Ever since I can remember cool has been, well, cool. It’s one word that has never dropped out of use and that’s rare. Here at Bespoke, we’re fans of the classics and if any word can claim to be classic, it’s cool. It’s to words as Kilgour is to suits, utterly relevant, utterly timeless.
So, it’s hardly news to us. But, and this might surprise you, your grandparents may well have heard the word used to refer to things other than temperature. Cool’s been around for a while. At the beginning of the last century cool referred to self-confidence, a cool character was someone with assurance and self-belief. Often used in a negative sense, this continued until African Americans transformed the meaning of the word.
In the early to mid-19th century, African American culture was all about reversing perception, it became popular to reverse an intended negative and make it, well, cool. Cool became a positive, affirming word, a sly shot at those who would put you down. Being described as cool was no longer a bad thing. Moreover, the joke was on those who didn’t understand the term, the very people who were, by definition, uncool.
In the 1940s the word began its global spread with the rise of cool jazz. As this wonderfully emotive music spread around the world, so did cool. It became associated with the laid-back, easygoing style of the music it described. By the time we hit the 1950s cool is associated with a variety of styles, an indifferent person, a fashionista, a calm individual, a collected person, all could be described as cool.
From the 1950s the word was absorbed into the era of youth culture that came to epitomize cool – the 1960s. It’s never left, and it doesn’t look as if it’s likely to.
For such a positive word to have originated from a background of racial and social tension is remarkable. Cool has meant many things throughout history; it’s a barometer measuring natural change within society. It’s slang, that’s for sure, but it’s gained a measure of respectability ‘dweeb’ never achieved.
For that to happen, there has to be a certain cache about the word, about the idea. It’s true to say that, while times change, the cool of the last 50 years is here to stay. That’s, dare I say it, cool.
