David Cameron created a stir last month, when he came out in defence of Britain’s shrouded youth. His Hug-a-Hoody policy urged more tolerance, love and understanding for those young people who choose to hide their identities beneath a hood. And the garment at the root of all this hullabaloo? A basic item: hooded, zip-fronted, commonly produced in cotton-jersey, sweatshirting, fleece or nylon, it has been on a fascinating journey. Within a few years, the hoody has gone from innocuous sports casualwear to menacing and highly visible symbol of disaffected youth. Transformed into the leitmotif of the criminal classes, it was, we were led to believe, the essential accomplice to ill deeds and intimidating behaviour. Hoodies rampage on train and Mum killed for ticking off hoodies were typical of the headlines.
“Hoodies were given a bad name last year and their image suffered,” says Jesse Noy, a fashion designer who has used sportswear, and in particular hoods, as a source of inspiration for her work. “It was like that bloke in Top Gear who started wearing jeans and then no one wanted to wear jeans any more.” The Clarkson Effect grew greater with every negative headline and news story. Hooded tops were famously banned at Bluewater Shopping Centre and Imperial College, outlawed in Warrington’s pubs and clubs, while in Luton police were given the right to stop and search anyone in suspicious headgear.
Carol Tulloch, author and senior research fellow at the Victoria & Albert Museum and University of Arts London, featured a hoody in Black British Style, a touring exhibition that started at the V&A in 2004. She feels that this garment, which has appeared in everything from Eminem’s videos to EastEnders and the movie Kidulthood, is an essential component of urban group identity; hoody as in neighbourhood. “It’s all about belonging to a particular group and is key to subcultural identity,” she says. Yes, they are worn in gangs, “on bikes by the canal, by packs of school kids, but it’s about belonging to a group, hanging out together”.
She also recognises that it is a garment with power. By simply pulling the hood up, wearers can deter trouble, cause others to sidestep them and ward off onlookers. In the book Urban Survival: The Essential Guide to Street Culture (Chrysalis, 2003) the cryptically named author Artjaz describes how in a city environment, hoodies have a protective role to play, like armour. As David Cameron correctly observed, the vast majority of hoodies are worn defensively, not offensively.
But some people feel the hoody’s image is about to change: “For a while, it was Public Enemy No 1. Now that brooding, anti-authority, anti-society thing is over, we can get back to what the hoody really is: a fashion staple with real utilitarian value,” says Sean Pillot de Chenecey, trends researcher at forecasting agency, Captain Crikey. Indeed, the hoody is a unique garment: functional, democratic, it bridges gaps across class, gender, age and race.
Perhaps it was clear that things were on the turn when artists Gilbert & George used a painting of hooded youth to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in June 2005, and when after a summer of shrieking moral panic from the national press, Vogue calmly urged its readers to reclaim this item from “scowling, malevolent youth” for themselves. Sarah Harris, fashion features writer at Vogue, spent last autumn in two cashmere hoodies by Paper Denim & Cloth, and is looking forward to slipping into this comfort zone again as the weather cools. “I only wear the hood up if it’s raining. The sorts of hoodies we are seeing in the Vogue office are toned down, understated and elegant, often in beautiful fabrics.”
Every action has a reaction, and what is now clear is that smart people are finding different ways to reappropriate the hoody. Be it with the help of design, print, price-tag or process, this pilloried item is finding its way back into the wardrobes of the style-conscious. Shops such as B-Store in Savile Row, The Hideout in Soho and Start in Shoreditch have become hunting grounds for hoody aficionados. It has become the equivalent of seeking out rare vinyl imports, with labels such as Billionaire Boys Club, Visvim and Neighborhood costing between £100 and £250. Supreme, a premium skateboarding brand which has produced T-shirts for Public Enemy and is associated with photographers Larry Clarke and Terry Richardson, saw customers queuing to get their hands on the latest batch.
Perhaps the greatest damage to the hoody’s standing as a contemporary item of clothing was not the media’s scare-mongering, but its own popularity. Worn on every high street by everyone from babies to pensioners, men and women, black and white, it was sold in every shop and market stall. It became commonplace, McFashion for the McMasses. By contrast, the limited-edition hoody has snob appeal, it has become worth looking for, paying for, hanging on to and then selling on eBay (original Bathing Ape versions can change hands for £1,000).
David Saunders, a fine artist and former Chelsea graduate, epitomises the new hoody order. He has turned his talents from canvas to cloth, hand-painting geometric patterns on to hooded jerseys to create one-off wearable artworks, from £160 upwards, available from Start in Shoreditch. You couldn’t get further away from the logo-emblazoned, mass-produced hoody.
Sean Pillot de Chenecey, who describes his hoody as the “modern-day equivalent of the smoking jacket”, prefers substance to surface and feels that traditional hoody brands represent negative aspects of globalisation and exploitation. He prefers to slip into American Apparel, the cool ethical clothing brand. “It’s not something that’s been produced in the Third World like Nike, but has been produced on an ethical basis. So it satisfies on a fashion-light level (it looks good and feels comfortable) and on a fashion-serious level (I can feel OK about my consumption).”
Hoodies as we know them have been a key component in club culture since the late Eighties. There now exist several generations whose formative years were spent in thin cotton or fleecy hoodies. They danced in them, took drugs in them, rode their VW camper vans in them, made love in them. Now that youth culture has been reclaimed by the truly young (the MySpace, Arctic Monkeys mob), we are seeing the premium upgrading of casual clothing. So if you were wondering why jeans, T-shirts and hoodies now come with such incredibly inflated price-tags (youthwear at adult-only prices), blame it on the generation who will not shake off the artefacts of their youth, be it the music or the clothes. No amount of blaring headlines or stereotyping will come between this generation and their hoodies.
Gabriel John, 28, shop manager at Turnbull & Asser, has been wearing them since he was a teenager and admits he will probably still be wearing one in his twilight years. Designer Jesse Noy feels that one of the reasons she loves her hoody is that it reminds her of childhood. “It makes me think of being at home with my mum and dad, being served my favourite lasagne and watching TV.” Besides this nostalgic warmth, Gabriel John appreciates the garment’s transformative appeal. His customers will know him as an efficient young man in a suit and tie. But at the end of a day, John sheds his formal dress and slips back into Borehamwood with the help of his Ralph Lauren or Triple Five Soul hood. Like Mr Benn, he disappears into another, self-made, private world.
“It’s an adult security blanket. My hoody goes on, my music goes on and it says, ‘Do not disturb’. It gives me a feeling of comfort, both physical and mental. When I wear my hoody, I enter my own time and space.” This is the hoody into which we prepare to recede, not attack. The physical experience of being swaddled or cocooned means that, unlike the menacing incarnation of the media, it becomes a soothing item of clothing that adults can retreat into. No sinister sub-text, not to avoid surveillance cameras, but simply because it creates a space where an adult can disappear to find himself, Zen or the remote control.
Whether the pull is psychological, emotional, sociological or ecological, it seems as though you just can’t keep a good design down. The hoody has finally made good.
HOODIES IN HISTORY
Before the media created the hoody, the accused item – a garment with attached hood – had a long and diverse history, with examples of monastic, druidic, scholarly and sporting hoodies. There are also Norman, medieval, Tudor and Elizabethan hoodies. But in the modern world, it was Claire McCardell, the American designer of the Forties and Fifties, credited with creating the everyday concept of “sportswear”, who was the first to recognise the style potential of the hooded garment. Fashioned in plain jersey, photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe and seen on the pages of Harper’s Bazaar, this was the hoody at its most elegant and daring.
In the Seventies, another American designer, Norma Kamali, fell in love with sweatshirting and created entire collections from it, including rara skirts. Her popularity, combined with the Rocky movies (seminal hoody imagery), ensured that hoodies found their way on to the backs of another generation, often stamped with American university names like Harvard and Yale.
Although hoodies have been an important element in street style, influenced by skateboarding, surfing, MTV, hip-hop and grime, they have also been significant on international catwalks. When Giorgio Armani decided to knock the stuffing and shoulderpads out of traditional men’s tailoring in the Eighties, he replaced the shirt and tie with… the hoody. It featured throughout the Nineties in the collections of many designers including John Richmond, Rifat Ozbek and Jean Paul Gaultier. Most recently, designers such as Bernard Willhelm, Walter Van Bierendonck, Jil Sander and Marc Jacobs have been flying the hoody flag.
