Editorial: Let's lay off the hoodies

The organisers of "national hoodie day", taking place tomorrow as part of the annual Youth Week, should be smiling quietly to themselves at the irony of it all.

Because those who have got on their high horse at the idea of a day on which young people have been encouraged to wear "hoodies" have reinforced the reasoning behind holding such a day. It's intention is to get people to look beyond the stereotypes about those who choose to wear such garments to see the individuals underneath, an exhortation to us all not to judge people based purely on outward appearances.

Frankly, some of the rhetoric that has poured forth from the mouths of politicians, New Zealand First MP Ron Mark and National's Allan Peachey among them, has achieved little except to show them up as doing just that.

Mr Mark, hailed a hero this week for helping to save the life of a seriously injured cyclist, has spoken of the event "promoting black American gang culture" and also thrown in the observation that some malls have banned hoodies.

The suggestion implicit in his comments, and indeed the flavour of the debate this week, has been that hoodies are like gang patches and shouldn't be allowed in public.

In other words, wearing a certain type of clothing makes one a certain type of person and because hoodies have, on occasion, been seen to be worn by some unsavoury types, that means all those who wear them are somehow low-lifes, degenerates, criminals, drop-kicks... What utter poppycock.

As yesterday's photograph on the Herald's front page clearly showed, hoodies come in a range of forms and colours. They can be sleeveless, fur-lined, pink, white, grey. A far cry from the perception that they're all black and that the hood, in the words of yesterday's caption, invariably masks the identity of a hoodlum.

The bottom line is that to those who wear them, hoodies, whatever form they may take, are an item of fashion. They're worn in the main, particularly at this time of year, because they're warm and comfortable, as well as for their fashion value. Five years down the line, it's likely they'll be a rare sight as fashion moves on, most likely to something that, like hoodies, has been tried before.

And if anyone cares to suggest they are offensive from a fashion point of view, it should be pointed out that young women intentionally baring their midriffs, especially when they have an abundance of midriff to bare, or blokes wearing their trousers at half-mast so their boxers are freely visible to all are much harder on the eye. It's fashion, though. They do it by choice.

There's so much criticism of our youth by older generations these days and much of it is deserved -- when they drive like idiots, or drink to excess at a young age -- that in terms of personal choices like what they wear, we really ought to give them a break.