Hi…. I’m a Hoodie… and since 2010 I’ve been building a fairer world. How? Well my friend Dr Equality defined equality once as the share of knowledge, wealth, power, voice, and agency…. heaps of our exchange our economy that moves our connections and relations is centred around a $, what I’ve been trying to do is be like a $, but instead of being a transaction, I’ve tried to be a relational tool, a connective tissue, like the human skin. Something that activates, that rewards, that glues a network together.
Since 2010 when I was born, I’ve been worn by close to 10,000 university students, who have volunteered over 100,000 hours — I mean volunteered is an odd economic frame… I prefer they’ve activated their time, engaged in learning knowledge and created opportunities for themselves and the mentees they’ve been connected to. That’s what I call the dome of Hoodie Economics… have I lost ya’ll? Hello! Unicorn Donkey? Ah you’re back… economics shouldn’t be hidden for the bankers to use as code… it’s simply what we choose to value in exchange between each other… and guess what…. WE choose the value… no matter the pressure or narratives written for us by crew sitting behind screens, or cats screaming at us via billboards, or wrappings on the newspapers… we decide the value, we decide how to connect with each other, the ultimate power is human connection, and we can change the flow.
I’ve been the uniform for a generation of young people from outside the margins to be met where they are — with their intelligence valued and the script flipped from obligation to opportunity, from charity to connection.
I’ve been worn by chefs, Prime Ministers, fashionistas, Wimbledon Champions, NYC business ballers, systems thinkers, I’ve wandered across the continent of Africa, traversed the monasteries of India. I’ve navigated the cold of Europe, and today, I’m here to re-introduce myself to ya’ll.
I’ve been hanging with Professor Asterix — the Professor of Hoodie Economics for the last 2 years and been desperately trying to make sure we don’t “Sell Me Out”… I didn’t want to be another piece of cloth bought and tossed away, I wanted to be alive, to be the edge of the network for AIME’s work, connecting you all together in a social network for good, and I wanted work to go into making me. There’s enough clothes in the world, we don’t need more, and with Prof Asterix I spent countless long nights debating how and why we should make Hoodies. And so we landed on a few ways we could make it work.
We want to activate all of our Hoodies — that if you connect with it, you can see the way this Hoodie is Creating a Fairer World. And in some instances this will mean $$ can’t buy the Hoodie. $$ can’t buy the AIME Ambassador Hoodies. $$ can’t buy the university mentor Hoodies. $$ can’t buy the Hoodies that will sit in our shop in our new nation — IMAGI-NATION.
And when $$ can buy it, there’ll either be space for you to make your own commitment to activate the Hoodie to build a fairer world, or we’ll make it explicitly clear how your purchase will create a reaction to make a fairer world.
Secondly we are going to make almost all of our Hoodies Made to Order meaning there will in a year or two be no more dead stock at AIME, and this will mean that when you buy an AIME Hoodie, it’ll take time. It will represent the time it takes to make a garment, and sometimes that might mean 6 months for something to be made meaningfully from nothing. And that’s because that’s actually what it takes — we have to rebalance our expectations on gratification and connect more deeply to the effort and cost of creating anything in this world. We hope the time it takes to make, and to move and arrive in your hands builds anticipation, appreciation for craft and creation, and then lands with you something you’ll keep for life.
For all of our Hoodie Friends when over time the Hoodie falls to pieces we’ll create a ReclAIMEd website with kits, and tools as to how to help bring it back to life.
And from next week, I’ll be your regular Tuesday companion, dropping into your life every week with a new way you can connect with one of my family, a family of Hoodies creating a Fairer World.
It’s with love and joy in my heart I sign off, and can’t wait to bring to you the magic that lays ahead.
Yours in Hoodie Economics,
The AIME Hoodie.
(Insert Pics and captions from the last 10 years in a GIF)
Time Portal of some of my adventures over the last decade
