History of the Hoodie | From Workwear to Wardrobe Staple

The modern hoodie was invented in the 1930s by Champion (then Knickerbocker Knitting Company), but hooded garments date back centuries.

You probably own at least one. It’s the thing you grab on a cool morning, the thing that hides a bad hair day, the thing that made Rocky Balboa look iconic in 1976. But the history of the hoodie isn’t just a story about a piece of clothing. It’s a story about workers, athletes, and a garment that went from functional underwear to a symbol of rebellion to high fashion—and then back to your closet again.

Understanding where the hoodie comes from explains why it holds such a strange place in culture, and why that simple pullover still sparks debate today. Here’s the surprisingly tangled history.

The 1930s: A Hood For Workers, Not For Fashion

The story everyone agrees on starts in the 1930s in the United States, when Champion Products—then known as the Knickerbocker Knitting Company—began adding hoods to sweatshirts made for cold-weather practicality. The target audience wasn’t students or skaters; it was laborers in cold-storage warehouses and tree surgeons working outdoors in harsh conditions.

Champion’s hooded sweatshirts kept workers warm, and it wasn’t long before athletes noticed the benefit.

A few caveats worth knowing: the exact sub-dates and the precise attribution of who “invented” the hoodie vary across sources. The Smithsonian and others point to the 1930s as the solid origin point, and the 1934 blueprint as a key milestone, but the finer details are company-attributed history rather than uncontested fact. What’s safe to say: the modern hoodie as we know it—a sweatshirt with a hood—was born in Depression-era America, built for function, not fashion.

What Came Before: Hoods Are Older Than You Think

The hood itself is ancient. The modern hoodie just put a zip and a pocket on an idea that’s been around for thousands of years. Medieval Europeans wore cowls and chaperons—hooded garments worn by monks, peasants, and nobles alike. The chaperon, a hood with a short cape, was a fashion staple in 14th and 15th century Europe.

Even earlier, hooded clothing appears in historical records from the ancient world, including Assyrian-era texts dating to around the 13th century BCE. So while the hoodie is a distinctly American invention of the 20th century, the hood itself is one of the oldest pieces of clothing humans have worn.

The 1970s–1990s: From Sportswear To Symbol

For decades after the 1930s, the hooded sweatshirt stayed firmly in the world of athletics and manual labor. That changed in the 1970s, when a few cultural shifts pushed the hoodie into the mainstream.

Hip-hop culture adopted the hoodie as a staple in the 1970s, and high fashion began to take notice. Then came the moment that cemented the hoodie’s place in pop culture: in the 1976 film Rocky, Sylvester Stallone’s character trained in a gray hooded sweatshirt, making the garment look like the uniform of a determined underdog. The image stuck.

• The 1970s: Hip-hop culture and Rocky bring the hoodie into the mainstream.
• The 1990s: The hoodie becomes linked with youth culture, isolation, and rebellion—sometimes unfairly so.

The 1990s is also when the word “hoodie” itself entered common usage. Before that, it was simply called a “hooded sweatshirt.” That dictionary entry marked the moment the hoodie wasn’t just a piece of clothing—it was a category.

Why The Hoodie’s History Still Matters

Fast forward to today, and the hoodie is one of the most universal garments on the planet, worn by everyone from tech CEOs to factory workers. It’s also become a battleground for questions about identity, race, and perception—the same hood that shields you from rain has, at times, been used to stereotype and judge.

That history is why the garment you’re wearing right now is more than just cotton and a drawstring. It’s a piece of American workwear that survived a journey through sports, cinema, and street culture to land in your wardrobe. Browse American-made hoodie recommendations here if you want to own a piece of that legacy, made by today’s domestic manufacturers continuing the tradition.