In the cold weather, few items of clothing beat a hoodie. They’re comfy, warm and they look cool.

But where did hoodies come from and how did they come to be everywhere?

From warmth and protection, to sportswear then streetwear, across decades hoodies have become entangled with groups and gangs, surveillance and control, fear and policing, race and power.

Hoodies can divide, but they also bring people together. With this in mind, they might be “our last truly political item of clothing”.

Hooded garments are nothing new. In fact, they’re very old.

The Orkney Hood, discovered in a peat bog on Scotland’s Orkney Islands, covered the head and shoulders of a child in the late Iron Age (between the third and seventh centuries CE).

In 1936, a Swedish bog revealed the “Bocksten Man”. He still wore the clothes he died in, sometime between 1350–70. His woollen hood added warmth to his outfit: a tunic and mantle (cloak), plus long socks, footwraps and leather shoes. It also gave researchers clues centuries later to his status and changing hood fashions, even then.

Medieval monks wore austere versions of hooded garments. These served to aid the inner contemplation demanded by monastic life. Medieval knights donned chain mail hoods as part of their protective armour.

Women’s........

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