Hoodies. Fuck I love ‘em. They are the great leveller. The universal outfit. Fashion’s Swiss army knife. Will get you out of any hole.
Are you a newly-listed start up chief exec looking to keep in touch with your roots despite the fact you’re now a sell out? Dress down in your hoodie at your next product launch to show investors you’re still hip.
Are you ‘avin troubles again, back to court for the third time this month on another bullshirt charge? Dress up in your hoodie to show the jury you’re, like, fully respectable n’that.
Hoodies offer us a blank cheque. A control-alt-delete. A cloak to hide ourselves from the shittery that is our modern day world. A cover under which to start anew. And for an anarcho-paganist egalitarian like me, that’s something to savour.
So what’s a hoodie to you?
Perfect kitchen attire.
Hoodies are built to be worn while being pensive near the ocean.
Maybe it represents destiny. Steely determination. World domination. Eminem before the battle scene. The modern-day superhero’s cape. Without being a fucking weirdo in a cape.
But maybe it also represents hungover as hell on a Sunday arvo, hoping nobody sees you raiding the frozen pie section at your local supermarket.
Maybe it’s the last remaining vestige from your ex that you’re sleeping in every night, hanging onto like a bad memory. You naughty nostalgiast, you! Cast that shirt out! (Then buy a new Mambo hoodie and have them lining up at the door).
Whatever your proclivity, the hoodie is ultimate piece of utilitarian attire.
Hoodies make music sound better. Fact.
When the world’s borders dissolve along with our individual notion of ego and self, when we become a single hive mind inhabiting a thousand billion different bodes, we’ll all be wearing matching hoodies.
Don’t agree? You will soon.
So where did they come from?
The hood has always been associated with piety, and religious wisdom. The first known use of the hood was by Christian monks in the dark ages. Maybe monks of the eastern persuasion before that. Signs of enlightenment, or signs of darkness? That depends on your perspective.
Some bad eggs wore hoods too. White ones, which they rode ‘round in spreading hatred and fear in equal measures. But they were as disconnected from reality as their hood was from the rest of their raggedy-arse outfits. Fuck them.
Mambo World Challenge: Wear a hoodie and look into the window of a fish n chip shop.
Hoodies as a fashion item didn’t really come into western favour until the 1930s, when Champion started making them for track suits. For a long time they were associated with fitness. Think the boxing priest in The Exorcist. Think Rocky on the top of those steps there in Philly, the Eye of the Tiger. Emerging from the hood at his zenith, ready to take on the world. America’s knight in shining hoodie.
Then came rap. Wu Wear. The London grime scene. Dizzee Rascal. The hoodie with Timbs. Through to today. Rejoining the political. The hoodie as a symbol of dissent. Hoodie over balaclava, throwing a molotov cocktail into the Arab Spring. Treyvon Martin and the million hoodie march.
Australia’s history is of course a bit more how ya’ going. We don’t tend to take things as extreme as America and the rest of the world. Our ying not so far from our yang. For us the hoodie is just something to kick in about while you get on with the minutiae of life. Checking the surf. Sitting on the lounge. Relaxing in your own environs, wherever they may be.
Hoodies are yours for the taking. Make of them what you will. But if you’re going to buy one, make sure it’s Mambo. Or I’ll bash ya.