The HoodieThe Hoodie

"As a garment, the hoodie defines our times - it tells many stories about social inequality, subcultures, police brutality, racism, privacy, fear and, in turn, fashion. It is fashion's last truly political garment - a garment that you can lose your life for wearing, a garment that can incite fear, jealously, comradery and even fury in others." Lou Stoppard, curator of The Hoodie, on how the exhibition came about.

It is a garment that sparks a range of emotions, communicating all manner of social and cultural ideas and nuances depending on the gender, geography, age, conduct and ethnicity of the wearer and, in turn, the prejudices and politics of the viewer. It is perhaps the only garment that causes such publicized levels of agitation now that formerly provocative items such as slogan t-shirts and black leather jackets have become ubiquitous across the high-street.

The hoodie has its roots in sports clothing and workwear - with the hoodie as we know it today being promoted by Champion in the 1930s as a practical solution for sportsmen - but hooded garments have a long and varied story within fashion history, appearing across various different cultures and religions. The exhibition engages with contemporary debates and concerns around the hoodie, while also contextualizing the hoodie within fashion history and spotlighting the diverse heritage of hooded garments. It considers varied fictional depictions of the hoodie, which capture its layered meanings. There is the innocent Little Red Riding Hood, the hooded oppressed women of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and the sinister Grim Reaper.

The hoodie is tied to the style history of a range of subcultures that have gone on to have a profound impact on the music and style culture of today, from hip hop to skate culture. As the style profilers behind Exactitudes write in the caption to their 2002 series, Fly Girls, shot in Rotterdam and featuring young women in an assortment of branded hooded tops; "Shoppin' girls flippin' the script from ivory to ebony style. Flashy daughterhood of a multi- culti society." Their later series, The Invisible Men, shot in Evry in 2009 and featuring a largely non-white cast of men in grey and black hoodies, infers the increasingly layered, difficult reputation of the garment and the social stigmas around it; "From ghetto cool to pyjama tracksuit, you think he's up to no good in his anonymous hood.'"

The modern hoodie has become a symbol - a mascot, a call to attention, the poster garment for toxic agitations. But just as the hoodie is at the forefront of political conversations about youth disenfranchisement and racial prejudices, it is also, somewhat ironically and oddly, at the forefront of high fashion. It litters runways and expensive e-commerce stores, made by designers as varied as Dolce & Gabbana, Rick Owens and Gucci. Running parallel to stories in the media connected the hoodie with violence and gang culture are glossy magazine covers and shoots starring the hoodie and shopping pages dedicated to promoting it as an ideal style choice for men and women. It has come to define the aesthetic of today's most discussed brands, from Vetements to Supreme. In broader terms, the hoodie is a symbol of the wide-spread casualization of fashion, where trainers, streetwear and sportswear are key items, and the tracksuit is as relevant and accepted as a luxury look at the suit.

When killed four years ago, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old, was wearing "a dark hoodie, a grey hoodie", to quote George Zimmerman, who shot him, claiming self-defense. Shortly after Martin's death Geraldo Rivera said on the Fox & Friends show that "the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin's death as George Zimmerman was." Rivera argued the hoodie sends a sinister signal, advising parents to ban their children from wearing the garment except for playing sports or avoiding bad weather. "You cannot rehabilitate the hoodie," he said. "Stop wearing it." Others disagreed, with supporters and friends of Martin organising the Million Hoodie March in New York in March 2012, where hundreds marched in the garment. Today, while the family of Martin sell a $65 grey hoodie with the slogan 'Our Son Trayvon' through the Trayvon Martin Foundation website, luxury brands sell hoodies for hundreds of pounds on sites such as MatchesFashion.com or Net-a- Porter. A Vetements hoodie sells for £650.

Troy Patterson, on seeing an image of a Black model wearing a hoodie on one such e-retail site, wrote in the New York Times: "On the street, a Black guy in a hoodie is just another of the many millions of men and boys dressed in the practical gear of an easygoing era. Or he should be. This is less an analysis than a wish...In a cardigan or a crew neck, this model is just another model. In the hoodie, he is a folk demon and a scapegoat, a political symbol and a moving target, and the system of signs that weighs this upon him does not make special distinctions for an Italian cashmere hoodie timelessly designed in heather gray....The lingering question of the hoodie is simply: Who enjoys the right to wear one without challenge?"

This question is at the heart of this exhibition, which spotlights artists and makers who use the hoodie within their work, such as David Hammons and Devan Shimoyama, alongside artefacts from the hoodie's journey in modern society. The exhibition includes a range of media - from photographs to artworks, printed matter, news footage, digital projects, user generated content, and of course, garments. There are many ideas referenced - debates around the ethics of legislating or regulation of clothing by governments and institutions, questions around CCTV, surveillance and profiling, concerns around the sustainability of clothing production, and the vibrant history of uniforms and styles of subcultures and different music movements.

Bogomir Doringer, The Hoodie, 2019. Editing Rafael Kozdron. Sound design Michael Bucuzzo. AI GAN by Selam-X. Research in collaboration with Lou Stoppard. Commissioned by Het Nieuwe Instituut. Funded by Mondriaan Fonds. Photo Johannes Schwartz.

The exhibition tracks representations of the hoodie in the press, spotlighting key moments that have come to define the garment. As digital media is key to the program of Het Nieuwe Instituut, and so central to conversations around the hoodie, a focus of the exhibition is social media campaigns/hashtags and digital footage. An example of this is the #IfTheyGunnedMeDown hashtag, used by young Black men and women on Twitter from 2014 onward in response to the shooting of Michael Brown. In this campaign, social media users publish the photo most likely to be used by the media if they were shot - numerous images include hoodies. Also included are user donated garments, to show how relationships with the hoodie vary amongst those of different ages and ethnicities. An older woman who selected a hooded wedding dress in the 1960s would likely have a very different outlook on hooded garments than a 20-something Black male who has been stopped and searched in his favourite Nike hoodie over 10 times since purchasing it, or to the artist Jeremy Deller, who favours a bold pink hoodie as a fashion statement.

This exhibition considers how what we wear can define how others categorize or respond to us, making a case for the importance of fashion in understanding broader issues of class and opportunity. Most of all it seeks to spark conversation, debate and discussion, by considering how individual items can be exceptionally complex and layered. The hoodie is an item that is, on one hand, so performative - as firm a statement of fashion, or intent, or belonging - designed, perhaps, to send a message to others. It can be a piece of merch; and ideal blank canvas for graphics, slogans, statements. Yet the hoodie is simultaneously shy and retiring - a tool for inventing one's own personal bubble, to retreat from the world, close off and escape. The hoodie is ubiquitous, a great, popular example of modern design, but, when its wearer moves through the world, the city, the digital sphere, its story becomes unique. Who controls this story, or narrative? The wearer, or the watchers? The weight of history looms large, as do habits of thinking and the memory of cultural icons and moments. The hoodie not only contains the body, but the weight of these issues; the baggage of society's norms.