A mainstay of American casual wear, the hoodie is a hooded sweatshirt designed with or without a central zipper and typically made of thick cotton jersey or polyester. Sportswear manufacturer Champion invented the modern hoodie in the 1930s to keep athletes warm before and after training. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, it became popular among university students. More recently, technology industry titans, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, wear the hoodie as their power dress, defying established dress codes.
Beginning in the mid-1970s and 1980s, the hoodie was widely worn by New York’s hip-hop community, graffiti artists, and breakdancers. Skateboarders in many urban centers rode with their hoods on to avoid being caught. Such uses associated the hoodie with rebelliousness. In the 1990s, rappers like Wu Tang Clan wore the garment to signal anonymity and resistance.
But a hooded figure also arouses fear. Numerous fictional (e.g. the Grim Reaper) and real (e.g. the Ku Klux Klan) figures associated with death and crime wear hoods, and the hoodie has been at the center of racial stereotypes. In 2012, George Zimmerman killed black teenager Trayvon Martin, claiming that he found Martin threatening because of his dark hoodie. Martin’s supporters organized Million Hoodie Marches, turning its stigma into a political statement against race-based violence and injustice.
Additional text from Fashion as Design online course, Coursera, 2017