hoodwear diaries: 
the zine

updates weekly
next article: soon




Defining Hoodwear

by aishamanne


[Originally published May 2024]


“Streetwear in 2021 is hood culture.”

These words were spoken by Mikey Phelps, owner of brand Hood Holidayz and organizer of events celebrating some of streetwear’s most legendary pieces, like the Pelle Pelle leather jacket. Mikey, an East Harlem native, was interviewed for Hoodwear Diaries before it functioned under that name. The story that the Hoodwear Diaries project set out to tell is inextricably linked to the reason why Mikey’s words were true then, true before he spoke them, and true now—streetwear comes from the hood. 

And today, it gives nothing back to the hood. 

As Mikey put it: “Streetwear and hoodwear are two different things. The hoodwear is becoming stronger than the streetwear. The streetwear is dying. Like, it doesn't stand for anything. The thing is, you call it streetwear, and you got people who don’t live in the streets wearing it.”

“Hoodwear” is, of course, not an officially real word. But throughout the existence of this project, it has carried enough meaning that most people understand it—and its intended purpose within this work—before it even needs to be explained. It’s understood implicitly in the same way that “streetwear” is, even though there’s no working definition of the genre or what kinds of clothes fall within its jurisdiction. 

Sure, people know what streetwear is. But who? 

Some people associate their earliest memories and most cherished loved ones with Air Force 1s and Pelle Pelles. Some people’s first run-ins with the NYPD—and possibly not their last, if they lived to tell the story—were because of the Polo hoodie or baggy True Religion jeans they had on. Some people live and grew up on the blocks that high fashion brands use as locations for “streetwear” campaigns intended to replicate authenticity and trigger nostalgia. 

So again, the questions are 1. what is streetwear and 2. to whom? 

To tech-bros and pseudo-creative directors who hang out in “Dimes Square,” it’s (like everything else) a vibe and an aesthetic. To describe it, they might reference the most recent lookbook of a brand whose name most of us can’t even pronounce. Or a recent collaboration between a luxury fashion house and a lesser known brand that lends them “cultural credibility” among a certain audience. 

And these are actual insights coming out of the conversations that this work involves. People who are fans of streetwear but have no connection to or context for anything happening on the “streets” tend to focus more heavily on the “wear”—they’ll define streetwear through specific cuts of clothing, or brands, or designers. 

When talking to other people about streetwear, people who will look at you funny for even saying Dimes Square out loud, it becomes more abstract. They struggle to describe what it is, even while wearing outfits that with just one look would convince anybody that they have a true connection to the clothing. They usually talk about their outfits as things they threw together, accomplishing with minimal effort the “vibe” that many styling directors dream of executing convincingly. 

The difference here is that for some people, “streetwear” refers to clothing. And they’ve studied this clothing and are in boardrooms with other people studying the performance of said clothing and they’re inventing stories to tell about the clothing when it’s released. For other people, the stories surrounding the clothing start after they put them on and live life wearing them. 

You’d think the latter is just how categories of fashion are supposed to work. If you run or maintain an active lifestyle, then lifestyle fashion is for you. If you are a professional or student, there’s workwear or preppy style. If you’re going to Coachella, there’s the Boho look. 

Who is the audience for streetwear, and to what streets are they meant to be going? 

Of course, not all categories of fashion are based on utility and or behave like uniforms. Take avant-garde or haute couture for example: there’s no real-life context for the clothing within these categories, and that’s kind of the point. The designers are telling stories and expressing ideas about real life, often things that they have a personal connection to or passion for, using the grandiosity and freedom of the runway. 

Thus, another question: what are the ideas and stories inspiring the campaigns and runway shows we’ve seen in the streetwear space over the past few years? Who are the people inspiring the designers? Are said people involved in the process in any way—from the designing/concepting to the storytelling/marketing?

A quote from the 2021 Hoodwear Diaries zine puts the streetwear market at a valuation of $185M. Today, projections forecast that by 2028 the market will be worth a whopping 230 million dollars. 

Meanwhile, several of the independent brands within the Hoodwear Diaries community—read “independent” as “owned, operated, funded, and sustained by literally one person”—struggle not with building an audience, but with finding enough material support to continue making the clothes their community likes to wear. Many of their own personal projections forecast that by 2028, or even next year, their brands may not even be around. 

People like them, people who were born or raised in the hood, understand the clothing that falls under ‘streetwear’ through the lens of life experiences. Not just theirs—yes, it’s the memories in their personal lives, but it’s also the music video they remember first seeing a certain jacket in. Or they think through the ‘era’ in which a certain style of dressing became popularized, usually eras they personally witnessed. Or, for New Yorkers it’s about the subtle nuances between the ways the different boroughs dress.

All of this is context you would need to have—to live—in order to even know what they’re talking about. This is the context that the majority of the people benefitting from streetwear’s current 185 million dollars do not have. So to talk about defining streetwear, it must first be acknowledged that the category itself is from the perspective of an outsider looking in. 

The need to call it ‘streetwear’ only arose once it started being perceived by people outside of it, people who found opportunity in its attractiveness. That’s why the people within it don’t spend as much time describing it: the industry are the seers, the hood is the eye. 

Names should give things meaning, power, and tell an honest story about what they are. Sometimes names are created in order to sell something, by and for people that said thing does not belong to. That’s why Flatbush does just fine being Flatbush until it’s time for the rent to go up, and then you’re suddenly from Prospect Lefferts Gardens. That’s how Chinatowns turn into Dimes Squares. Names, especially in NYC, are essential to history and the meaning we do or don’t give them reflects who does, or doesn’t, have power. This conversation around streetwear could easily turn into (and already is) one about colonization and the political impacts of de-contextualization, but that’s for another day. 

Today, we’re defining hoodwear. 

It’s not a category of fashion. Off the strength of the word ‘hood’ being in the name alone, it cannot ever be repackaged or decontextualized. The hood is the context—and it always will be. 

‘Hoodwear’ is a developing cultural understanding of the importance of fashion to community, livelihood, and history. ‘Hoodwear Diaries’ is a platform for multidisciplinary storytelling and communal documentation at the intersections of fashion and hip-hop. 

Speaking of hip-hop, that’s another thing that’s interesting to note about the ‘industry’ side of streetwear: most people on that side never mention it. Or if they do, they’ll talk about music that they simply listen to and emulate rather than music that they have an innate connection to or respect for. 

Hoodwear Diaries raises conversations around fashion, but hip-hop will always be the fabric that the platform is made of. The relevance of the music to these conversations only ever needs to be made clear to people who have no understanding of/connection to the ‘hood’—those of us who know, know. 

The hood is the location. Hip-hop is the soundtrack. The clothes are the uniform. But the person within all of that is what this project is about. In the hood, the style we put on is a personal expression of our identities and our histories. Our being.

Our diaries.