Origins of The Term
The phrase "Cool Britannia" was first used in 1967 as a song title by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The phrase "Cool Britannia" reappeared in the mid-1990s as a registered trade mark for one of Ben & Jerry's ice-creams (vanilla with strawberries and chocolate-covered shortbread). The ice cream name and recipe was coined in early 1996 by an American lawyer living in London, Sarah Moynihan-Williams, as a winning entry in a Ben and Jerry's ice cream competition. The phrase was quickly adopted in the media and in advertising, seeming to capture the cultural renaissance of London at the time (as celebrated in a 1996 Newsweek magazine cover headlined "London Rules"). The election of Blair's Labour government in 1997 on a platform of modernisation, with Blair as a relatively young Prime Minister, gave the idea fresh currency.
There is something of a parallel with the term "Swinging London" for the boom in art, fashion and popular music during the early years of Harold Wilson's Labour government. Such a parallel was apt as, like Blair, Wilson was considered a relatively young Prime Minister, his administration ended an extended period of Conservative governments (tarnished in the latter period by scandal), and his early tenure coincided with a period of economic prosperity. Furthermore, many of the creative industries labelled as Cool Britannia were avowedly inspired by the music, fashion and art of the 1960s.
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Famous quotes containing the words origins of, origins and/or term:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“One man isn’t any better than another, not because they are equal, but because they are intrinsically other, that there is no term of comparison.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)