Fun Fad Facts — The Reed School Quest

Hello, my title is Vieve and that is the primary article of my new column, Fun Fad Facts. In this column I’ll choose completely different types which are gaining popularity round Reed and discover their historical past. This week’s column shall be on patches! Walking round campus and even trying by means of my very own wardrobe, I’ve seen patches popping up on denims, baggage, and different articles of clothes. They vary from band associated merchandise, to political slogans, to easily cute or resonant imagery. Patches individualize clothes and equipment and make your garments much more your personal. Individuality and distinctive costume is well known right here at Reed, so it’s no shock that patches have been percolating throughout campus. But are patches greater than micro expressions of individuality? In this text I’ll discover the distinctive historical past of each material and embroidered patches and the way they mirror class standing and counterculture actions.

Fabric patches started as a purely sensible characteristic, a means of extending the lifetime of a worn or torn garment to keep away from buying a brand new one. Fabric patches had been sometimes created from an previous rag or different purposeless material that was lower after which sewed to cowl a gap or a worn portion of material. Patches had been significantly utilized by enslaved agricultural staff whose garments turned so cloaked in patches that they turned synonymous with poverty. Later in Tudor England, “patches” was used as a derogatory title which means poor or shabby, talking to the category hierarchy of the time. Patches remained so vital as an emblem for poverty that Hemingway and Dickens each signify destitution and despair by means of patches. As time handed, patches shifted from a sensationalized Western image of poverty to a sensible measure used principally by the working class to elongate the longevity of well-loved clothes.

The historical past of embroidered patches couldn’t be extra completely different from that of material patches. Embroidery first emerged in historical China, particularly between the third and fifth century BC. Embroidery right now was very laborious and the supplies sometimes used had been of the very best worth. These sides made embroidery outstanding solely in essentially the most lavish circles of the higher class. Embroidered patches had been no exception; they had been sometimes woven out of the best silks and even gold thread. Patches particularly turned standing symbols belonging to noble households or lessons, nearly like a household crest. Unlike material patches, these valuable ornamental patches had been synonymous with the higher echelon of society. As embroidery unfold all through Asia, and ultimately different continents, its standing and affiliation with wealth and the divine prevailed. The guide labor concerned within the creation of embroidered patches outlined their excessive standing affiliation, although that shifted in 1829, when the primary sensible embroidery machine was invented through the Industrial Revolution. The embroidery machine revolutionized the method of embroidered patch making, and it turned each faster and cheaper to provide embroidered patches. This facilitated  the implementation of embroidered patches on navy gear to visually signify military ranks. While embroidered patches had been not synonymous with wealth, their navy use sustained their impact as a visible image for social hierarchy, persevering with the legacy of patches as standing symbols. 

In the Sixties, each material and embroidered patches turned adopted by the hippie motion in response to the Vietnam War. They adopted political patches and patches with peaceable imagery to outwardly signify their political stance, tying their look and self-expression with their politics. The use of patches to affiliate identification with politics continued into the mid-70s and 80s as youth counterculture politics shifted from peace and free like to the anti-authoritarian political perspective represented by the punk scene. Patches visually shifted away from the rainbows and peace indicators of the hippie motion and in direction of a darker aesthetic that was harking back to the music popping out of the punk scene. 

Today, patches function visible indicators of particular person identities, and might signify any picture beneath the solar. While they’re symbols of this individualization, they carry the legacy of sophistication hierarchies and political teams regardless of how mundane they could seem. Even if the intentions behind accessorizing through patch have modified, they nonetheless carry the burden of their historical past. Yet, the query at hand just isn’t why patches are common, it’s why are they coming into recognition now? Does their rise in recognition relate to an intentional or unconscious resonance with the pro-peace anti-authoritarian political messaging throughout this time of illegal fascist governance? Are Reedies subliminally or deliberately drawing model inspiration from youth-oriented governmental resistance? Perhaps Reedies are tapping into the controversial “Portland aesthetic” that tends to lean into garments related to poverty, the place the center class and wealthy cosplay as poor? Possibly their popularization solely pertains to the practicality of the patch as a instrument to delay the lifetime of a favourite merchandise, particularly with rocketing costs within the United States? All or none of those prospects could possibly be true. This is all to say that, as a lot as a small rainbow stitched to an previous pair of denims could also be written off as insignificant, patches maintain a wealthy and symbolic historical past.