Hoody- Fashion of the Future?
Hoodies usually summon up images of gangs of youths hanging around street corners, knife crime, anti social behaviour and young people generally getting up to no good, but is it possible that they are actually the catwalk stars of the future?
The sight of Kate Moss or Agyness Deyn in a hoody and tracksuit bottoms, with socks pulled over may seem a little far fetched now, but if we look at fashion trends gone by then it’s almost inevitable that chav chic will be a sought after high end trend in decades to come.
This season we’ve seen checked shirts, Dr Marten boots and braces hit the high street, but if we travel back to the late 1960s and early 70s these must have items were in fact the uniform of the original skin head gangs.
The skin heads first emerged from the cool Mods of the 60s and was just another innocent youth subculture, that had nothing to do with Nazis or violence. These groups of teens were identified by their checked shirts, braces, skinny jeans and super shiny shoes and boots.
Although these days skin heads are more often associated with nationalism and even racism- the original movement actually drew influence from Jamaican rude boy culture and early reggae music.
During the 70s the skin heads changed direction and began to hit headlines for all the wrong reasons- sound familiar? From 1979 onwards the punk trend took over as the main influence on skin head.
Groups with shorter hair and less emphasis on traditional styles grew in numbers and grabbed media attention, mostly as a result of their involvement with football hooliganism. Thanks to the behaviour of these groups the whole skin head movement was blackened and people began to fear their anti-social behaviour.
The story of infamous Teddy Boy trend of the 1950s also follows a very similar story. The original Teds were groups of youths in London who were inspired by the American rock and roll scene and adopted a smart tailored look with expensive suits and slicked back hair.
Towards the end of the 50s groups of Teds formed gangs and got involved in violent clashes with rival gangs. This soon caused media outcry as the press picked up on the negative side of the movement.
The most notable event was the Notting Hill riot of 1958, in which Teddy Boys were conspicuous within racist white mobs who roamed the area attacking black people and damaging their property.
Yet despite the focus on the anti-social aspects of the movement fashion has still revived the Teddy Boy look over and over on the catwalk, with fitted Saville Row tailoring regularly making a come back into mainstream fashion.
So although we may find it hard to believe that we will look back at the modern hoodies as icons of cool, it seems that fashion is actually more willing to forgive and forget the bad behaviour of youngsters than the newspapers are.
They may be best confined to the shopping centres and street corners for now but we predict that one day the humble hoody will take it’s place alongside Ben Sherman shirts, Dr Martens and 60s mini skirts in the fashion hall of fame- you heard it here first!
FemaleFirst- Caz Moss