The hood has been with us for a very long time. Documented hooded garments date back to at least medieval Europe, where the word "hood" itself derives from the Anglo-Saxon "höd" the same root as "hat." Monks wore hooded robes known as cowls to keep warm during long hours of prayer in cold, drafty churches and monasteries. Over time it moved outward, to laborers and travelers, to anyone who needed protection from the elements. It was practical before it became anything else. Protection. Warmth. A way of moving through the world with something between you and the elements.

By the 1930s, that same logic found its way into sportswear. The first modern hoodies were likely made by Champion Products, initially for workers in cold warehouses, then for athletes, then for everyone. The garment never really changed its purpose. It just changed hands.

I'm the founder of Future-Homme, a men's lifestyle brand built around considered materials and honest construction. Clothing has been a reference point for most of my adult life as a way to express myself. The hoodie has arguably been the longest staple in my wardrobe.

I probably wore a hoodie before I could walk. Some soft cotton infant thing with a drawstring I had no use for. I don't remember that one. The one I do remember was a hunter green, long-sleeve cotton pullover hoodie from The Gap, back when Gap still understood basics. It was more like a heavy t-shirt than what we think of as a hoodie today. Lighter construction, less structured, closer to the skin. I bought it sometime in my post-teen years and wore it until it had earned the kind of softness you can't manufacture. I loved it enough to go back and buy the same one in red. A repeat purchase, to me, is the best compliment a brand can receive.

Those two hoodies, were the beginning of what has become a long-term relationship with the garment. Not because I thought about it that way at the time. I just kept coming back to them.

What I'm wearing now? Decades later, I'm still coming back to the hoodie. But the two I reach for most often now are a different category entirely.

Model wearing the white sustainable 460 GSM Future-Homme daily uniform structured hoodie on a white background

Lounge Structured Oversized Heavyweight Fleece Hoodie — 460 GSM

At 460 GSM, it reads on paper as a heavy hoodie — and the exterior has a substantial heft to it, almost architectural in the way it holds its shape. But the weight doesn't translate the way you expect. It's thick without being heavy, a difficult thing to achieve. The interior fleece is soft in a way that makes it feel like something you put on rather than something you get into. If the weather allows, I'm wearing this two to three times a week. And the sleeve length in a size Small fits like it was cut just for me. Everyone loves a custom fit. A hoodie that fits in the sleeve feels tailored, even if it's oversized everywhere else.

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Person wearing a black hoodie and light-colored pants on a white background

Lounge Ombré Oversized Hoodie — 400 GSM

Whereas the Heavyweight Fleece holds its form, this one moves with you. It's 100% cotton, which is why it sits heavier despite the lower GSM. There's a lived-in quality to it from the first wear. The oversized cut works as a standalone piece or as a layering option without adding bulk underneath, an aspect most oversized pieces get wrong. And the ombré effect — that fade from deep to light across the fabric — is subtle enough that it doesn't read as a statement, but distinct enough that it's never generic. It sets itself apart without announcing itself.

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Everyone Wears the Hood

Here's what I've observed over the years: the hoodie is one of the few pieces of clothing that genuinely crosses every line we draw between people. I've seen it on construction sites and corner offices; on teenagers and on men my age; on people who put thought into what they wear and on those who don't. Universality is rare in clothing and it doesn't happen by accident.

What I think that universality comes from is something the garment earned over centuries rather than invented overnight. It moved from the monastery to the warehouse to the athletic field to the runway, and at every stop, someone claimed it as their own. A recent museum exhibition explored exactly that journey, tracing how the hoodie has traveled across cultures, subcultures and social strata without ever fully belonging to any one of them. That's a rare quality in any object, let alone a piece of clothing.

I think about the monk in his cowl, the laborer in his chaperon, the scholar in that 1592 portrait. I think about the hunter green hoodie I wore until it had nothing left to give. The hood has always been here and everyone, eventually, finds their way back to it.

Artwork by: Hendrick Goltzius, Portrait of Josephus Justus Scaliger, 1592. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Cover image is an AI interpretation of the original.