How the grey Champion hoodie became an icon

An icon is not made overnight. We trace the evolution of the classic Champion hoodie and its place at the heart of popular culture for nearly 100 years, loved by actors, artists – and even reluctant cross-country runners from texas to Sydney

By Oliver Mol

Published: Oct 16, 2024

SOMETIMES I THINK none of us wanted to run cross country at all – we just wanted those team-issued Champion hoodies that the best juniors and seniors would wear – or drape over their girlfriends’ shoulders. Of course, this isn’t strictly true. We enjoyed running, and although we would have preferred to make the basketball or football teams, what we really wanted, I think, all the way back in the year 2000, in Texas, at 14 years old, was to belong.

There were three of us – Nick, Greg and me – and each morning, because cross country was a winter sport, we would pile into the backseat of whosever’s parents’ turn it was to drive, our Champion hoodies tigthened over heads and faces, attempting to sleep a little more, or at least bracing for the several miles we would have to run before school. I some ways, looking back, it strikes me as comical, because although our coach terrified us – he used to, for example, enjoy riding his bike next to us while yelling obscenities and occasionally cracking a whip – every now and then our faces would emerge from those hoodies, and we would look at one another with expressions conveying some mix of curiosity, dread and absurdity, and then laugh.

None of us lasted long on the cross-country team. At some point, my parents told me we would be moving back to Australia. And although I’d assumed that when I told Nick and Greg the news there would be a certain amount of discomfort or sadness, they, in fact, agreed, in an act of solidarity, and with a touch of glee, to quit the cross-country team immediately.

Our coach was livid. None of us was what you might call a star athlete, but that didn’t stop him from calling us those derogatory names that, by then, were familiar, and which we received – somewhat heroically, I think now – with detachment. Walking out of the locker rooms for the last time, I can still remember Nick saying: “But there ain’t no way in hell I’m giving back my Champion hoodie!”

During those last months before I left, we returned to that other, far more enjoyable sport, skateboarding, and after school, we would set up a makeshift box and rail in Nick’s driveway, taking turns trying – with far more determination than we had given to cross country – to commit, or at least not to die. Curiously, though, what I remember most are not the boardslides we landed, but those Wu-Tang Clan albums we listened to, and those Champion hoodies we still wore, those Champion hoodies that could handle the falls we took on the pavement, that had become something like badges of honour. Because, of course, by then, Nick had shown us, or at least told us, that Wu-Tang Clan wore them, too.

An archival Champion print. Image: courtesy of Champion

Last month, when I recounted this story to Jay Escobara, global vice president of design at Champion, he looked at me knowingly and smiled, We had just spoken about the evolution of the iconic Champion hoodie, how it had been reinvented in the ’30s, when they’d added a hood to the sweatshirt to protect athletes from the elements – or maybe their coaches – during outdoor training; and how, in 1952, Champion had patented their Reverse Wear hoodie technology, which meant that the hoodie would retain its shape even after repeated washing.

“That’s why we loved skating in them,” Escobara said. “Because we could take a fall. Our Made in Japan and Made in USA collections are still true to those archival patents. We saw Wu-Tang and Nas wearing them. We knew the garment was quality.

“You know, ” he continued, after a pause, “I’ve seen Winona Ryder, Jay-Z, Kanye [now Ye], Jerry Lorenzo wearing Champion hoodies. Not every brand I know has that same connection. But there was this intertwining moment in the ’90s between hip hop, rave, punk, art and skate culture, and that was just what you wore. You were skating all day, and you had to go to a rave literally in the same thing. We didn’t change clothes. We were crunchy. But the Reverse Weave hoodie was quality. Across culture, I think, that what brought, and brings, us together: our appreciation of quality.”

The night before I left America, my parents invited Nick and Greg over for a barbecue. The mood, for the most part, was one of bliss and ignorance, and as we ate sausages, drank Fanta, played basketball and took turns attempting to ollie over what we called the plant gap that separated the porch from the driveway, I remember, suddenly, a plane flying overhead, and although none of us said anything, I think we knew it would be some time before we saw one another again.

In any case, that eveing, we held it together. But the following morning, when I went to pack my school bag for the plane, I found Nick’s Champion hoodie stuffed inside, and beneath it a note: “Enjoy kangaroo land. I’ll miss you. See you soon.”