neues Deutschland,
the officiaI East German party newspaper.

226
00:18:37,887 --> 00:18:40,447
Now, the onIy interesting thing
about Neues Deutschland

227
00:18:40,487 --> 00:18:42,921
was the way
that it used to represent the West,

228
00:18:42,967 --> 00:18:47,995
which was as a den of iniquity,
of unempIoyment, of crime,

229
00:18:48,047 --> 00:18:49,799
and of course of grinding poverty,

230
00:18:49,847 --> 00:18:51,246
aII direct consequences

231
00:18:51,287 --> 00:18:53,881
of the internaI contradictions
of capitaIism, you understand.

232
00:18:53,927 --> 00:18:55,326
The troubIe was

233
00:18:55,367 --> 00:18:59,280
that every time they ran a picture
of the oppressed proIetariat of the West,

234
00:18:59,327 --> 00:19:01,124
they were aII wearing jeans.

235
00:19:01,167 --> 00:19:03,681
Now, Western civiIization
couIdn't be aII bad

236
00:19:03,727 --> 00:19:06,321
if even the proIes got to wear Levi's.

237
00:19:12,927 --> 00:19:15,919
Such was the desirability
of this simple article of clothing

238
00:19:15,967 --> 00:19:20,757
that Soviet law enforcement officials
coined the phrase 'jeans crimes'',

239
00:19:20,807 --> 00:19:24,277
which referred to ''law violations

240
00:19:24,327 --> 00:19:30,323
''prompted by a desire to use any means
to obtain articles made of denim''.

241
00:19:33,367 --> 00:19:37,076
lt was as if the heirs of Lenin
were more scared of Wrangler's

242
00:19:37,127 --> 00:19:39,561
than of the US Air Force.

243
00:19:43,127 --> 00:19:47,279
The French Ieftist phiIosopher
and comrade-in-arms of Che Guevara,

244
00:19:47,327 --> 00:19:49,124
JuIes Regis Debray,

245
00:19:49,167 --> 00:19:53,206
once said, ''There's more power
in rock music and bIue jeans

246
00:19:53,247 --> 00:19:55,442
''than the entire Red Army.''

247
00:19:56,807 --> 00:19:58,206
WeII, he was right in the end.

248
00:19:58,247 --> 00:20:01,683
A Iater generation
wouId overthrow the Soviet system

249
00:20:01,727 --> 00:20:05,117
with a veIvet revoIution
and a rock'n'roII soundtrack.

250
00:20:05,167 --> 00:20:06,566
But 20 years earIier,

251
00:20:06,607 --> 00:20:11,681
young peopIe on both sides of the Iron
Curtain were aIready thirsting for change.

252
00:20:11,727 --> 00:20:18,405
The year was 1968, and it was time
to unzip the denim revoIution.

253
00:20:33,407 --> 00:20:38,686
1968 was a year of revoIutions
in many ways and in many pIaces,

254
00:20:38,727 --> 00:20:43,403
from Paris to Prague, from BerIin
to BerkeIey, and even in Beijing.

255
00:20:43,447 --> 00:20:45,836
But the common factor
in aII these disruptions

256
00:20:45,887 --> 00:20:48,685
to the CoId War duopoIy of power
was youth.

257
00:20:53,567 --> 00:20:56,684
As the post-war baby-boomers
became teenagers,

258
00:20:56,727 --> 00:21:01,562
they yearned to challenge their fathers'
stiflingly standardized order.

259
00:21:02,847 --> 00:21:06,078
WOMAN: A Iot of peopIe want revoIution.
They want a change of the system.

260
00:21:06,127 --> 00:21:08,766
The onIy way they think they can do it
is by revoIution, and that's a fact.

261
00:21:08,807 --> 00:21:11,196
It is the onIy way they can do it.

262
00:21:11,247 --> 00:21:13,886
(CHANTING)

263
00:21:13,927 --> 00:21:16,487
But this was a very strange
kind of revolution,

264
00:21:16,527 --> 00:21:20,281
in which style - boy,
did the young Parisians have thatl -

265
00:21:20,327 --> 00:21:24,366
counted for a lot more than substance.

266
00:21:30,367 --> 00:21:33,404
On 22nd March 1 968,

267
00:21:33,447 --> 00:21:38,396
French students occupied the university
administration building in Nanterre,

268
00:21:38,447 --> 00:21:40,756
''mad Nanterre'' as it became known.

269
00:21:40,807 --> 00:21:43,162
(SHOUTING)

270
00:21:51,767 --> 00:21:55,601
By May, tens of thousands of students
were clashing with police

271
00:21:55,647 --> 00:21:59,117
on the streets of Paris.
Strikes swept the country.

272
00:22:05,247 --> 00:22:06,760
So, what was it aII about?

273
00:22:06,807 --> 00:22:08,559
WeII, if you'd asked the student Ieaders,

274
00:22:08,607 --> 00:22:10,996
they wouId have said
it was about red revoIution,

275
00:22:11,047 --> 00:22:13,481
insurrection in the centres of capitaIism.

276
00:22:13,527 --> 00:22:15,563
''Humanity won't be happy,'' they said,

277
00:22:15,607 --> 00:22:20,635
''untiI the Iast capitaIist is hung
with the entraiIs of the Iast bureaucrat.''

278
00:22:20,687 --> 00:22:25,636
The Situationists went even further. They
wanted the aboIition of Iabour itseIf.

279
00:22:25,687 --> 00:22:28,804
''Ne travaiIIez jamais'' - never work.

280
00:22:28,847 --> 00:22:32,203
That's the sort of thing you'd have seen
sprayed on the waIIs here at Nanterre.

281
00:22:32,247 --> 00:22:35,603
But there was one demand
that trumped aII the others,

282
00:22:35,647 --> 00:22:40,118
and that was for unIimited maIe access
to the femaIe dormitories,

283
00:22:40,167 --> 00:22:46,037
hence the revoIutionary sIogan,
''Unbutton your mind as often as your fIy.''

284
00:22:52,527 --> 00:22:54,802
As one graffiti artist put it,

285
00:22:54,847 --> 00:23:00,160
''The more l want to make love,
the more l want to make revolution.

286
00:23:00,207 --> 00:23:03,802
''The more l want to make revolution,
the more l want to make love''.

287
00:23:07,087 --> 00:23:12,286
Women were encouraged to experiment
with hitherto taboo degrees of exposure.

288
00:23:13,647 --> 00:23:18,960
This was as much a sexual and style
revolution as a social revolution.

289
00:23:21,607 --> 00:23:23,723
The irony is that the '68-ers,

290
00:23:23,767 --> 00:23:27,442
who routineIy denounced
American imperiaIism in Vietnam,

291
00:23:27,487 --> 00:23:32,402
and symboIicaIIy smashed the windows
of the American Express offices in Paris,

292
00:23:32,447 --> 00:23:36,360
were themseIves chronicaIIy addicted
to American popuIar cuIture.

293
00:23:36,407 --> 00:23:38,602
BIue jeans and rock'n'roII

294
00:23:38,647 --> 00:23:42,845
suppIied the costumes and the soundtrack
of the so-caIIed revoIution.

295
00:23:42,887 --> 00:23:47,881
But these were among the most successfuI
products of Iate 20th century capitaIism.

296
00:23:55,607 --> 00:23:59,441
The French Situationists might heap scorn
on the consumer society,

297
00:23:59,487 --> 00:24:04,197
with its cuIture of crass materiaIism
dressed up in spectacuIar advertising,

298
00:24:04,247 --> 00:24:07,876
but those who rioted
against capitaIism here in Paris

299
00:24:07,927 --> 00:24:09,997
were wiIdIy underestimating the benefits

300
00:24:10,047 --> 00:24:13,676
they themseIves reaped
from economic and poIiticaI freedom.

301
00:24:18,607 --> 00:24:22,441
Give or take the occasional baton charge
by policemen

302
00:24:22,487 --> 00:24:26,924
who despised privileged middle-class kids
with long hair and flares,

303
00:24:26,967 --> 00:24:28,605
the authorities in the Western world

304
00:24:28,647 --> 00:24:33,163
generally allowed the students
the freedom to protest.

305
00:24:33,207 --> 00:24:38,725
This ability to absorb dissent
gave the West another crucial advantage.

306
00:24:38,767 --> 00:24:43,966
Behind the lron Curtain, however,
it was a very different story.

307
00:24:56,887 --> 00:25:00,596
The year 1 968
saw worldwide student revolution.

308
00:25:00,647 --> 00:25:02,683
Dressed in their jeans,

309
00:25:02,727 --> 00:25:07,960
the baby-boomers challenged the authority
of their parents and their rulers.

310
00:25:11,127 --> 00:25:15,962
ln France, students proclaimed themselves
Marxists and anti-imperialists,

311
00:25:16,007 --> 00:25:17,838
even if they did buy their jeans

312
00:25:17,887 --> 00:25:21,926
from the best capitalist retailers
America could produce.

313
00:25:26,607 --> 00:25:30,680
The contrast when you crossed over
to the other side of the lron Curtain

314
00:25:30,727 --> 00:25:33,366
couldn't have been greater.

315
00:25:35,767 --> 00:25:38,565
lt was like going
through the looking glass.

316
00:25:38,607 --> 00:25:42,441
For here the same things,
even the same clothes,

317
00:25:42,487 --> 00:25:45,877
could have diametrically
opposite meanings.

318
00:25:48,847 --> 00:25:55,685
So, in 1967, Levi's organised trade fairs
in Moscow, Warsaw and here in Prague.

319
00:25:55,727 --> 00:25:59,845
The Czechs caIIed jeans ''Texasky'',
Texan trousers.

320
00:25:59,887 --> 00:26:01,286
Born in the WiId West,

321
00:26:01,327 --> 00:26:06,765
these pants were gaIIoping eastwards
to turn comrades into cowboys.

322
00:26:12,487 --> 00:26:14,478
The demand for Levi's soared.

323
00:26:15,967 --> 00:26:20,245
Meanwhile, in clubs and bars
throughout the capital,

324
00:26:20,287 --> 00:26:23,643
Czech bands tried to imitate
the new musical trends from the West.

325
00:26:27,167 --> 00:26:29,158
(IN CZECH)

326
00:26:31,407 --> 00:26:36,765
The most popular Prague band of the '60s
were Olympic, the Czech Beatles.

327
00:26:36,807 --> 00:26:42,200
Lead singer Petr Janda recognised
the political impact of popular culture.

328
00:26:44,767 --> 00:26:46,962
(TRANSLATION)

329
00:27:18,087 --> 00:27:19,486
As in Paris,

330
00:27:19,527 --> 00:27:24,123
universities became flash points
for a clash of the generations.

331
00:27:29,167 --> 00:27:31,078
ln April 1 968,

332
00:27:31,127 --> 00:27:35,996
President Alexander Dubcek launched
his action programme of liberalization.

333
00:27:38,687 --> 00:27:40,086
Significantly,

334
00:27:40,127 --> 00:27:45,406
his economic policy shifted the emphasis
from heavy industry to consumer goods.

335
00:27:48,967 --> 00:27:53,836
But the Soviet leadership in Moscow
saw the so-called Prague Spring

336
00:27:53,887 --> 00:27:56,447
as an unacceptable threat.

337
00:27:58,127 --> 00:28:00,800
When talks failed to resolve the crisis,

338
00:28:00,847 --> 00:28:04,726
the Soviets sent 200,000
Warsaw Pact troops to the border.

339
00:28:09,287 --> 00:28:15,476
ln the small hours of 21 st August 1 968,
tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

340
00:28:22,167 --> 00:28:26,479
By the time dawn broke,
the whole country had been occupied.

341
00:28:30,887 --> 00:28:35,483
This buiIding used to house the CentraI
Committee of the Czech Communist Party.

342
00:28:35,527 --> 00:28:42,922
At four in the morning on August 21st
1968, it was surrounded by Soviet tanks.

343
00:28:49,327 --> 00:28:51,318
(SHOUTING)

344
00:28:51,367 --> 00:28:54,803
Threatened by an angry crowd,
the tanks opened fire,

345
00:28:54,847 --> 00:28:57,361
kiIIing at Ieast one young man.

346
00:28:59,447 --> 00:29:02,484
And aII of this was watched
by Dubcek and his coIIeagues

347
00:29:02,527 --> 00:29:04,165
from up here on this baIcony.

348
00:29:04,207 --> 00:29:07,199
They were watching the death of a dream.

349
00:29:17,447 --> 00:29:21,645
At around 9am,
troops stormed the building.

350
00:29:21,687 --> 00:29:25,202
Dubcek was flown to the Soviet Union.

351
00:29:31,047 --> 00:29:35,165
A focal point of resistance
was Wenceslas Square,

352
00:29:35,207 --> 00:29:39,564
where Czechs gathered daily around
the equestrian statue of Wenceslas,

353
00:29:39,607 --> 00:29:42,121
the saintly Duke of Bohemia.

354
00:29:46,247 --> 00:29:48,442
Here on 1 9th January,

355
00:29:48,487 --> 00:29:51,957
a Czech student named Jan Palach
doused himself in kerosene

356
00:29:52,007 --> 00:29:54,077
and set himself alight.

357
00:29:55,087 --> 00:29:57,396
Three days later, he was dead.

358
00:29:59,047 --> 00:30:03,404
In the West, students induIged themseIves
with Marxist rhetoric,

359
00:30:03,447 --> 00:30:06,359
but what they were reaIIy after
was free Iove.

360
00:30:06,407 --> 00:30:09,638
On the other side of the Iron Curtain,
the stakes were higher.

361
00:30:09,687 --> 00:30:12,804
Here what was at issue was freedom itseIf.

362
00:30:12,847 --> 00:30:14,758
And the biggest threat to that freedom

363
00:30:14,807 --> 00:30:19,039
was posed by the custodians
of Marxism in Moscow.

364
00:30:25,487 --> 00:30:27,478
After 1 968,

365
00:30:27,527 --> 00:30:30,963
the Czech communist regime
required all professional rock musicians

366
00:30:31,007 --> 00:30:34,238
to sit a written exam in Marxism-Leninism.

367
00:30:34,287 --> 00:30:36,278
(BAND PLAYS)

368
00:30:40,807 --> 00:30:44,197
The avant-garde Plastic People
Of The Universe hit back

369
00:30:44,247 --> 00:30:46,681
with songs like 100 Points,

370
00:30:46,727 --> 00:30:52,518
which very pointedly asked why the party
was so scared of freedom and democracy.

371
00:30:52,567 --> 00:30:57,925
In 1976, aII of the members of The PIastic
PeopIe Of The Universe were arrested.

372
00:30:57,967 --> 00:30:59,764
Two were put on triaI,

373
00:30:59,807 --> 00:31:06,076
charged with ''extreme vuIgarity,
antisociaIism, nihiIism and decadence.''

374
00:31:06,127 --> 00:31:09,642
They were sentenced
to 18 and 8 months in jaiI.

375
00:31:13,247 --> 00:31:18,844
Never in its history has pop music been
more poIiticaI than it was here in Prague.

376
00:31:20,207 --> 00:31:24,359
So, just what were
the Soviet authorities so afraid of?

377
00:31:24,407 --> 00:31:30,562
Why not just let Prague's students have
all the jeans and rock'n'roll they liked?

378
00:31:30,607 --> 00:31:31,926
The answer is of course

379
00:31:32,167 --> 00:31:35,637
that the West's kiIIer app,
the consumer society,

380
00:31:35,687 --> 00:31:39,282
posed an existentiaI threat
to the Soviet system itseIf.

381
00:31:39,327 --> 00:31:41,761
The consumer society was market based.

382
00:31:41,807 --> 00:31:46,244
It responded to signaIs from consumers
about their preferences,

383
00:31:46,287 --> 00:31:51,281
for bIue jeans over fIanneI trousers,
or Mick Jagger over Burt Bacharach,

384
00:31:51,327 --> 00:31:55,798
and it devoted an increasing share of
resources to satisfying those preferences.

385
00:31:55,847 --> 00:31:59,601
This the Soviet system
simpIy couIdn't do.

386
00:32:06,287 --> 00:32:09,916
Their entire system was based
on centralised planning.

387
00:32:14,287 --> 00:32:19,315
The party knew, or thought they knew, what
everyone needed - brown polyester suits,

388
00:32:19,367 --> 00:32:22,564
and they placed
the factory orders accordingly.

389
00:32:22,607 --> 00:32:26,156
They had no clue
what anyone actually wanted.

390
00:32:26,207 --> 00:32:30,997
Communists did rockets,
not retail therapy.

391
00:32:35,527 --> 00:32:38,724
Tanks had to take precedence
over tank tops,

392
00:32:38,767 --> 00:32:41,998
strategic bombers over Stratocasters.

393
00:32:42,047 --> 00:32:44,242
One Soviet critic opined...

394
00:32:44,287 --> 00:32:47,962
(RUSSIAN ACCENT) ''Every ounce
of energy expended on dance fIoor

395
00:32:48,007 --> 00:32:51,363
''is energy that couId
and shouId have been invested

396
00:32:51,407 --> 00:32:54,479
''in buiIding a hydroeIectric pIant.''

397
00:33:02,447 --> 00:33:05,519
Here in Berlin, the division
of the city into East and West

398
00:33:05,567 --> 00:33:08,161
looked like a permanent fact.

399
00:33:08,207 --> 00:33:09,845
With the crushing of the Prague Spring,

400
00:33:09,887 --> 00:33:14,165
the communist system in Eastern Europe
Iooked once again unassaiIabIe.

401
00:33:14,207 --> 00:33:18,598
But whiIe the communists were extremeIy
good at crushing poIiticaI opposition,

402
00:33:18,647 --> 00:33:23,880
their resistance to the West's consumer
society was aItogether weaker.

403
00:33:31,407 --> 00:33:35,605
Ordinary people simply improvised
their own Western-style clothes.

404
00:33:38,367 --> 00:33:42,804
Wannabe designer Anne-Katrin Hendel
even stitched together her own jeans.

405
00:33:43,847 --> 00:33:46,566
(TRANSLATION)

406
00:34:15,327 --> 00:34:18,683
Some still say that
Mikhail Gorbachov or Ronald Reagan

407
00:34:18,727 --> 00:34:20,763
caused the collapse of communism.

408
00:34:20,807 --> 00:34:25,198
But maybe it really was
blue jeans and rock'n'roll.

409
00:34:28,407 --> 00:34:30,875
I was Iiving in BerIin
in the summer of 1989.

410
00:34:30,927 --> 00:34:32,724
In those days, if you were British,

411
00:34:32,767 --> 00:34:37,602
you couId traveI pretty freeIy from
the West of the city to the East and back.

412
00:34:45,847 --> 00:34:50,716
But when you got on at Friedrichstrasse
in the East of the city,

413
00:34:50,767 --> 00:34:52,723
you'd be the onIy person on the train.

414
00:34:52,767 --> 00:34:58,763
It was quite an eerie journey
going back from one worId to another,

415
00:34:58,807 --> 00:35:03,403
past the oId, diIapidated Reichstag
buiIding, through the waII - IiteraIIy.

416
00:35:03,447 --> 00:35:06,007
And then in the summer of '89,
things changed.

417
00:35:06,047 --> 00:35:08,925
I was no Ionger
the onIy person on the train.

418
00:35:08,967 --> 00:35:12,562
In fact, I was surrounded
by Hungarians and by PoIes,

419
00:35:12,607 --> 00:35:15,758
because their governments had,
for the first time,

420
00:35:15,807 --> 00:35:18,640
given their peopIe
freedom to traveI to the West.

421
00:35:18,687 --> 00:35:20,962
WeII, I got quite excited about this.

422
00:35:21,007 --> 00:35:24,283
In fact, I wrote a newspaper story
for one of the British papers

423
00:35:24,327 --> 00:35:29,196
and I wanted it to have the headIine
''The BerIin WaII is crumbIing''.

424
00:35:29,247 --> 00:35:31,681
Just imagine if they'd pubIished it.

425
00:35:31,727 --> 00:35:36,403
I wouId have prophesied the coIIapse
of communism. But they didn't.

426
00:35:36,447 --> 00:35:41,680
The editor said I'd been Iistening
to one too many RonaId Reagan speeches.

427
00:35:41,727 --> 00:35:43,638
Oh, weII. That's Iife!

428
00:35:43,687 --> 00:35:46,076
(IN GERMAN)

429
00:35:48,127 --> 00:35:52,996
On 9th November 1 989,
a bemused press corps was informed

430
00:35:53,047 --> 00:35:55,925
that travel across the border
would be permitted,

431
00:35:55,967 --> 00:35:59,801
prompting a flood of East Berliners
to the border checkpoints.

432
00:35:59,847 --> 00:36:03,237
Unprepared,
the guards chose not to resist.

433
00:36:03,287 --> 00:36:07,360
By midnight, all the checkpoints
had been forced to open.

434
00:36:07,407 --> 00:36:09,523
(CHEERING)

435
00:36:22,527 --> 00:36:26,042
With the faII of the BerIin WaII,
the CoId War was over.

436
00:36:26,087 --> 00:36:28,157
For some, it was the end of history.

437
00:36:28,207 --> 00:36:30,243
For others, the triumph of the West.

438
00:36:31,287 --> 00:36:34,279
ActuaIIy, I think
the ItaIian company got it right

439
00:36:34,327 --> 00:36:39,447
that started marketing a Iine
in skin-tight ''perestroika jeans''.

440
00:36:46,807 --> 00:36:50,686
The Western way of dress
had done for Soviet communism.

441
00:36:50,727 --> 00:36:53,844
Now only one challenge seemed to remain.

442
00:36:53,887 --> 00:36:58,278
The most populous
and worst-dressed nation on Earth.

443
00:37:04,127 --> 00:37:07,358
A people whose egalitarian leaders
required them to wear

444
00:37:07,407 --> 00:37:10,479
a billion pairs of matching pajamas.

445
00:37:20,527 --> 00:37:24,600
ln the wake of the Mao Tse-tung's
Communist Revolution in 1 949,

446
00:37:24,647 --> 00:37:28,083
China had become
the world's drabbest society.

447
00:37:30,407 --> 00:37:33,797
Gone were the last vestiges
of imperial silk.

448
00:37:33,847 --> 00:37:36,315
Gone, too, were the Western outfits

449
00:37:36,367 --> 00:37:39,598
favoured by the nationalists
between the wars.

450
00:37:39,647 --> 00:37:41,524
ln the pursuit of strict equality,

451
00:37:41,567 --> 00:37:46,197
everyone was issued with the kind
of clothes only convicts wore in the West.

452
00:37:48,807 --> 00:37:51,605
WaIk down a typicaI street in China today
and what you see

453
00:37:51,647 --> 00:37:55,925
is a veritabIe kaIeidoscope
of Western styIes of cIothing.

454
00:37:55,967 --> 00:37:59,118
And not a singIe of pair
of Mao pajamas in sight.

455
00:37:59,167 --> 00:38:05,242
What a difference three decades of reform
can make to the way a society Iooks.

456
00:38:11,527 --> 00:38:13,722
lt's as if the Chinese
are competing to see

457
00:38:13,767 --> 00:38:17,601
who can look most like they've just
come back from a shopping expedition

458
00:38:17,647 --> 00:38:20,115
to 5th Avenue or Oxford Street.

459
00:38:25,287 --> 00:38:26,686
Like aII industriaI revoIutions,

460
00:38:26,727 --> 00:38:30,845
China's began with a massive investment
in textiIe production.

461
00:38:30,887 --> 00:38:34,721
Factories Iike this one
aII over the Eastern seaboard

462
00:38:34,767 --> 00:38:39,795
became unbeatabIe competitors
when it came to exporting cheap cIothing.

463
00:38:39,847 --> 00:38:41,917
But now the question for China is this.

464
00:38:41,967 --> 00:38:46,085
With Western economies
depressed by a gIobaI financiaI crisis,

465
00:38:46,127 --> 00:38:51,804
is there enough domestic demand in China
itseIf for aII this Western-styIe kit?

466
00:38:51,847 --> 00:38:55,237
WeII, the answer seems to be
an emphatic yes.

467
00:39:02,247 --> 00:39:07,844
Judging by what l've seen in China's
big cities, they're getting there.

468
00:39:07,887 --> 00:39:11,721
Now they make the clothes
and buy the clothes.

469
00:39:11,767 --> 00:39:14,884
All the West supplies are the brand names.

470
00:39:16,167 --> 00:39:20,080
With Russia converted to Gap
and China worshipping Armani,

471
00:39:20,127 --> 00:39:24,564
you would think the triumph of the West's
consumer society was complete.

472
00:39:26,927 --> 00:39:28,326
Well, not quite.

473
00:39:28,367 --> 00:39:32,724
As we'll see, there's a growing
movement in the world today

474
00:39:32,767 --> 00:39:37,682
that rejects the dress code
of Western civilization altogether.

475
00:39:48,287 --> 00:39:51,643
Welcome to lstanbul, a cosmopolitan city,

476
00:39:51,687 --> 00:39:54,599
where the outward trappings
of Western civilization

477
00:39:54,647 --> 00:39:57,923
are immediately apparent in the streets.

478
00:40:06,127 --> 00:40:07,276
(TRAM BELL RINGS)

479
00:40:07,327 --> 00:40:10,478
Take a tram ride though IstanbuI's
main shopping centre

480
00:40:10,527 --> 00:40:13,758
and you couId be aImost anywhere
in the Mediterranean.

481
00:40:13,807 --> 00:40:17,243
To the Ieft and to the right, it's
the Western Iook that predominates,

482
00:40:17,287 --> 00:40:21,041
which gives you the impression
that this is just another Eastern frontier

483
00:40:21,087 --> 00:40:24,124
that's been coIonised
by Western civiIization.

484
00:40:27,487 --> 00:40:30,445
(CALL TO PRAYER)

485
00:40:32,167 --> 00:40:37,287
But look elsewhere in the same city,
and it's a very different story.

486
00:40:55,287 --> 00:40:58,836
Here in Turkey there's been
the most extraordinary backIash

487
00:40:58,887 --> 00:41:01,640
against Western modes of dress
in recent years.

488
00:41:01,687 --> 00:41:04,565
Western modes of dress for women, that is.

489
00:41:04,607 --> 00:41:06,518
As far as many MusIims are concerned,

490
00:41:06,567 --> 00:41:09,286
and the overwheIming majority of Turks
are MusIims,

491
00:41:09,327 --> 00:41:10,726
the Western styIe of dress

492
00:41:10,767 --> 00:41:15,636
exposes far more of the femaIe head
and body than the Koran prescribes.

493
00:41:15,687 --> 00:41:18,963
And that's why I'm seeing
so many more headscarves and veiIs

494
00:41:19,007 --> 00:41:21,919
than when I first came to IstanbuI
15 years ago.

495
00:41:21,967 --> 00:41:24,845
Yup, even the burqa is back.

496
00:41:41,567 --> 00:41:43,842
This represents a wholesale rejection

497
00:41:43,887 --> 00:41:47,721
of the policy introduced
by the founder of the Turkish Republic.

498
00:41:50,847 --> 00:41:55,875
ln the 1 920s, Kemal Ataturk set out
to Westernise the way Turks looked

499
00:41:55,927 --> 00:41:58,885
and banned religious forms of dress.

500
00:41:58,927 --> 00:42:03,876
For 60 years
his secular ideas flourished in Turkey.

501
00:42:03,927 --> 00:42:06,122
(CHANTING)

502
00:42:11,167 --> 00:42:14,716
But in October 1 998, there was a backlash.

503
00:42:18,527 --> 00:42:21,963
1 40,000 people protested

504
00:42:22,007 --> 00:42:26,637
against the long-standing ban on wearing
headscarves in schools and universities.

505
00:42:33,967 --> 00:42:37,039
ln lstanbul, thousands of girls
opted to miss classes

506
00:42:37,087 --> 00:42:40,762
rather than take off their headscarves.

507
00:42:40,807 --> 00:42:44,117
Elsewhere there were
even cases of suicide.

508
00:42:44,167 --> 00:42:46,556
The whoIe controversy over the headscarf

509
00:42:46,607 --> 00:42:49,917
iIIustrates just the way
our outer trappings can come to have

510
00:42:49,967 --> 00:42:53,596
a profound cuIturaI
and even poIiticaI significance.

511
00:42:53,647 --> 00:42:58,243
ShouId we regard it as just an expression
of personaI reIigious faith,

512
00:42:58,287 --> 00:43:01,279
which a truIy toIerant Western society
shouId aIIow

513
00:43:01,327 --> 00:43:03,557
on the principIe of freedom of expression?

514
00:43:03,607 --> 00:43:05,598
Or is it an antiquated symboI

515
00:43:05,647 --> 00:43:10,004
of a profound inequaIity
between the sexes ordained by IsIam,

516
00:43:10,047 --> 00:43:12,515
which a secuIar society shouId prohibit?

517
00:43:16,127 --> 00:43:19,358
The headscarf issue
is represented by lslamists

518
00:43:19,407 --> 00:43:22,877
as an issue of individual freedom
and human rights.

519
00:43:26,687 --> 00:43:29,281
To my eyes, it's more like
the thin edge of a wedge

520
00:43:29,327 --> 00:43:31,921
designed to restore sharia law to Turkey.

521
00:43:43,367 --> 00:43:48,236
It's not just a case of Western decadence
against IsIamic puritanism,

522
00:43:48,287 --> 00:43:51,040
because here in headscarf heaven,
as you can see,

523
00:43:51,087 --> 00:43:54,363
there's a whoIe pIethora
of different headscarves you can buy.

524
00:43:54,407 --> 00:43:56,363
In fact, you can imagine
young girIs competing

525
00:43:56,407 --> 00:43:58,921
for the Iatest fashion accessory.

526
00:43:58,967 --> 00:44:01,720
I've even spotted
one down there with diamante.

527
00:44:01,767 --> 00:44:03,837
Now, this is
a reaIIy, particuIarIy fine one.

528
00:44:03,887 --> 00:44:05,764
CouId you show me how to put this on?

529
00:44:05,807 --> 00:44:08,765
Ah, that's...that's where you foId it.

530
00:44:10,247 --> 00:44:13,478
BeautifuI! I suppose it just goes to show

531
00:44:13,527 --> 00:44:18,521
that the veiI, the headscarf, is
as susceptibIe to the vagaries of fashion

532
00:44:18,567 --> 00:44:22,355
as the kind of thing that seIIs
in the typicaI Western high street.

533
00:44:29,047 --> 00:44:35,395
Now, the lslamists can claim, you don't
need to Westernise yourself to be chic.

534
00:44:40,727 --> 00:44:45,164
In this fiIm, I've tried to show
that what we wear reaIIy matters.

535
00:44:45,207 --> 00:44:47,767
The West's
two great economic Ieaps forward,

536
00:44:47,807 --> 00:44:50,480
the IndustriaI RevoIution
and the consumer society,

537
00:44:50,527 --> 00:44:52,961
were both inseparabIe from cIothes,

538
00:44:53,007 --> 00:44:56,966
making them more efficientIy,
and wearing them more reveaIingIy.

539
00:44:57,007 --> 00:44:58,918
The spread of the Western way of Iife

540
00:44:58,967 --> 00:45:03,882
has been inseparabIe from the spread
of the Western way of dress.

541
00:45:03,927 --> 00:45:08,603
But if some peopIe today no Ionger
aspire to dress in Western styIes,

542
00:45:08,647 --> 00:45:12,606
that probabIy means
they're rejecting Western vaIues too.

543
00:45:17,247 --> 00:45:20,842
The backlash against Western dress
is spreading in the Muslim world

544
00:45:20,887 --> 00:45:24,675
as a symptom of a global lslamic revival.

545
00:45:30,047 --> 00:45:34,325
Completely veiled women are now
as common a sight on the streets of London

546
00:45:34,367 --> 00:45:38,246
as English Premier League football shirts
on the streets of Shanghai.

547
00:45:38,287 --> 00:45:42,075
Should we follow the French
in banning the burqa?

548
00:45:42,127 --> 00:45:44,846
Or does the West's consumer society

549
00:45:44,887 --> 00:45:50,200
have an antidote as effective
as blue jeans once were to Maoist pajamas?

550
00:45:50,247 --> 00:45:54,559
But maybe
that's the wrong question to ask.

551
00:45:56,007 --> 00:45:59,283
Is that what Western civiIization
boiIs down to?

552
00:45:59,327 --> 00:46:03,240
After capitaIism, science,
the ruIe of Iaw and democracy,

553
00:46:03,287 --> 00:46:07,326
is aII we've got Ieft today
just a spot of shopping?

554
00:46:07,367 --> 00:46:13,078
Is that what reaIIy Iies behind the veiI,
our veiI, the veiI of our own superiority?

555
00:46:13,127 --> 00:46:15,516
Nothing more than retaiI therapy?

556
00:46:15,567 --> 00:46:18,525
WeII, in the finaI episode
of this series, I'm going to ask

557
00:46:18,567 --> 00:46:22,526
if the real threats to our civiIization
come not from radicaI IsIam,

558
00:46:22,567 --> 00:46:24,956
or any other externaI threat,

559
00:46:25,007 --> 00:46:31,196
but from our own seIf-doubt, from our Ioss
of faith in our Western cuIturaI heritage.