"I get this shape in my head and sometimes I know what it comes from and sometimes I don't... and I think... there are a few shapes that I have repeated a number of times during my life and I haven't known I was repeating them until after I had done it." - Georgia O'Keeffe
I've been making a lot of hoods lately. The hood on the left, the brown one I'm wearing, was a Christmas gift from a good friend. They bought it from Grimfrost and it immediately became an essential part of my wardrobe. It is called the Hood of Skjoldehamn, as the design is a recreation of a hood worn by a 1,000-year-old body found in a marsh in Skjoldehamn, Norway.
That's me, playing GameCube, moments after receiving the hood. I didn't take it off for at least twelve hours. I wore the hood all night during an eight-hour layover at the most esoteric airport in the country. I've worn it in the snow and the rain. Up north and out west.
The hood itself is a very simple shape. Two rectangles and two squares are sewn together with simple seams and there you have it: the Hood of Skjoldehamn. You can sew a second hood, as a liner, and attach them together - but it isn't necessary.
I've written about the project process elsewhere, so I won't reiterate it all here. Suffice to say that this 1,000-year-old design from Viking-Age/Medieval Norway is just as effective and fashionable today as it was then.
If you'd like to make your own, which I encourage, read that leaflet. I hope it is a thorough guide for your path towards hooded glory.
The Hood of Skjoldehamn is a piece of clothing that everyone can make. With only basic sewing knowledge and a ruler, you can have one yourself in a weekend's time. I promise.
The hood has me thinking about our separation from the handmade world. It is something I am always trying to undo. In the effort towards understanding the story of craft, I'd like to propose a Topology of Enrobement.
The first dimension is from Shitty to Tough. Some clothes last a lifetime, and others deteriorate very quickly. The following examples are from my personal experience.
The long underwear, in particular, had that horrible loose overlock stitch so common in cheap-ass clothing (pictured below). The overlock stitch is fast and cheap, but truly a wretched way to hold fabric together.
The long underwear came apart the very first time I wore them and the entire thing fell into pieces like wet newspaper. Lots of clothes are like this, as I'm sure you are aware, but it can be hard to know what's what. Price doesn't always determine Shittiness or Toughness. Especially if clothes are packaged, or you're buying online, there's no way to be sure of the quality of the fabric or the stitching.
This brings us to the second dimension of the Topology of Enrobement.
The duality of Folk vs Robot is where I really get riled up. Folk garments are handmade, vernacular, local, transmissable, viral, open-source and made with care. Robotic garments are automated, industrialized, copyrighted, dropshipped, and profit-margined. For an incredible breakdown of this duality, watch Bernadette Banner's video on buying a fast-fashion knockoff of her handmade dress. She's brutal. It's great.
Anything from Temu, Shein, and increasingly Amazon is probably going to be something made for a fast profit out of shitty materials with all the corners cut. You know this already. It's the worst.
There's something about a meaningless, ugly baseball hat that lends the object an eternal solidity. There are hats I have worn for years, and abused without compassion, and yet every thread is still in place (though stained with a variety of industrial and organic wastes).
However, baseball hats are not very accessible as a handmade craft. They require some very weird stitching, and hard-to-find materials, and surprisingly complex geometric design. In a world without automation and immense global infrastructure, I actually don't think baseball hats would ever flourish.
In the historical record, hats are often much simpler. Circles, squares, and triangles win the day every time.
In the Folk/Shitty quadrant, we will find anything that is both accessible and stupid. I have a real fire burning against these kinds of things. Macaroni art, plastic beads, glue slime, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks. Burn it all and cover the ashes with rocks so the dogs can't dig it up. Some people will make the case that high-quality materials are not accessible to everyone, or that not everyone has a high-enough level of skill to make really "nice" objects. This is a a trick and a lie.
If you have access to foam, glue, popsicle sticks, markers, and other arts and crafts supplies, then you definitely have access to used blankets, sheets, tablecloths, and other weird fabrics that wash up at your local thrift store.
While it's true, of course, that not everybody has the skill to sew a lined jacket or knit a pair of socks, history is full of everyday objects made by everyday people with minimal skill. Your own lack of skill has been weaponized against you to make you think you have to buy everything in your life.
I think teaching kids to craft only with hot glue and paper and duct tape does them a great disservice. Children can learn real skills, like sewing and carving and leatherworking and knitting and crocheting and knotwork and ceramics. It is radical and empowering to learn these crafts, and it is just as disempowering to only learn elementary-school arts-and-crafts skills.
In this Topology of Enrobement, I'm using the word Folk to mean folks, the folk, as in folk music and and local lifeways. Recipes passed down through families. Music that anyone can sing. Games like tic-tac-toe that anyone can play, and learn, and teach to the next person.
The more I learn about the history of clothing, the more I realize that clothes don't have to be complicated. Consider the universality of the square shirt.
Kimonos and ponchos fall into this category too. When you think of the pre-industrial past, I encourage you not to think about kings and queens wearing lace and robes and pantaloons. Instead, consider billions of human beings wearing squares sewn by their grandmas.
And so, we return to the hood. Simple rectangular shapes, sewn together using any fabric available. Durable, lovable, customizable. Not shitty. Not robotic. Anyone can do it. And it will last.
"The corporate jargon and the greed and the infinite growth model are things that you start thinking about when you get your brain too high into systems. When you ground yourself and you look around at people, you see that human nature is community." - Memoria