The varsity jacket: from a symbol of prestige to a supermarket bargain

Amid the feeling of despondency over the end of the holidays, exacerbated by the back-to-school season, garments are appearing that remind us to put away the flip-flops and get dressed for fall. And in the school setting, there's one piece that's taking center stage this year: the iconic jacket. varsity, which is characterized by the color contrast between the body and sleeves and by including a letter sewn on the chest. Its origin is older than it seems: in 1865, the elitist Harvard University designed a simple gray wool sweater with an H to identify the players on its baseball team. This seemingly minor detail had a strong symbolic meaning: the sweaters did not belong to the athletes but to the team, and only those who had participated in important games, against major rivals such as Yale or Princeton, could keep it once the season was over. Hence the expression"To learn the letter(earning the letter), which turned the jersey into an object of distinction and a prize for sporting merit.

A decade later, Harvard extended this practice to American football and by the end of the 19th century the letter system had already spread to other universities and even high schools, with distinctive fonts for each educational center. The letters became popular under the name varsity letters, since the term varsity –a shortened, dialectal form of university– served to differentiate official competition teams from amateur or youth teams. The pride and sense of belonging they generated was such that in 1993, astronaut and former college baseball player Jay Apt took his jacket into space during the STS-59 Endeavour mission, as a tribute to his team.

In the 1930s, the sweater evolved into the jacket we know today: a wool body, leather sleeves, and a lettering located on the left chest. This new format became a symbol of prestige and also a key element in campus social dynamics. For decades, the jacket was exclusive to men and part of a ritual that is now interpreted in a sexist tone: boys would give their jackets to their partners to formalize their relationship, like a youthful engagement ring. Clearly, it was a way of marking their territory within the school environment over girls and making it clear that no one could approach them with sexual-affective intentions. Furthermore, this practice reinforced the idea that women did not achieve recognition based on their own merits, but rather through the indirect route of men's achievements. It was only after 1972, with the enactment of the federal law on equal opportunities in sports (Title IX), the athletes were able to aspire to win their letters and wear their own jacket.

The popularity of the varsity jacket It took off with its appearance in film and television. Hollywood made it a visual uniform of the teenage and college world in films like Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Grease (1978) and in series such as Saved by the Bell and Feeling aliveThis aura of prestige also made it a target for theft and led to hip-hop culture adopting it from the 1980s onwards and redefining it as a symbol of pride and the promise of upward mobility, a desire to belong to a world from which it had often been excluded.

And so we come to the present day. A supermarket chain like Lidl is selling jackets. varsity For eight-year-olds, the 7.99 euro jacket is proof that capitalism and fast fashion are the perfect machinery for draining any symbol of meaning, no matter how elitist it was at the outset. Perhaps these jackets no longer have the power to distinguish sporting and academic excellence or become trophies of recognition, but who knows if, by dint of wearing them, they will help reverse the worrying educational situation of Catalan students and the decline in the learning of fundamental skills, as revealed by the latest PISA tests.