As Britain’s feral youth blighted boroughs north and south of the Thames, disfiguring London by setting fire to stuff and taking whatever they could from shops along the way, my attention inadvertently turned to how these thugs looked. They might have been “different people doing the same things in different cities at the same time,” as prime minister David Cameron put it, but these copycat criminals seemed to have one thing in common: most of them were wearing hoodies.
In 2006, Mr. Cameron, as leader of the Conservative Party, caused some controversy in the UK with his Hug-a-Hoody policy. He proposed devoting resources on the emotional development of these troubled young people rather than on the symptoms of their alienation. Even then, the basic item was already at the center of the fray.
Leitmotif of the Underclass
Produced in cotton, fleece or nylon, the hoodie isn’t exclusively the leitmotif of today’s social underclass. Professor Robert Bartlett of the University of St. Andrews, an expert on the Middle Ages, told The Telegraph in 2008 that “hooded tops were also the garment of choice for 12th-century juvenile delinquents.” The cowl worn in addition to the standard tunic apparently served to hide the identity of young miscreants.
From medieval London, a version by sportswear company Champion then clothed laborers in New York in the 1930s before American designers such as Claire McCardell and Norma Kamali improved on its design in the ’50s and the ’80s, respectively. By the ’90s, the term “hoodie” hit the mainstream along with hiphop culture, and its evolution — from innocuous leisurewear to intimidating symbol of urban group identity — continues to this day.
Like Mark Zuckerberg
In hindsight, the Gap hoodie I bought when I was 13 — the first I ever owned — mimics the ones sported by the teens who set Hackney ablaze in its banality. It was plain and gray, had kangaroo pockets perfect for storing CDs, and was equally baggy and boxy, as was the rule during the boyband-saturated 1990s. Everyone in my grade appeared to have a hooded sweatshirt aside from the one issued by the school, which was annoying and comforting at the same time.
Like Mark Zuckerberg, I too practically lived in hoodies as a university student. The weather in Canada often called for warm layers, so I did so by alternating mall staples from Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle (how embarrassing, I know) with dressier ones (meaning black) by Club Monaco, James Perse and APC. Unlike the Facebook founder, however, I did not team them with Adidas slides. Exposing one’s toes to that kind of cold would’ve not been pleasant at all.
Shifting Attitudes
While hoodies have been associated with gangsters for decades in the US, looking like a leftover extra from 8 Mile doesn’t carry the same stigma as it does in Britain, where people feel threatened by the presence of hooded teenagers. Remember the 2000s? Fashion flirted briefly with the slouchy domestic garment when Juicy Couture started selling $200 tracksuits in 2001 and Kid Robot captured the new rave Zeitgeist with its all-over print editions in 2006. In 2009, Details magazine decried the “indecisive” hoodie-under-a-blazer look. Recently, thanks to The Social Network, which deep down is a fashion film, hoodies started to symbolize a new sartorial standard for success in the Internet age, one that is defiantly style-free. Mixing refined silhouettes with an urban ethos, Alexander Wang’s designs epitomize the upmarket side of this downtown chic.
London and other cities in England were shrouded for days in hoodies and bandannas and only now are the rioters, a post-millennial rendering of the opportunistic droogs in A Clockwork Orange, coming into focus. It’s ironic that the tool one could use to avoid identification – one that David Cameron described five years ago as “a way to stay invisible in the street” – is the very thing that is making angry men and women in their teens, 20s and 30s stand out against a Banksy-esque backdrop of chaos and racial tension.
Staring at the stack of unworn hoodies in my closet, I was amazed to realize the power and meaning we routinely bestow on pieces of clothing: Plaid shirts are for loathsome hipsters; Burberry checks are for trashy chavs; hoodies are for hard-up hoodlums. Kenny from South Park wore an orange hoodie and he was poor, but is it really fair to apply a paintbrush approach to all those who do? I look forward to the day the hoodie finally shakes off its seamy status – in Britain at least – and goes back to what it was intended to be: something to protect you when you’re most exposed to the elements.
* * *
ginobambino.tumblr.com??