Fun Fad Facts
Hello, my name is Vieve and this is the first article of my new column, Fun Fad Facts. In this column I will select different styles that are becoming more popular around Reed and explore their history. This week's column will be on patches! Walking around campus and even looking through my own wardrobe, I have seen patches popping up on jeans, bags, and other articles of clothing. They range from band related merchandise, to political slogans, to simply cute or resonant imagery. Patches individualize garments and accessories and make your clothes even more your own. Individuality and unique dress is celebrated here at Reed, so it is no surprise that patches have been percolating all over campus. But are patches more than micro expressions of individuality? In this article I will explore the unique history of both fabric and embroidered patches and how they reflect class status and counterculture movements.
Fabric patches began as a purely practical feature, a way of extending the life of a worn or torn garment to avoid purchasing a new one. Fabric patches were typically created from an old rag or other purposeless fabric that was cut and then sewed to cover a hole or a worn portion of cloth. Patches were particularly used by enslaved agricultural workers whose clothes became so cloaked in patches that they became synonymous with poverty. Later in Tudor England, “patches” was used as a derogatory name meaning poor or shabby, speaking to the class hierarchy of the time. Patches remained so significant as a symbol for poverty that Hemingway and Dickens both represent destitution and despair through patches. As time passed, patches shifted from a sensationalized Western symbol of poverty to a practical measure used mostly by the working class to lengthen the longevity of well-loved garments.
The history of embroidered patches could not be more different from that of fabric patches. Embroidery first emerged in ancient China, specifically between the third and fifth century BC. Embroidery at this time was very laborious and the materials typically used were of the highest value. These facets made embroidery prominent only in the most lavish circles of the upper class. Embroidered patches were no exception; they were typically woven out of the finest silks and even gold thread. Patches in particular became status symbols belonging to noble families or classes, almost like a family crest. Unlike fabric patches, these precious decorative patches were synonymous with the upper echelon of society. As embroidery spread throughout Asia, and eventually other continents, its status and association with wealth and the divine prevailed. The manual labor involved in the creation of embroidered patches defined their high status affiliation, though that shifted in 1829, when the first practical embroidery machine was invented during the Industrial Revolution. The embroidery machine revolutionized the process of embroidered patch making, and it became both quicker and cheaper to produce embroidered patches. This facilitated the implementation of embroidered patches on military gear to visually represent army ranks. While embroidered patches were no longer synonymous with wealth, their military use sustained their effect as a visual symbol for social hierarchy, continuing the legacy of patches as status symbols.
In the 1960s, both fabric and embroidered patches became adopted by the hippie movement in response to the Vietnam War. They adopted political patches and patches with peaceful imagery to outwardly represent their political stance, tying their appearance and self-expression with their politics. The use of patches to associate identity with politics continued into the mid-70s and 80s as youth counterculture politics shifted from peace and free love to the anti-authoritarian political perspective represented by the punk scene. Patches visually shifted away from the rainbows and peace signs of the hippie movement and towards a darker aesthetic that was reminiscent of the music coming out of the punk scene.
Today, patches serve as visual indicators of individual identities, and can represent any image under the sun. While they are symbols of this individualization, they carry the legacy of class hierarchies and political groups no matter how mundane they may appear. Even if the intentions behind accessorizing via patch have changed, they still carry the weight of their history. Yet, the question at hand is not why patches are popular, it’s why are they coming into popularity now? Does their rise in popularity relate to an intentional or subconscious resonance with the pro-peace anti-authoritarian political messaging during this time of unlawful fascist governance? Are Reedies subliminally or intentionally drawing style inspiration from youth-oriented governmental resistance? Perhaps Reedies are tapping into the controversial “Portland aesthetic” that tends to lean into clothes associated with poverty, where the middle class and rich cosplay as poor? Possibly their popularization entirely relates to the practicality of the patch as a tool to prolong the life of a favorite item, especially with rocketing prices in the United States? All or none of these possibilities could be true. This is all to say that, as much as a small rainbow stitched to an old pair of jeans may be written off as insignificant, patches hold a rich and symbolic history.