Home as Hat: Kelly de Martino

Kelly de Martino from Home as Hat

Hood as Hat

"When in doubt, wear red" - Bill Blass

When I began to think about how I was going to approach stitching this Home as Hat, the overwhelming feeling of a hood emerged. I began to think in earnest about the implications of the hoodie as another form of a covering, a form of protection which was heavily laden with symbology. The hood is a mysterious hat that allows one to partially cover not only the head but the face giving the wearer a deeper sense of anonymity and protection.

Little Red Riding Hood, the ancient folktale also known as "Little Red Cap", immediately came to mind as I selected the crimson red thread. The tale was first written down in the 1600's and was popularized by The Brothers Grimm in the 1800's. The red hood has been in interpreted in many ways as a symbol of menstruation, the sun and the natural cycles of the seasons,as well as the ritual of going through puberty, and sexual awakening. 

Covering ones head used to be standard practice throughout the world. Not so long ago, and still in come countries today, it was mandatory for women and young girls to cover their hair and head as a sign of innocence and humility. In our modern Western world today we no longer cover our heads with hats on a daily basis, except for the random hoodie or baseball cap.

More recently, the hoodie has become the symbology of injustice and racial profiling as we saw in the Trayvon Martin case. An entire "hoodie" revolution took place back in 2012 when Geraldo Rivera famously blamed the hoodie for this young man's death. The garment now stands in our collective consciousness as an emblem of race in America.

Here's to looking under the hood,

Julie Green

June 25, 2016