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This narrative of hoodie wearers as anti-social, working-class, aggressive and criminal is multinational. Of the 111 items in the exhibition, it’s hard to think of any which has been used so much as a shorthand for criminality, aside from maybe the balaclava (which let’s face it is worn almost exclusively to commit crimes). However the hoodie, and its close cousin the tracksuit, has one of the most complex socio-political meanings of any garment in recent times. Million Hoodie MarchĪll items of clothing are coded the suit, the leather jacket and the must-have pair of trainers all derive their status from their respective aesthetics and histories. The hoodie became a symbol of the defiance, unity, and deep frustration that came in the aftermath of Martin’s death. Senators and NBA players alike donned hoodies, and a ‘Million Hoodie March’ took place in New York in March of the same year. In the protests that followed Martin’s death the hoodie was worn in solidarity. The notion that Zimmerman shot Martin, in part because of the perceived inherent threat of a black teenager clad in a hoodie, was instrumental to Zimmerman’s successfully plea of self-defence.
![la haine hoodie la haine hoodie](https://www.rhcph.dk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/journal-export-06-07.jpg)
Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was shot, and Zimmerman, in the call he made to police shortly before the killing, used this fact in his description of ‘a suspicious person’. Martin’s killing sparked outrage the shooting itself was widely seen as racial profiling, many criticised the Sanford police department’s handling of the case, and Zimmerman’s subsequent acquittal of the charge of second-degree murder was extremely contentious. Martin, an unarmed 17 year old student, was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in February 2012 while returning to his father’s fiance’s home in a Florida gated community. The hoodie became a symbol of the defiance, unity, and deep frustration As she put it, the hoodie’s ‘a great design, but also it’s become this tragic political symbol’, in direct reference to Trayvon Martin. Although worthy of inclusion for its ubiquity alone (after all, other items included flip flops, a backpack and a Gore-Tex jacket), Antonelli also saw the hoodie as having a potent significance. But one of the most notable pieces on display was item 050, a red Champion hoodie. The garments and accessories chosen were wide-ranging, from luxury items, as in a Hermes Birkin handbag, to everyday pieces, like a pair of Levi 501s, to those with religious, cultural and historical significance, like the sari, the kippah or the pearl necklace.