The Real-Life Fashion Police

There are a couple of things that the phrase "fashion police" might mean to you. Either it's a TV show where revered style guru Kelly Osbourne bitches about how gross Christina Aguilera looks in her maternity outfits. Or, it's an imaginary team of stylists you pretend to call if you're obnoxious and spot someone dressed like Kelly Osbourne. However, it's the literal interpretation of the phrase that's so often overlooked. I mean, who do you think enforces France's plainly divisive burqa-ban? The real-life fashion police, of course! But it's not just French Muslim women being stomped on by the lacquered boots of sartorial SWAT teams. People from all walks of life – whether they be punks, racists, aggrieved British women or more racists – are getting into trouble with the law for their style choices. You might have already seen the stuff we published about North Korea's bizarre clothing rules and Iran's hair police. Here are a few more that might have slipped under your radar. INDO-PUNK SHAVING

Last year, Indonesian police rounded up a load of punks, shaved off their mohawks, made them remove all their piercings, then forcibly detained them for ten days in an effort to put them back on the right moral path. The official explanation was that, "it's all for their own good", and that having a mohawk could "put their futures at risk", which actually sounds completely reasonable to me. I got stuck talking to a self-identifying punk at a party once, and it only took 20 minutes of this guy trying to explain why anarcho-folk punk isn't the shittiest thing since people-trafficking to completely ruin my night.

Sure, those guys in the picture getting crew cuts may look glum, but in Indonesia, maybe that would never have happened to me. BOLLOCKS TO BLAIR

A woman was arrested at a 2005 Gloucestershire country fair for wearing a T-shirt sporting the slogan "Bollocks To Blair", apparently on the off-chance that it could offend any of the 70-year-old women at the event. I don't know if you've ever been to a country fair, but I can't imagine the kind of abrasive, fox-hunting wrinkle-sacks I've seen at those sort of things getting offended by an anti-Blair statement. They'd be more likely to set fire to an effigy of Shami Chakrabarti and some more of their Tory husband's expenses receipts in joyous celebration. LONSDALE YOUTH

Neo-Nazis have been stung particularly hard by anti-fascist clothing laws, meaning they're only permitted to wear their White Power snapbacks in the confines of their own home. Luckily, it only took 40 years of boxing brand Lonsdale existing for one genius European fascist to remedy that. He realised that wearing a Lonsdale T-shirt with part of the brand name obscured leaves the letters "NSDA" showing, and if you're a historian, a German or a racist, you'll know that's an acronym for Hitler's Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter party.

The trend caught on in a big way in the early 2000s with far-right idiots in Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, leading to neo-Nazi teenagers being dubbed "Lonsdale Youth", and the brand being banned in a load of Dutch schools. That cheeky chappie in the photo above is actually a BNP member, but you get the point; fascists simply adore Lonsdale, no matter where in Europe it is that they happen to be embarrassing themselves.   NO BRAS FOR SOMALIA

I doubt you'll have heard, because it's hardly been all over the news for the past decade, but hardline Islamic nations often have laws criminalising any clothing deemed to be too revealing. In Somalia, where Al Shabaab are trying to impose their strict interpretation of Sharia law, Muslim women are being stopped in the streets of Mogadishu and asked to shake their boobs around to prove they haven't been wearing a bra. Supposedly bras are "deceptive" and violate Islam, so I suppose that makes the punishment of being publicly whipped completely justified?

The last Al Shabaab statement I could find regarding the matter said that "breasts should be naturally firm, or just flat", which completely solves the problem I was having looking for a punchline to make this very sad situation funny. Thanks, Al Shabaab! ANTI-APARTHEID T-SHIRTS

A South African man named Robin Houston Holmes was charged during the country's apartheid era for producing T-shirts that displayed the face of the late Steve Biko, a banned anti-apartheid activist. That didn't put him off, though; he kept making more shirts that pissed off the white supremacists in power, one reading "We are Everywhere, Even in your Kitchen", and another that said, "Mxenge, The Struggle Continues", in reference to Victoria Mxenge, another anti-apartheid activist.

Both shirts were banned instantly and eventually led to Holmes being arrested again, before apartheid ended and Holmes was granted amnesty. So, don't give in to what the media will have you believe; fashion isn't just malnourished models, cokehead sleaze-bags and shitty champagne parties, it can change lives. Take John Galliano, for example. He became a renowned fashion designer, and just look at how his life has been completely transformed.

Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jamie_clifton