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People keep saying streetwear is dead. Tommy Hilfiger said it most recently in a pre-show interview at New York Fashion Week. The late Virgil Abloh — who is credited with bringing streetwear into the luxury world — predicted it. “I would definitely say it’s gonna die, you know? Like, its time will be up,” he said in an interview back in 2019.
Abloh later clarified that he meant the community rather than the aesthetic, but the latest round of fashion shows seemed to reinforce the point. Luxury fashion’s previous flirtation with streetwear silhouettes — oversized hoodies, graphic tees, sneakers and technical outerwear — have largely been replaced by a return to house codes and craftsmanship.
Still, streetwear insiders aren’t convinced. “It’s not like nothing’s happening. There’s a tonne of energy in the market,” says David Fischer, founder of style platform Highsnobiety. “Granted, it’s different from the energy that Supreme and Palace created, but it’s there.”
“Where people would say it’s dead, I would say it’s grown,” says Alex Ropes, CEO and creative director of The Basement, a London-based fashion and youth culture community. “We’ve entered a time in streetwear where that pound that a consumer might have spent in one or three places before could now be spent in one of 30 places. And I think that story is harder for corporations to monetise.”
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New wave brands like Corteiz, Always Do What You Should Do, Drama Call, Clints Inc, YearsofTears and House of Errors have risen to prominence in the UK market, with many eschewing traditional retail models and going direct-to-consumer through 24-hour-only sales. Another favourite approach is to hold activations, such as Broken Planet’s scavenger hunts around London or Corteiz’s Great Bolo Exchange, where consumers exchanged any puffer coat for a Corteiz Bolo jacket.
Conventional retailers don’t get much of a look-in. “If retailers can’t harness the financial power of these brands, then it’s in their best interest to ignore or write them off,” says Ropes. “Sometimes that whole conversation about streetwear being dead feels like a top-down conversation. Corporate businesses can’t make money off it anymore, so therefore, it’s dead to them, rather than it being dead in the streets.”
Has streetwear become a dirty word?
The roots of streetwear can be traced back to several influences and movements, but in broad terms, it emerged from the convergence of skateboarding, hip-hop culture and the DIY aesthetic of punk and graffiti art. Stüssy is considered one of the great streetwear pioneers, with the brand initially gaining popularity in the skateboarding and surf scenes in Southern California. Other key brands include Supreme, established in New York City in 1994, which started as a skateboarding shop, and A Bathing Ape (or Bape), founded in 1993 by Japanese designer Nigo. Over the years, new entrants such as Palace, Awake NY and Noah have built their own cult followings.
Fischer argues that “brands have never been happy to be labelled as ‘streetwear’” — the implication being they are just about hoodies and T-shirts. “Nobody would debate that Balenciaga is a luxury fashion house, but they probably do more ‘streetwear’ than other streetwear brands,” he says. “You look online and 80 per cent of the shop is hoodies and T-shirts.”
Fischer doesn’t believe in making a distinction between fashion and streetwear, a perspective that is reflected in Highsnobiety’s tone of voice. “Very early on it became about breaking down the barriers between what people would label as streetwear and what people would label as fashion,” he explains. “The barriers never really existed for us. It was more the market that had created those barriers.”
“Names are just politics,” agrees Junior Clint, founder of Manchester-based brand Clints Inc. “I don’t really identify with names as such. I think it’s just the feeling you give to people and the reason you give them to be on the journey with them.”
Tremaine Emory, founder and creative director of Denim Tears, often described as a streetwear brand, is also sceptical. For him, Denim Tears specialises in sportswear, ready-to-wear and footwear. “To me, the term streetwear is a way for people to label stuff that they don’t totally understand or makes them afraid,” he says.
While streetwear is often associated with logo-mania, Emory cites Karl Lagerfeld’s freewheeling use of Chanel’s Double C logos on tennis rackets and snowboards — long before Supreme came along. “Was anyone calling that streetwear? Why do people see it as different? That’s the question people really have to ask themselves.”
A post-luxury collaboration identity crisis
The 2017 collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Supreme was a seismic event for the industry, marking a watershed moment when luxury and streetwear converged. The following year, Ralph Lauren collaborated with Palace, Dior Homme with Kaws and Gucci with Dapper Dan. By the end of 2019, PWC estimated the streetwear market to be worth $185 billion.
“The high-fashion industry smelt blood,” says Emory of the blueprint that the Supreme and Louis Vuitton collaboration established. “They were like, ‘There’s a new consumer.’ What people call streetwear — founded in hip-hop, music, style, culture made by Black people, Hispanic people — was consumed 80 per cent by white and Asian kids,” says Emory. “So they’re like, ‘Oh, we can get these aesthetics into our thing. We can get those people who have the money to buy it.’”
The monetisation of streetwear was fuelled by the fact that streetwear shares a core characteristic with luxury fashion. “Both are exclusive,” explains Marta Indeka, senior foresight analyst at The Future Laboratory. “Although luxury activates this through high price points, grassroots streetwear communities do so through word-of-mouth knowledge sharing.”
Streetwear lost its way, she suggests. “You need to be authentic; you need to cultivate your community — that’s true for most brands, but crucial for streetwear. It became not a uniform but a costume — something you just wear in and out one day without really adhering to all of the lifestyle characteristics that bring those people together. This is why I think the new rising brands are so interesting because they’re really getting creative to reconnect with those grassroots communities that actually care about it.”
Ropes agrees: “When Palace collabs with Gucci and Supreme collabs with LV, it represents a move away from your traditional core consumers. They might want it, but they definitely can’t afford it. That’s where you get those younger, fresher brands stepping into the space and really reclaiming streetwear for young people because that’s what it’s always been really and truly — a visceral expression of youth.”
Building excitement around belonging
It appears that authentic streetwear is now sidestepping hypebeast culture, logo-mania and expensive collaborations. “I think it’s less about your financial ability to belong, and more about your social and cultural ability to belong,” says Ropes of the drivers for this next-gen streetwear market. “How deep are you in the game? How nuanced is your understanding?”
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In a world where information is algorithmically pumped to us constantly, it doesn’t take much to be in the know. That’s why, says Indeka, brands are rethinking to “make things not less accessible, but more lore-driven”. Examples include YearsofTears setting its Instagram page to private and operating drops through its Discord channel — or Clints Inc holding community hangout nights at its Manchester store.
“There aren’t many brands that truly have a community,” says Indeka. “Communities get built by people, and that’s why I think some of the most energetic brands today are very much centred around people. It’s the guys sitting in the Whatsapp channel, handing out codes and early access.”
“It’s a much more interesting story that’s being told — and that energy [is] from brands that are for better or worse labelled streetwear,” says Fischer of Highsnobiety. “That energy comes from a very true space that feels real. There’s a real person, a founder that you can connect with, a real-life story that’s being told.”
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