Streetwear for dummies
I took a particularly long time to write this article because I wanted it to be the best version of it. It takes a very complete look at many different sides of the streetwear trends, so it is a bit long. Even if you don’t read it in full, please let me know what you think so I can improve!
In an article for Now Fashion, Marta Represa explains that the trend was born with the skaters and surfers’s culture in Los Angeles, California about 40 years ago. It wasn’t too much like what we know today – the clothing was mostly made to be something comfortable you could wear after or during physical activity (and also items that looked cool, let’s be honest). When a certain Shawn Stussy started making T-shirts along with his line of skateboards, the targeted clientèle had no choice but to swear by his products. Brands like Vans were also entering the game, though they remained very different from what we know today: the shoes were affordable, practical for skateboarding and the T shirts were used for post surfing chill sessions.
112.1k Likes, 470 Comments - Stüssy (@stussy) on Instagram: "Speedway Summer '18 📸 @antoshcimoszko @liammacrae"
When reading about the matter however, you’d find out that most of these people – surfers, skaters etc. wouldn’t wear those brands anymore, because of the way they have evolved, and how they’re being used in fashion today.
In a nutshell, if you want to talk about the history of streetwear, my first argument is to say that the trend has nothing to do with its 1970s debut and that the best word to describe its evolution probably is ‘appropriation’.
Why appropriation?
Well, after its birth in California, the streetwear trend moved to the Hip Hop culture, where some changes were made, and new figures popped up – only to be later taken over by the fashion world that we know and love today – but more on that later.
Picture New York in the 1990s – some skate, some rap, and the whole mix is contributing to a new kind of cool in the Big Apple. In 1994, a small skating brand by the name of Supreme emerges from the fusing ideas of James Jebbia – recently jobless since his boss, Shawn Stussy, has decided to retire –, opens its first shop on Lafayette Street in Soho. To its creator, supreme is not a store, “it’s a space”. He talks about his lines as “clothes made like music”. For a recent article in Vogue, he explained:
“There are always critics that don’t understand that young people can be into Bob Dylan but also into the Wu-Tang Clan and Coltrane and Social Distortion. Young people—and skaters—are very, very open-minded . . . to music, to art, to many things, and that allowed us to make things with an open mind.”
557.7k Likes, 6,949 Comments - Supreme (@supremenewyork) on Instagram: "Supreme®/RIMOWA. 04/12/2018"
691.8k Likes, 2,075 Comments - Chiara Ferragni (@chiaraferragni) on Instagram: "💘 #ChiaraTakesSardinia"
And maybe this incoming “open-mindedness” is what the millennials were craving for when they gave so much importance to Supreme. Maybe, by waiting in line for hours only to buy items they’d sell the minute they set foot outside the small shops located in the greatest cities of the world, they were sharing something with every other youngster that was doing the same. But does that sentiment explain the overwhelming success and change brought upon by the box logo brand? I'm not so sure.
Recently, the fashion world has been in complete awe of the trend that is supreme – and more widely, streetwear. Shops have been opened in Tokyo, London and Paris, and supreme was even invited on the runway when Creative Director of Louis Vuitton Menswear Kim Jones decided to throw in a collaboration with the skateboard brand. Kim Jones noted the different types of customers that were waiting in line for the drop – “they are loyal to the brand” he explained.
Throughout their numerous collaborations, Supreme has been able to reach a very wide range of customers – from the Start up Boss who wants a pair of the north face x Supreme shoes, or the Famous Italian Blogger who’s overalls needed to be Louis Vuitton x Supreme, or the Cali girl who will only go on holiday with her Samsonite x Supreme suitcase. (If you don’t know who they are, look up Chiara Ferragni and Aimee Song).
But brands like Supreme who surf on the current trends have to be careful about overexposure – if you think about it, the communications team of the brand isn’t very present – what I mean by that is that the ads you’d see for the brand are mostly influencers or celebrities wearing supreme, and not big Decaux panels that sell the latest T shirt.
Jebbia explains that the exposure comes from social media – the brand shows the collections they produce, their products (as incongruous as they may be; a flipper, mason jars etc.)
To put it simply, this is what I think works with supreme – Jebbia creates the demand by producing a very small stock of products that only a few people will be able to afford. The prices are high, but not too high for 18-25 year olds to be unable to afford them, and as rare as those Pokemon cards we all exchanged as kids. The clothing is cool because it comes from skate culture – the products are comfortable, easy to pair up and they are “gender neutral” (although that might not have been intentional at first, the fact that girls wear boys’ jackets and shirts sold at supreme stores helps the sales).
However, I'm not saying that Jebbia created his brand with the intent of making rare products everyone would desire. I think it’s quite the opposite – what he explained in his interview for Vogue was that “he could only make so many hats and t shirts”. His value of authenticity and quality limited the quantity of products that “a small skateshop” – as he calls it – could produce. And maybe that’s what the millennials were craving, in the end.
While the impact of Supreme is undeniably tremendous, it would be a lie to say that it is the only reason streetwear is facing such a strong growth in fashion – other directors and popular figures have something to do with it.
If you know anything about streetwear today, you probably have heard about the Gvasalia brothers. Emmanuelle Alt, editor in chief of Vogue Paris talks about him as one of the most creative directors of the moment, and as men to watch out for.
36.8k Likes, 69 Comments - VETEMENTS (@vetements_official) on Instagram: "EXPLORE VETEMENTS INSIDE-OUT PIECES & AND MORE www.matchesfashion.com @matchesfashion @matches_man..."
29.5k Likes, 159 Comments - VETEMENTS (@vetements_official) on Instagram: "NEW SHOES JUST ARRIVED www.matchesfashion.com @matchesfashion"
When they launched the brand Vêtements with a team of other less known designers, Demna and Guram instituted a new model for fashion. In 2014, the brand of “exaggerated silhouettes” and “streetwear inspired clothing commands” put its clothing line on the market at prices that resembled those you would see on couture items. The fashion industry cried scandal, and 3 years later, the brand was doing so well that about 200 stockists worldwide were selling their products (that includes Dover Street Market, Net-a-Porter and Selfridges). In an article dedicated to the Gvasalia brothers, Business of Fashion wrote that:
“They combined the men’s and women’s runway show and made the decision to show Vêtements during pre-seasons in order for the clothing to remain on the shop floors for a longer period of time than it would do showing on season.
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Long story short – after 2017, the brand isn’t doing too well anymore, some critics say that Demna (the brother behind all creative decisions) is putting all his good ideas in the Balenciaga thinking box, and none of the good ones are left for Vêtements. Alternatively, the high prices of the brand were justified by its being so ahead of its time, and with the fact that it launched numerous trends in the streetwear world, shaping it into what it is today (or at least strongly contributing to the movement).
In a nutshell, streetwear went from being the everyday skater boy’s t-shirt to the latest trend that every catwalk would reimagine according to the codes of its brand. But what made it so popular in the first place?
Well; opinions differ on this matter. For Highsnobiety’s Alec, it is due to the fact that society’s codes have “relaxed”: “no one goes out on a Friday night wearing a suit”. This is something that you can appreciate everywhere now – people tend to dress more casually on a regular basis, with couture diminishing as a market and exceptional gowns being reserved for red carpets. In his opinion, there was also the celebrity factor – people like the Kardashians are enormous trendsetters nowadays (hi cyclist shorts from Kim – you’ll see them everywhere very soon if you want my opinion). Other famous figures like Kanye, Rihanna etc. have an eye for streetwear, and people have an eye for them – meaning streetwear is making its mark through their tastes and what they wear. His last argument is the democratization of fashion – with so many new designers coming out every year, and fashion weeks getting more and more numerous, something becomes undeniable: the codes to enter the fashion world aren’t as strict, and small brands that have less of a snobbish style are “getting in” with the big boys. 30 years ago, Kanye’s Brand Yeezy wouldn’t have been allowed in fashion weeks. Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty just debuted at New York fashion week last week, and would it not have been for Marc Jacobs’ poor use of time, she probably would have had all the attention she rightly deserved.
2.6 m mentions J'aime, 26.6 k commentaires - Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) sur Instagram
2.1 m mentions J'aime, 11.3 k commentaires - @badgalriri sur Instagram : " Have you shopped the new @savagexfenty drop sis?? Stop by savagex.com or pull up to the NY... "
42.3 k mentions J'aime, 340 commentaires - YEEZY MAFIA (@yeezymafia) sur Instagram : "YEEZY x @Pornhub PHOTO @RICHARDKERNSTUDIO"
So then, if anyone can get into fashion week and the codes of fashion are now the codes of the masses (or the street), then does this mean that fashion has a “anything goes” policy where nothing really is coded and anyone can do anything?
Eugene Rabkin thought about this in an article for the Business of Fashion. In there, he explains that fashion is in a state of “postmodernism” where “nothing means anything anymore”. He wrote this paragraph which I thought was simply spot on:
““Fashion once had its old masters in Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, its impressionists in Yves Saint Laurent and Cristobal Balenciaga, and a long stretch of its own modernist avant-garde starting with Vivienne Westwood and continuing through Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler to Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and the Antwerp Six.
It has its own pop art in Versace and Moschino, minimalists in Jil Sanderand Helmut Lang, deconstructionists in Martin Margiela and Rick Owens, and provocateurs in Alexander McQueen and John Galliano.
But what united all of the above is that they were fashion designers, meaning they had aesthetic direction and worked to convey a theme or tell a story.””
Indeed, they were all fashion designers. They learned the art, mastered it and made it their own. Much like Alessandro Michele made Gucci his own and created a whole universe of tacky “too-much” fashion that we all know and love – and which, in terms of consumerism, is doing great. Demna has recreated an ironic version of fashion where he manages to sell an 8000$ coat that looks like Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes from friends. They made it work.
My opinion on this is as follows – yes, anything goes in fashion. The reason why Margiela was such a genius is because he pushed the boundaries a little too far. In the late 90s, when he put out his collection of duvet coats (not the material, no – he put out his bed’s duvet and turned it into a coat), he was just telling the story of those who felt like they needed to feel warm and comfortable, because they were afraid of what was going on in the world. When Marc Jacobs, last week, showed off his collection of the “good little woman” who became fierce, dominant, and menacing with her man’s clothes, he was telling a story too. Fashion is about crossing boundaries, and the latest one it has crossed is the divide between a snobbish fashion world where no one understood anything, to the trend of streetwear where everyone can identify with the model on the runway. Well, with their clothes, at least.
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