Xinyi Ma_ 100% Streetwear

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Content Introduction Yohji Yamamoto

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Main Essay How streetwear became a uniform for progressive youth culture around the world

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Artist Biography

Yohji Yamamoto Off the

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Alexander Wang P84—95

Shawn Stussy P64—73

Alexander Wang talks pride-inspired capsulecollection and using fashion as a vehicle for change

Cuff

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Nigo P75—83

Virgil Abloh P52—59

Jean Chen P100—109

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The History of Streetwear: Urban Beginnings Streetwear has been a hot commodity for about 30 years now, and there’s a clear reason as to why that is. The youth these days always want the right kind of fashion, wearing specific brands or types of clothing is a great way to go about expressing yourself.

Everybody has something to express, and doing it through the use of clothing has never been easier. Streetwear has pretty much urban roots, and when you realize how far it’s come you’re probably going to be shocked. Everything has to start from the ground up, even something as large as streetwear. This industry gives everybody a voice, and it gives hope to designers who feel like they’re about to make that big break. It wouldn’t be this way if the past hadn’t paved a way for the present, and that’s exactly what this article is going to talk about. There isn’t a specific historical event that would mark the making of streetwear. In fact, nobody really knows when it was initially introduced into the world. One thing is for sure though, streetwear is taking the world by storm (and it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseen future).

Think about it, all of your favorite actors and singers are wearing streetwear, so it only makes you want to own it more. There are a lot of things that go into the construction of a streetwear brand, especially one that’s going to resonate and really start to sell.

Within the past 30 years or so, streetwear has been represented in many different lights. Every single decade that passes brings a brand new style to the table, and that’s what we’re covering today. We’re going to delve deeper into the history of streetwear, as we’ll look at some of the most influential names and styles to ever hit our society. Clothes mean a lot more to us than some would think! It initially started in the 80’s, which is where Shawn Stussy started a streetwear uprising. This is the era of people wearing bell-bottom pants and spandex whenever they’d like, so you can imagine how much buzz streetwear was building when it was released at first.

There is a considerable amount of change that has happened throughout the years when you’re talking about streetwear. If there wasn’t change, would we really need to cover the history of this industry? In particular, the 90’s really presented a strong case when it comes to the “strongest streetwear” phase throughout the years. Then again, who’s to say we won’t go streetwear crazy like the 90’s all over again? That is, if we haven’t already!

Tony Alva Team 1988

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[a] Stüssy [b] Off-White™’s Fall/Winter 2019 [c] Workwear OGs such as Dickies and Carhartt [d] Stüssy in the haute-couture universe

Shawn Stussy Shawn Stussy was just a normal surfer back in the 80’s, which is the era where skating or surfing “punks” would rule their humble neighborhoods. Streetwear will always have a youthful influence about it, because that’s who they’re targeting when all is said and done. Shawn Stussy was the first person to actually start creating streetwear tees, and he did it by simply printing his board logo onto shirts. He initially started up this business because it was a great moneymaker, and it happened to cut the costs he had to deal with when making is hand-made surfboards. He could only make about one of these boards per day, so the money that he was earning just wasn’t going to be enough. Needless to say, selling t-shirts out of the back of his car was a fantastic idea (to say the least). He wanted to build up a cool and innovative brand (as far as streetwear went), but he also wanted it to be somewhat “hard to get”.

Rare streetwear is now one of the most idolized things in the world, with shoes and specific pairs of clothing going for well over $500 a piece (and that isn’t the regular retail price). Most of the time they’re either customized pieces of clothing, or they were simply released on a very limited scale. You see, Shawn Stussy was essentially the pioneer for every single streetwear brand we know to date. He understood that having limited numbers of product would call for a demand, and he also understood that having a fantastic design was a necessity (something many aspiring up and coming streetwear designers tend to forget, they just throw a bunch of blurry clip-art on a t-shirt).

In the late 80’s graffiti started to get relatively popular, alongside break dancing and hip-hop music. The three turned the streetwear industry upside down, as it was making strides to become the most sought after clothing type in the world. Everybody wanted to get in on the action, it was full of crop tops and brightly colored spandex; something we had to deal with for way too long! This area can somewhat be applied to the 90’s as well, as snap backs and baggy jeans were starting to make their come up (barely, of course).

Shawn Stussy was the first, but he definitely wasn’t the last. There are thousands of aspiring streetwear designers these days, but not every single one of them is going to make it. You have to not only have a unique idea, but you’ve got to follow through as well; much like Shawn Stussy did.

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Progression: The 90’s Streetwear This is where streetwear started to thrive much more than usual, because the music started coinciding with it. When you blended hip-hop with streetwear there was literally a super-drug created, and that super-drug was a lifestyle that everybody wanted to live (or at least look like they were living). The music scene that hip-hop was building allowed the clothes to really resonate within communities, and people started dedicating their lives to the stuff.

People would develop designs for snapbacks of their very own, and puffy coats were also very high in demand (you probably couldn’t walk a mile or two without seeing some shell-toe Adidas, which I still wear today). Le Coq Sportif was literally at its highest peak in the 90’s as now it’s a brand you barely hear of; ask anybody who was a teenager in the 90’s and they’ll let you know about it. Record labels started hopping onto the bandwagon, and as a result there was a lot more money being put into these particular ventures. Rappers started to become clothing moguls, a trend that you see continuing today; and everybody else just wanted a piece of the pie.

When you mixed a famous face with streetwear it was almost like an immediate success, just ask brands like Timberland or even FUBU. When a product is endorsed so much by “famous” names, it’s going to do a lot as far as sales go. That’s why streetwear made such a large come up in the 90’s and that’s why it continues to rapidly grow in today’s society. The 90’s weren’t all good for the streetwear industry though, as it also allowed for an abundance of copycat companies to come out of the woodwork. Companies would come out and produce low-quality clones of the products you knew and loved, and some people would buy them without even thinking twice. People began looking for retro pieces of clothing like sneakers and hats, which caused the prices for these items to hike up immediately (it’s exactly like the rare streetwear world of today, it’s all about supply and demand).

How streetwear became a uniform for progressive youth culture around the world

The internet was also growing at a rapid rate during this time as well, and that allowed for many more sellers/buyers to get what they needed so direly. Sellers could communicate with buyers and vice versa, which is the beginning of every single online streetwear retailer you’ll come across in modern times. Did I mention that there was a kids rap-duo called “Kriss-Kross” that wore their clothes backwards? Yeah, that actually happened! Now I’m really showing my age. LOL

Keep it Moving: The 00’s Streetwear This is where streetwear started to morph and blend into something “new-age”. You see a lot of musicians and such making use of sports-related clothing, and jerseys were absolutely in. You’d see many clothing companies trying to create football jerseys of their own, except instead of using an official NFL logo, they’d use their own brands logo. This allowed for people to wear unlicensed football jerseys, as well as pay a lot less than they would for them (and they might even just prefer the streetwear alternative). Seeing as it was supposed to have a youthful feeling, people felt like it was only right to progress it that way, which is why you see a lot of the “skinnier” styles right now. People are always trying to innovate, in the 90’s it was baggy, and now it’s slim-fit. It’s all about getting with the times, as a streetwear company you have to be willing to adapt. Streetwear brands started to adapt in the 2000’s, as they started producing fitted caps and even baggier jeans than usual (that is until way later, like 2006-2010 when Filthy Dripped opened its doors on Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA).

Musicians jumped on the bandwagon once again, and rode it all the way to the bank. Songs like “Air Force Ones” by Nelly (and the St. Lunatics) were essentially commercials to the public, only presented in a song form. Not only that, but they were catchy songs to boot! That’s like the perfect way of getting your product sold, and streetwear brands were getting a lot smarter around this time. They finally understood that they’re the majority when it

By SHA BE ALLAH

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comes to clothing now, especially in urban/city-like areas. Street art has always been a way to go about expressing yourself, and throughout the 00’s people were expressing themselves at every possible point they could.

Things almost seem to go full-circle as well, as a lot of the retro looks that people sported in the 90’s are sought after these days.

Brands and clothing that have been well-preserved from that era will score you a pretty penny, and snapbacks have made a very strong comeback as of recent.

As a result, we were given dozens of amazing streetwear companies, some that are actually still around today. Some of the most popular names I can name off the top of my head would be: BAPE, Supreme, LRG, and even some non-mainstream brands like Breezy Excursion. Now you’ll see the likes of jogger pants, which are almost like sweatshirts for your lower half. They come to a crimp at the ankle, so you don’t need to worry about baggy leg-holes ruining your outfit. We’ve adapted quite a bit as far as streetwear goes, especially when you look at it over the years. We went from neon pinks to darker tones of whatever we feel like, and it couldn’t have happened in any other way

Streetwear Today In conclusion, streetwear had to start somewhere; and the fact of the matter is that it was destined to grow. As a human race we’re always going to look for ways to go about doing things differently, that’s what makes us so unique. If we did the same stuff and wore the same clothes throughout the years, there simply wouldn’t be any innovative things happening. We owe it to ourselves to progress as quickly as possible, no matter what we’re progressing in. Streetwear has allowed many people to go about expressing their artistic values through clothing, and it’s going to continue to do so all the way until a new trend comes along. That’s probably going to take a long time, though, so don’t think that we’re going to be holding our breath.

Every line on this list, with a few exceptions, has built their brand off T-shirts, not catering specifically to just an urban or skate audience, and initializing their distribution through selective channels.

Sales distro and image are what ultimately constitute a brand as streetwear, not the art or design.”

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00’ street wear [k], [l], [m]

00’ street wear [0], [p], [q] [k], [l], [m] Fall 2000 Yohji Yamato, Photo: JB Villareal [0], [p], [q] Miss 2000s Streetwear ,Photo: Getty Images

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"Streetwear is about cul -Bobby

Y-3, spring 2020 Alexander wang, spring 2020

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Li-ning, Spring 2020

lture.it's not about cloting" hundreds

Stüssy, spring 2020

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In a way, I still stand by that definition. Design-wise, streetwear boils down to baseball caps, sneakers, hoodies, and most of all, tees. “Streetwear to me is young T-shirt brands,” Diamond Supply Co founder Nick Tershay tells me.

According to Tommy Hilfiger, it’s sportswear and military. “The aesthetic has to be a bit sporty, a bit athletic,” he says. It’s skate and hip-hop, but it’s not exclusively any one of these things.

“I felt like certain brands got it, but they kind of gravitated towards skaters too much,” ASAP Rocky tells me. “Or certain brands got it, but they gravitated toward graffiti and art shit too much.”

Therefore, virtually any fashion brand can identify as streetwear (Alex James of Pleasures remarks, “Every brand is streetwear, right?”). But streetwear’s independent attitude is its distinguishing asterisk. Alyasha Owerka-Moore, a pioneer who’s served as designer for Phat Farm, Alphanumeric, and Fiberops, considers streetwear “any brand that is spawned independently without the backing of factor.”

Jeff Staple on streetwear’s roots: “I like to call it independently created stuff. It wasn’t streetwear yet. It was just people hustling, doing their own thing without any business or financial gain. Just expression.”

When I ask designer Fear of God’s Jerry Lorenzo if he considers his work as streetwear, he replies, “100%. It’s street in the sense that I’m self-taught. And, in the sense we don’t belong to a fashion house or have access to any resources outside of our own. No investors, no partners, etc. The product is pure as we’re not on the fashion calendar and our product is 100% a reflection of our perspective and capabilities. The collection comes out when it’s ready.” When pressed to define “streetwear,” he says, “I guess anything would be considered street that comes outside of the traditional fashion system… and I still don’t really know what exactly ‘that system’ is.”

My Complex list yielded more questions than answers. Here was my attempt at explaining streetwear, but what was everyone else’s? I started filming notable designers and personalities around the world to get their take. One hundred fifty hours of interviews later, we are finally wrapping up post-production on Built to Fail—the first streetwear documentary of its kind—and

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have barely scratched the surface of an exposition (some of those findings are quoted here in this essay). Surprise—no surprise—no two people agreed on what streetwear looks like, who is responsible for it, and where it came from.

First, consider locale, then era. Growing up in Southern California in the ‘90s, my impression of streetwear entailed L.A. workwear, skate, and party brands like X-Large, Fuct, and Freshjive. But, streetwear’s West Coast roots are tethered to the surf counterculture of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Most authorities point to surfboard shaper Shawn Stussy as streetwear’s architect via his namesake brand. Although it’s an ascription I’m not sure he is even comfortable with, Stüssy’s marriage of art, surf, and hip-hop transcended Orange County, hit New York and Japan, and the rest is fashion history.

Trace Marshall (of surf brand Brothers Marshall) also credits other surf designers of the period. “I think [surfboard shaper and artist] Peter Schroff and what was going on at Echo Beach at that time was a heavy influence obviously,” he says. “But going back, if you look at old Thrasher Magazines and stuff, it’s like Jim Ganzer with Jimmy’Z. I think Jimmy’Z was before Stüssy as far as influencer of street; but then it kind of stems to [skateboarder] Jay Adams dressing up as cholo. Skateboarding in the ‘70s was this mainstream thing, and here comes Jay Adams dressed like a cholo pre-Suicidal (Tendencies).”

My counterparts on the East Coast interpret streetwear’s history differently. “I like to think that streetwear was born in New York,” says Jeff. Connecting the dots to hip-hop’s home, Staple sees streetwear and its surrounding musical influences as inextricable.

“You can never take away the fact that we birthed the culture,” he says. “I feel like we have an invitation to the conversation no matter how wack we are doing at either.” He points to brands that were sold at boutiques like Union NY and Triple Five Soul, including PNB, Subware, and Project Dragon, as the flag-bearers.

If you live in Japan, streetwear’s story takes form with Tokyo icons like Hiroshi Fujiwara and Nigo. Miami? Don Busweiler’s Pervert and Animal Farm. If you’re from London, we have to mention Bond International and Michael Kopelman.

Streetwear’s origins tailor around geography; but its definition is also highly predicated on time periods. Although the word itself can be traced to ‘80s skate clothing Vision Streetwear, as an industry and market device, it didn’t come into heavy play until

Alexander Wang

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the 2000s. “I think it finally became a terminology in 2002 or something like that,” says Jeff.

Mega, co-founder of Black Scale, affirms this. “I mean, going back 2002 to 2005 when all this was starting and formulating…

You know, that was the start of what streetwear is today,” he says.

When I ask ASAP Rocky when streetwear exploded, he points to the turn of this decade. “I would say 2011,” he says. “Around the time we were, you know, coming up, and we had SSUR and Black Scale. I mean, we would even wear Mishka, we would wear fucking [The] Hundreds, we would wear fucking Undefeated, all that shit. I mean, Bounty Hunter, you know, all that shit.”

Today, the internet and social media are equalizing these viewpoints. Streetwear’s modern diagnosis is still contingent on time and place, but that “time” is whatever is happening right now and that “place” is blogs. Whereas artists and renegades forged streetwear in the shadows of the underground, in 2017, the finicky media spotlight is determining what—and more critically, who—is streetwear. Hypebeast, Complex, and High Snobiety were the first gate of online streetwear media, attentive to the nuances and culture. Now we have Vogue, Business of Fashion, and GQ editorializing fashion’s most exciting trend.

Streetwear’s current iteration as high-fashion is nothing new.

Shawn Stussy’s Chanel parody with the locking “S”s influenced decades of flirtation between high and low fashion. When Supreme bit Louis Vuitton’s monogram at the turn of the millennium, who knew that lawsuit would turn into an official collaboration 17 years later? “Since Hedi Slimane did Dior Homme, the lines of high fashion and street fashion have blurred,” Edison Chen, founder of Hong Kong-based brand CLOT, says.

The new collaboration of streetwear and fashion is powered by profits. “What streetwear has become is what bothers me,”

How streetwear became a uniform for progressive youth culture around the world

Erik Brunetti of Fuct tells me. “Big business corporations have infiltrated streetwear and are currently in the process of rewriting its history to fit their financial narrative. I don’t fit in that narrative simply because I’m aware ofwhat they are doing. By keeping me, Erik Brunetti, out of the picture, it makes it safe for unqualified individuals to enter the industry and become overnight streetwear sensations. Being a friend of a famous rapper seems to qualify. It’s like when a blockbuster movie makes a toy to accompany the release to increase the sales. The movie company does not care about content, only money. Same thing is currently taking place with streetwear. The rapper or reality star needs to be a streetwear designer and own a label to accompany his album. Hype sites and related publications gladly jump on board. Real talent and designs go unnoticed.

It’s all become disposable fashion.”

The media has expanded the genre to include everything from pop-up rap merch to athleisure. Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo concert apparel was some of the most popular streetwear of 2016, featuring Gildan blank T-shirts emblazoned with Cali DeWitt’s iron-on letter artwork. That same summer, Forever 21 capitalized on the fad by introducing a knock-off range of tees, down to the typography. Yet, outside the commercial focal point, streetwear’s raw, independent fringe still thrives.

Alex of Pleasures sees a revolution coming: “It’s going back into the hands of people with a voice, pushing boundaries and using graphics as a medium to express stances on social and political issues.”

If you look up “culture,” the definition on the Merriam-Webster dictionary reads, “A social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and discontinuities of social meaning of a life held in common.”

Kanye’s Yeezy Season 4 show

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“Streetwear is constantly redefining itself. So, it is difficult to define it as one thing,” Erik adds. Subjective experiences make it impossible to nail down a comprehensive streetwear definition.

In regards to his brand Off-White, high fashion/streetwear forerunner Virgil Abloh declares, “100% yes I consider my work ‘streetwear’ or any categorization that allows anyone to grasp my point of view and where it comes from.” It’s these personal opinions and narratives—the history—that make streetwear a “life held in common.” Virgil reinforces this. “’Streetwear’ is an art movement, it’s a way of making things,” he tells me. “It’s a rationale birthed by previous art movements and pop-culture life cycles.”

There have been countless brands that open up on Fairfax or walk the runway under the “streetwear” tag, but the ones who treat it as fabric or lack historical knowledge, dim as the business grows. It’s not hard to print T-shirts, and with a little bit of momentum, there’s fast growth. But, lasting streetwear brands play by the rules. Even if they break them, they know them first.

Streetwear is about culture. It’s not about clothing. It’s about stories like these—stories like ours. “It’s a lifestyle,” Edison maintains. “It’s not a clothing piece. It’s how we feel. It’s how we live. It’s what we listen to. It’s what we eat. It’s how we spend our money.” In other words, in the concert tour of life, streetwear is the merch.

Streetwear was born out of the hyper-specific locations and hobbies of American bi-coastal youthcultures, practical-but-cool clothes for skaters and surfers in Cali and NYC in the 70s and 80s. It evolved as a DIY reaction to the ideals of the luxury fashion industry and its seasonal schedules, eschewing boring professionalism and prohibitively expensive high quality fabrications in favour of rawness, attitude, creativity, and community.

There will always be an argument about what exactly streetwear is, or was, or how it has changed and sold out and lost its soul, but more than anything it was a template, a blank tee ready to be screenprinted. It’s for those same reasons that, in the last 30 years, it’s become a ubiquitous fashion statement for a generation of consumers who are now as likely to be found wandering the endless malls of Seoul and Hong Kong as they are across the endless beaches and skateparks of the USA. Streetwear may have come of age outside the framework of the luxury fashion industry but soon enough it got co-opted

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Alyasha supports this. “I felt like back in the day there was a cultural stimulus, that there were a lot of people talking about Kyle Ng of Brain Dead also underscores culture in defining streetwear. “I look at it like a band, right,” he says. “Like, when I buy band T-shirts or when I was a kid buying skateboarding clothes, it wasn’t really about clothes. I wasn’t really interested in clothes. I was interested in representing a story or a narrative or a lifestyle.”

“Streetwear is constantly redefining itself. So, it is difficult to define it as one thing,” Erik adds. Subjective experiences make it impossible to nail down a comprehensive streetwear definition.

In regards to his brand Off-White, high fashion/streetwear forerunner Virgil Abloh declares, “100% yes I consider my work ‘streetwear’ or any categorization that allows anyone to grasp my point of view and where it comes from.” It’s these personal opinions and narratives—the history—that make streetwear a “life held in common.” Virgil reinforces this. “’Streetwear’ is an art movement, it’s a way of making things,” he tells me. “It’s a rationale birthed by previous art movements and pop-culture life cycles.”

There have been countless brands that open up on Fairfax or walk the runway under the “streetwear” tag, but the ones who treat it as fabric or lack historical knowledge, dim as the business grows.

It’s not hard to print T-shirts, and with a little bit of momentum, there’s fast growth. But, lasting streetwear brands play by the rules. Even if they break them, they know them first.

Streetwear is about culture. It’s not about clothing. It’s about stories like these—stories like ours. “It’s a lifestyle,” Edison maintains.

“It’s not a clothing piece. It’s how we feel. It’s how we live. It’s what we listen to. It’s what we eat. It’s how we spend our money.” In other words, in the concert tour of life, streetwear is the merch.

Streetwear was born out of the hyper-specific locations and hobbies of American bi-coastal youthcultures, practical-but-cool clothes for skaters and surfers in Cali and NYC in the 70s and 80s.

It evolved as a DIY reaction to the ideals of the luxury fashion industry and its seasonal schedules, eschewing boring professionalism and prohibitively expensive high quality fabrications in favour of rawness, attitude, creativity, and community. There will always be an argument about what exactly streetwear is, or was, or how it has changed and sold out and lost its soul, but more than anything it was a template, a blank tee ready to be screenprinted.

It’s for those same reasons that, in the last 30 years, it’s become

Bape Unveils 2017 Spring/Summer Collection

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a ubiquitous fashion statement for a generation of consumers who are now as likely to be found wandering the endless malls of Seoul and Hong Kong as they are across the endless beaches and skateparks of the USA. Streetwear may have come of age outside the framework of the luxury fashion industry but soon enough it got co-opted by it.

Streetwear – a preserve of outsiders, artists, those weird kids at school – became luxury streetwear, just another fashion style, a worldwide costume for an age of Instagram-flattened taste.

A generic silhouette of expensive tracksuits, logo hoodies and baseball caps emanating from the same fashion centres these garments were once reacting against. Just another product in a landfill of products, a profit mark-up in the spreadsheets of another multi-national fashion conglomerate.

And yet, looking away from the catwalks of New York, London, Milan and Paris, and looking across the globe, a new wave of streetwear has been emerging. From Singapore to Lagos, from Greece to Eastern Europe a generation of talented kids are turning to streetwear’s open template to create fashion that reflects their personal lives and realities, it is fashion that represents the progressive politics of 21st century youth, the inclusive attitude of a generation raised in communities fostered and developed online.

Y-3 SS13 Campaign

In 2015, after the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris, France witnessed a surge in anti-Islamic hate-crime and violence. In response Theodoros Gennitsakis started up the clothing label Pressure with a desire to counter the negative stereotypes swirling around Arabs in the country. The first piece he created was a simple T-shirt with the word “pressure” written on it in Arabic (aping Supreme’s red-on-white box logo for added impact) “because of the pressure Arabs in France were feeling at the time,” he explains. “The pieces are simple but the message is strong.”

Pressure has now evolved into a dedicated clothing label but it remains rooted in that initial creative idea. “The goal was to create a feeling and a story, the product comes from that.” The product

How streetwear became a uniform for progressive youth culture around the world

reflects a modern European story, a crashing together of cultural references from across the continent, slogans are written in Arabic and Greek and English, the symbols and motifs drawn from the ancient and modern mythologies of these cultures. Pressure’s cross-cultural synthesis suggests a pan-European pan-racial positivity, a utopian union, the Med as a space of integration rather than division.The pieces Pressure create are bold, colourful, simple, fun, communicative, and they utilise the simplicity of streetwear to make a big statement. Theodoros has seen the brand get taken up by everyone from fashion IT kids to old dudes into politics. But Pressure is also indicative of a new feeling in fashion, an openness to diversity, an inclusiveness, a new attitude. Streetwear is the easiest mode for channeling that expression, especially for untrained youth who didn’t go to fashion school. “The children of immigrants working in fashion are the most exciting thing right now, pushing their roots into the industry. Street culture made this moment because most of these kids came from the street.”

Nigerian streetwear label Wafflesncream are engaging in a similar cultural crossover. It was started in 2012 by Jomi when he moved back to Lagos – he’d got into skating whilst living in Leeds, and in the truest of streetwear moves, created what they wanted to see in the world. What they do is analogous to brand’s like Palace or Supreme, but run through with a Lagosian POV. “We’re designing for our aunties and uncles, mums, dads, pastors, priests, homies, our community, our environment,” they explain. “We’re just telling our stories and having fun. Showing the world the world we live in and how nice it is.”

Which is really the crux of this whole global movement, what streetwear has enabled for a generation of designers with something to say, but who are maybe not professionally trained. There’s a beautiful democratic openness to it all. You can start a label if you want to. The barriers to creation don’t exist anymore. We all have Photoshop and can bulk buy Fruit Of The Loom T-Shirts. You can get yourself out there via Instagram. All you need is something to say. “You already possess everything you need,” Youths In Balaclava, a Singaporean fashion collective, explain over email.

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“We had to sacrifice our savings to make our first collection but the desire to create was too strong, we wanted clothing we could call our own. Our inspiration comes from everything we experience in our everyday lives, we’re always looking, always noticing.”

Not that much necessarily unites these brands beyond this ethos, this DIY spirit, this desire to represent their lives. Streetwear at its heart is as an ideology as much as a fashion style, and some of the most exciting developments in that ideology have been happening in the land of streetwear’s birth, Los Angeles.

An axis of Some Ware, Come Tees and Online Ceramics, all more or less T-shirt brands formed by a cross-section of artists-musicians-designers, exist in the city. They are exciting because they are using this most basic of garments as a way of expressing progressive political ideals, but also because they approach this garment with the electric creativity that the couturier approaches the finest silks and satins. “I try to have as much complexity and content as the simple form of the T-shirt can bear,” Sonya Sombreuil of Come Tees explains. It’s something that might as well stand in for the whole scene. “I consider myself to be primarily an image maker,” she continues, “And my images contain my hand, my authorship, which I think is different from a lot of brands.

Because of this limitation I try to keep the ideas, techniques and references as nuanced as possible.”

There’s an undeniable fashion craft to what these LA labels are doing, which is why the ‘regular’ fashion industry has taken note of them, but the industry came to them, rather than the other way round. They favour self-expression and the home-made, DIY artsyness – they have punk roots and a new age purity. “Sincerity and creativity” according to Online Ceramics, are what unites and drives them. “We’re all artists doing our own thing, and being accepted as ourselves into the fashion world.”

A lot of this springs from these brands’ roots in the DIY punk world. They have a political ethos that stems from that. Their “own thing” is progressive, pure, inclusive. Some Ware, for example, have engineered their garments with the purpose of working for all bodies, all genders. Indicative of Some Ware’s politics is their recent Election Reform project, created with Tremaine Emory of No Vacancy Inn, to encourage streetwear fans to get out and vote by offering them free tees in exchange for proof of casting their ballots.

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Yohji Yamamoto Yohji Yamamoto is known for the avant-garde spirit of his clothing.

His signature oversized silhouettes in black often feature drapery in varying textures.

Born in Tokyo, Yamamoto graduated from Keio University with a degree in law in 1966. His mother was a dressmaker who had a shop in in Kabukicho (an amusement and entertainment district in Tokyo’s Shinjuku). After graduating, he realised a law career was not for him. “I didn’t want to join the ordinary society,” he told BoF. “So I told my mother after graduation…I want to help you.”

Yamamoto’s mother agreed to let him work at her shop, saying he could learn from the sewing assistants. At her request, he also enrolled at Bunka Fashion College, now famous for training designers including Kenzo Takada, Junya Watanabe and Yamamoto himself.

After graduating from Bunka, he received a prize to go to Paris for a year, but it was back in Japan that Yamamoto began to discover his true voice as a designer. He set up a small ready-to-wear company that slowly acquired buyers in all the major cities in Japan. The success turned his thoughts back to Paris, and at the beginning of the 1980s Yamamoto returned to the French capital to open his first shop.

Since then, Yamamoto has developed a dedicated global following.

His two main lines Yohji Yamamoto and Y’s are stocked in high-end department stores worldwide and, in 2007, clocked sales above $100 million, according to the company. Yamamoto’s other lines include Pour Homme, Costume d’Homme and Regulation Yohji Yamamoto.

“ If I stop designing, this company loses value. It becomes nothing. ”

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Yohji Yamaoto

Yamamoto has also collaborated with a number of brands, including Adidas (Y-3), Herms, Mikimoto and Mandarina Duck; and with artists such as Tina Turner, Sir Elton John, Placebo, Takeshi Kitano, Pina Bausch and Heiner Müller.

Poor decisions by finance managers pushed the brand into debts of more than $65 million in 2009, which angered Yamamoto and led to a company restructuring. The private equity firm Integral Corp restructured Yohji Yamamoto Inc. and by November 2010 the company was out of debt.

Y-3/Adidas

Y-3 Spring/Summer 2018 Campaign

Y-3 Spring/Summer 2018 Campaign

Y-3

Y-3 Winter 2019

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Yohji Yamamoto Off the Cuff The Japanese designer sat down for an interview with WWD at his headquarters in Tokyo just more than a week before his Paris runway show.

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TOKYO — Yohji Yamamoto doesn’t believe in runway rehearsals.

“I choose models, the models meet the clothing backstage, the very first moment. It’s a kind of love romance. She likes the clothes, the clothing likes her,” he reasoned during an interview at his headquarters here in a warehouse district on the southern side of the city, just more than a week before his Paris runway show today.

This story first appeared in the September 28, 2012 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.

Known for his rebellious streak, the Japanese designer takes a similarly direct approach to conversation, speaking in English — highly unusual among the Tokyo design community. That doesn’t mean he’s not thoughtful — quite the contrary. He’s pensive and adept at punctuating answers to questions with pregnant pauses and the odd sideward glance — so much so that it can be tricky to discern whether he’s done with a response or still lingering in thought midreply.

Yamamoto doesn’t hold back on a broad range of subjects. He’s no fan of the fast-fashion industry, for instance, nor what he sees as younger generations’ overreliance on Internet technology. He’s philosophical on Japan and China’s need to work together despite current political tensions, critical of Japan’s failure to fully atone for wartime aggressions, and he bemoans a lack of leadership in his country and its failure to embrace English as the international language of business.

And for those wondering, the 68-year-old designer doesn’t picture himself retiring anytime soon. He would prefer to drop dead while on the job. “My ideal feeling is that I suddenly fall down [while] I’m making clothing,” he quipped.

One of fashion’s most intriguing and influential figures, Yamamoto admits he’s not an astute businessman. His company filed for bankruptcy protection back in 2009 before Japan’s Integral Corp. took control of the fashion house. Yamamoto said he’s happy to have complete freedom to design, but he’s also quick to point out he doesn’t exactly consider himself a hired hand.

“If I stop designing, this company loses value. It becomes nothing,” he said, shortly before donning a navy Borsalino fedora and posing for a portrait while smoking a Hi-Lite, a retro Japanese brand of cigarette popular with gentlemen of a certain age. The designer offered little in the way of explanation about the inspiration or message behind his spring show in Paris — or of his Y-3 show in New York.

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WWD: After your Y-3 10th anniversary show in New York, you said that “in the world right now, fashion is s–t.” Can you elaborate on what you meant by that?

Yohji Yamamoto: Let me talk like an old man. Young people, be careful. Beautiful things are disappearing every day. Be careful.…You don’t need to be [shopping at fast-fashion stores], especially young people. It’s enough. Don’t be too much fashionable.…The brand advertising is making you crazy. You don’t need to be too sexy. You are sexy enough.

They are beautiful naturally, because they are young. So they should even wear simple jeans and a T-shirt.

WWD: How are you finding life, working as a designer under your fashion house’s new owners, Integral Corp.?

Y.Y.: Being a designer, it became easier mentally, because the business part became very strong. So I don’t need to take care about business like before.

WWD: So you feel more freedom to just concentrate on designing?

Y.Y.: Concentrate, yeah, for creativity.

WWD: But is Integral pressuring you in any way to be creative in a certain way that makes commercial sense for them?

Y.Y.: I’ve got total freedom. If I feel [like I’m in a] cage, I’m a little bird in the cage, I would quit.

WWD: How far along is the company’s restructuring process at this point?

Y.Y.: It was so quick. If I look back, I was very much concentrated to create new collections each time. It is already three years ago.

WWD: So you think the company is in a good place?

Y.Y.: Yeah.

WWD: Are you concerned at all about Integral selling the company, possibly to someone you don’t like?

Y.Y.: I don’t care. If I stop designing, this company loses value.

It becomes nothing.

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WWD: So they aren’t international enough?

Y.Y.: No.

WWD: So do you think you will continue designing for many more years?

Y.Y.: I have no idea about retiring life. Should I live in the countryside, fishing or planting vegetables, playing with dogs? I can’t imagine it. It must be so boring.

WWD: Instead you’d rather continue to think about designing?

Y.Y.: Yes. My ideal feeling is that I suddenly fall down during making clothing.

WWD: What do you think about the current political tensions between Japan and China?

Y.Y.: I was born as a son of war, so in my heart, the war didn’t ever finish…[when I think about Japanese aggression during the war] I go sinking in the deep darkness.…Right after the Second [World] War, [Germany acknowledged its remorse to the Jewish people]. It was an apology. So Germany did it, but Japan didn’t do anything. We lost a chance to apologize.

WWD: Do you think the situation will ever change?

Y.Y.: I think there are two ways of dealing with each other. One way is economic collaboration. Without this collaboration, Japan and China cannot go forward. The other side is very political. When China has an interior problem, like a problem between rich people and poor people, then they’ve got a big problem, they start shouting anti-Japan. It’s very political, to calm people down.

WWD: So it’s basically being used as a distraction?

Y.Y.: Yes. We cannot go further without each other. The relationship has become deep already.

WWD: Are these problems having an impact on your business and that of other Japanese designers in China?

Y.Y.: Not yet. For a very, very long time, China has been a [manufacturing center] for world brands, but now China has become a big market for big brands. So China has both powers.

WWD: Do you think future generations of Japanese leaders could make a more serious apology?

Y.Y.: I don’t know. But the most clear situation in Japan is we are losing real leadership. We have no courage.…They should be more educated. At least a leader of [a country] in the modern world, they should speak English because English is the world language.This is the way to communicate each other.

WWD: Going back to fashion, there really haven’t been any Japanese designers recently who have made it in a big way internationally, at least at the level of yourself, Rei Kawakubo or Issey Miyake. Why do you think that is?

Y.Y.: In the Japanese market, department stores, they don’t give young designers space, and the specialty stores, they don’t buy young designers’ merchandise. Naturally, young designers don’t have space to sell in the world, so they cannot grow up. [Even when they get orders] they cannot get paid. They have no power to push [retailers] to pay back, so young designers have to have sort of a selling machine, a system. Sometimes I think to myself, Maybe [my company] can help young designers by using this company’s machine system, logistics and power.

WWD: Would you like to do more of that in the future, helping young designers?

Y.Y.: Yes, I’m thinking about it.

WWD: What was different for you when you were starting out as a designer?

Y.Y.: Japanese young designers’ creation has become like stylists’ creation. I don’t feel envy.…It’s luck of the power of creativity, because they graduate from design university, fashion university, art university. They get nourished about very academic creativity, but they don’t have creativity from here [gestures to his heart]… soulful.

WWD: And you think that is a particular issue with the Japanese designers?

Y.Y.: No, not only Japanese. Everybody. We are losing those young people because we have too much information by media, especially [through computers]. We can see everything at the same time, so already they are spoiled too much.

So when we have talk sessions with young designers or students, I tell them: “Be bright.

Your eyes have become dirty.”

Virgil Abloh American designer, DJ and stylist Virgil Abloh came to prominence as Kanye West ‘s creative director, but has since made waves in the fashion world with his luxury streetwear label, Off-White, and his role as artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton . “This opportunity to think through what the next chapter of design and luxury will mean at a brand that represents the pinnacle of luxury was always a goal in my wildest dreams,” he said of his appointment in March 2018.

Born in 1980 to Ghanaian parents, Abloh grew up in the outskirts of Chicago. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and went on to study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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Ralph Lauren rugby shirts. Alongside this, he collaborated with Matthew Williams and Heron Preston as part of a collective called Been Trill. Pyrex shuttered in 2013. That same year, Abloh launched luxury men’s and women’s streetwear label Off-White. The Milan-based brand was picked up by stockists such as Barneys and Colette, and is worn by the likes of Jay-Z, ASAP Rocky, Rihanna and Beyonc. In 2015, Off-White was an LVMH Prize finalist.

After working for an architecture firm for two years, Abloh shifted his focus to fashion. In 2009, he founded RSVP Gallery, an art gallery and menswear boutique in Chicago. That same year, he joined Kanye West’s creative agency Donda as creative director, overseeing projects like stage shows and concert merchandise.

Abloh’s first show for Louis Vuitton was held in the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris in June, on a rainbow-coloured runway with friends in attendance that included rapper Kanye West and musician Kid Cudi. “The Palais Royal on Thursday was unlike any fashion event in recent memory, with its anticipatory outpouring of goodwill. For all its scale, it felt almost like a family affair,” said BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks in his review.

In 2012, Abloh launched his first fashion brand, Pyrex Vision, which screen-printed logos onto Champion t-shirts and dead stock

Alongside running his fashion brand and consulting, Abloh DJs under the alias Flat-White.

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Basquiat x Off-White™

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Off-White’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection

Off-White™ HOME

Items from the new HOME collection

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Shawn Stussy Shawn Stussy is an American fashion designer and founder of his eponymous brand, Stüssy. Stussy grew up in California and began making surfboards at the age of 13. Prior to a fashion career, he designed album covers for various bands during the late 1980s and 1990s, designing the artwork for Big Audio Dynamite’s 1991 album, The Globe. He founded Stüssy in the early 1980’s after he and his assistant began scrawling their surnames on handcrafted surfboards. Stussy then began printing his name on T-shirts and other apparel, which he then sold out of his car around Laguna Beach, California, and soon partnered up with his friend, Frank Sinatra Jr. (no relation to the singer) to sell the apparel. Stüssy expanded into the European market soon after, with boutiques opening nationwide. It was reported that revenues reached $17 million USD in 1991 and $20 million USD in 1992. At that time, the brand was sold throughout the US in specialty surf and skate boutiques. In 1996, Stussy resigned as the president of the company and Sinatra bought his share of the company’s holdings. Now, Stussy owns his own label, S/Double Studio.

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“Take your time, build one strong cornerstone for your foundation.”

Shawn Stussy

I-D and Stüssy

Stussy / i-D Collaboration

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KEEDAN, stussy-spring-2018-campaign

KEEDAN, stussy-spring-2018-campaign

Tomoaki Nagao Japanese music producer, DJ and creator of BAPE, an urban clothing line; Tomoaki Nagao aka Nigo was born on 23rd December 1970. He took up fashion editing as one of his courses while studying in college and started working for Popeye Magazine as an editor and stylist. Nigo initially tried to build a reputation in the fashion markets of Japan with his T-store called ‘Nowhere’ launched on April 1, 1993 in Tokyo’s Harajuku district.

Nigo entered the American world of fashion when he started selling his camouflage printed hoodies and BAPE t-shirts in a small store. To spread the word about his new clothing line, he started producing about thirty to fifty pieces of merchandise at a time from which he sold half and gave the other half to his fashion savvy friends like Kanye West, Pharell Williams and other rappers.

The BAPE merchandise soon became the talk of the town among teenagers and rappers alike and Nigo rose to fame in his homeland Japan as well as the US. Along with his successful clothing line under the name The Bathing Ape also known as BAPE, Nigo came up with a new sneaker called the Bapesta which was the epitome of collectible footwear. Quite similar to the Nike swoosh mark, the Bapesta logo was a lightning zap with a star instead.

Even though the BAPE clothing line and the collectible footwear may be very popular among the teenager, it would not be wrong to say that Nigo is a one hit wonder of the fashion industry. That is because most Americans find it very difficult to acquire BAPE merchandise since the only fully operational store is located in New York. The Los Angeles store shut its doors in the summer of 2010.

Nigo is also known for his collaboration with Pharell Williams for his clothing line called the Billionaire Boys Club for which he is now the head designer and co-owner. He also designed a footwear line in partnership with Ice Cream Footwear brand. Nigo is currently serving as the creative director for the UT Brand of Uniqlo.

Nigo has also managed to create much hype in the music scene.

He is the DJ of the popular group called Teriyaki Boyz which also produced the official soundtrack for one of the Fast & the Furious movies. Nigo also owns the BAPE Sounds record label. Much

“ BAPE is an old design, and my main focus now is Human Made. ”

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recently, he was also seen appearing on MTV Japan’s show Nigoldeneye. It is also interesting to note that the BAPE clothing line was not an utter failure because Nigo bagged the Style Award at MTV Asia’s Awards in the year 2005. Another little known fact about Nigo is that he also had a cameo appearance in a short film called Akihabara Majokko Princess by Takashi Murakami which made its way to the Tate Modern Gallery in London where it was shown at an exhibition called ‘Pop Life’.

Nigo has expanded the BAPE brand into BAPE Caf and BAPE cuts along other business operations which have been quite profitable for him. However, Nigo announced on Instagram that he had denounced further association with BAPE and was no longer the designer and consultant of the famous streetwear brand. In 2011, BAPE was acquired by Hong Kong’s fashion conglomerate I.T. The conglomerate became a 90.27% stakeholder of BAPE in a transaction of a staggering $2,800,000.

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The BAPE X Coach

THE BAPE X COACH

THE BAPE X COACH

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The BAPE X UGG

THE BAPE X UGG

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Alexander Wang Alexander Wang is creative director of the eponymous label he launched in 2005, aged 21. In June 2016, Wang added the roles of chief executive and chairman to his official list of responsibilities, replacing his sister-in-law Aimie Wang as chief executive, and his mother Ying Wang as chairwoman. However, in October 2017, Wang relinquished his chief executive title, appointing former Goop and Martha Stewart Omnimedia head Lisa Gersh to the position. In addition to heading up his namesake brand, he also held the post of creative director at Balenciaga from 2012 to 2015.

Wang’s foray into fashion began at age 15, when he attended a summer design programme at Central Saint Martins, choosing to move to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design at age 18. Two years later, he dropped out of the Parsons School of Design in 2004 to start his own label, initially creating a knitwear collection based on six unisex silhouettes. Wang was initially supported in his venture by his family: his brother assumed the role of chief financial advisor, his sister-in-law acted as chief principal officer, and the designer was able to utilise family connections to source production from China. His label soon evolved into a sleek but fully realised women’s ready-to-wear collection; Wang debuted his first runway collection for Autumn/Winter 2007 at New York Fashion Week. Years later, Alexander Wang is stocked in over 700 stores in 7 countries and carried by the likes of Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Dover Street Market .

“It’s always been more than just about product.”

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In December 2012 Wang was appointed creative director of Balenciaga, succeeding Nicolas Ghesquire at the storied French house. Wang’s debut collection for the brand was positively received, despite having faced scepticism about his ability to fill Nicolas Ghesquire’s shoes. In July 2015, however, it was announced that Balenciaga and Kering decided not to renew the American designer’s contract.

Alexander Wang now produces both menswear and womenswear main line collections, a diffusion line — T by Alexander Wang — for men and women, footwear, and accessories. In 2011, Wang’s entry into menswear was noted by GQ, who named him Best Menswear Designer. In the same year, he won the CFDA Award for Best Accessory Designer. Wang’s aesthetic remains true throughout his various lines, and has inspired an entire generation of women to dress in his sportswear-inspired looks. In 2014, Wang entered into a partnership with H&M, creating a women’s and menswear collection for the Swedish retailer.

Alexander Wang x Adidas

Alexander Wang x Adidas

Alexander Wang x Adidas

Alexander Wang x Adidas

adidas Originals by Alexander Wang Drop 3 Collection

adidas Originals by Alexander Wang Drop 3 Collection

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Alexander Wang talks prid capsule collection and us as a vehicle for change

de-inspired sing fashion

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In the 13 years since launching his eponymous brand, Alexander Wang has asserted himself as one of the most high-profile and in-demand designers working today. His name alone is synonymous with luxury.

The 34-year-old designer, fresh off the heels of his most recent runway show — which is no longer part of New York Fashion Week — and the drop of his third-season collaboration with Adidas, is teaming up with Trojan for round two of their “Protect Your Wang” campaign. And this time, it includes a capsule collection to celebrate Pride Month.

A portion of proceeds from the brands’ partnership will be made to the LGBT Center of New York to support the organization’s sexual health programs.

For the second consecutive year, Wang will also design a “Protect Your Wang” float for the New York City Pride March on Sunday Mic chatted with the prolific designer about the collab, his best pride memories, the biggest conversation fashion is not having and his latest “Immigrant Americana” themed collection.

In this golden age of lifestyle products, when you can order controlled substances to your home packaged like French candies or Herms scarves, when face creams can alter gene expression, when the rose-quartz-dildo market not only exists but thrives, it is staggering that more brands are not entering the luxury condom business—which is why we were thrilled to talk to Alexander Wang about his forthcoming collaboration with Trojan, called “Protect Your Wang.” It’s about time!

To be clear: Alexander Wang, despite being a wang protector, has not reinvented the condom. A branded Trojan will, however, be included in his Protect Your Wang capsule, which launches today—alongside sloganed T-shirts, socks, and hats, with a cut of the proceeds benefiting the New York City LGBT Center—all in honor of New York City’s Pride celebration. (There’s going to be a float, too, but I will let him tell you about it.)

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106 Mic: How did this collab come about?

Alexander Wang: It started last year with me reaching out to Trojan wanting to work on an initiative for the pride parade, and we were able to create a float together and donate proceeds toward the LGBT Center here in New York. We had made T-shirts for the parade, but it was so last-minute that we weren’t able to actually produce them, to actually sell them and donate the proceeds. So this year we were able to team up again, this time creating a capsule collection that we [are] able to sell on Instagram and at our New York store that will benefit the center.

You’ve done collabs with Magnum, Adidas, H&M. I’m sure a lot of brands want to collaborate with you. How do you go about choosing?

AW: We start with thinking about the intent and the message.

Usually it starts with working with the leader from whatever field or industry that brand is in, seeing how they construct it, how they are innovative and how they approach their consumers in a new and interesting way.

Pride is different now than it was just two years ago under the Obama administration. How has your idea of pride shifted as a result?

AW: For me, growing up in San Francisco, pride has always been something that’s been such an influential and important event for me. Coming to New York, where it was on a bigger scale, it was something that I knew I wanted to be a part of — especially in this time when there’s so much [division] and negativity out there. It became even more important for me to participate and use this platform that I have to share a positive message and bring people together for not only what they have in common, but what their differences are.

Of all your pride experiences over the years, do you have a particular memory that stands out for you?

AW: Last year was really, really special because I was able to participate in the parade from a different perspective and ride it all the way through, not just from one segment but from the top, all the way down to Christopher Street. It gave me much more perspective on everyone that’s able to come from all over the world, not just the New York area, and it was so magical. Definitely my favorite pride, and hopefully, this year can do the same.

You are known for creating spectacles in your shows, which creates an added pressure around not just creating garments but also an experience. One can go to school for and become an apprentice in design, but the same is not

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season [was] the collection of the female CEO and this season it’s “Immigrant American.”

I took it back to something that was very personal to me. It started with my parents’ immigration story to kind of what Americana was to me growing up. And to put that message out and have it be something that people really respond to and engage with — not just from the creative product perspective, but much more shared on a bigger social level — was amazing. true for creating spectacles. How did you get so good at it?

AW: For me, growing up not part of the traditional fashion system, you know I never had a formal fashion job. I didn’t come from a family who was anywhere in the industry; I just kind of relied on my own point of view. Even from the earliest days before we started doing shows, we would just serve tea sets for all the people that would come to our presentation. It was kind of like an extended family. We always thought about our shows and events in different ways, and how to be special and unique for the people that come.

“ It was kind of like an extended family. ” Throughout the years, the attendees have changed, not just from the industry, but bringing in fans, people who are sharing that experience for the first time who have perhaps never been to a fashion show. And you have to balance that with the people who are going to 10 fashion shows a day. You’re really trying to bring in different elements that can excite [and] stimulate and a unique experience for everyone.

You recently changed your logo and unveiled a new brand identity. Why is it important for the Wang brand to constantly be evolving, versus some legacy brands whose business is built on staying the same?

AW: I constantly have this curiosity to explore how we can evolve, especially in this industry right now, where my perspective is that tradition is ... really about innovation and how you can evolve as a brand. Not just from the product that you make, but how you communicate and how [you respond to] everything that is happening in [the] media. The rebrand was the first big step, and also changing our show cadence and timing. Come November, we’ll have a lot more to announce.

Your recent collection was inspired by immigrant Americans.

What role do you feel fashion and the runway have in reacting to and igniting conversations around the current sociopolitical climate?

AW: Earlier on I would say that that wasn’t my main intent. I wanted to create things and be able to share my creativity with an audience that I had never had a connection to, and [tell a story] through product. And now, being able to have incredible opportunities, launching in Paris and coming back, I realized I had this platform to be able to share a larger message. Last

What’s one conversation you wish the fashion industry would have more?

AW: It totally sounds clich, but probably I would say technology because I think the fashion industry is very behind, and I’m acknowledging that myself. We are making many efforts to try and educate ourselves and learn more about what we can do to move forward and evolve in an industry that is being disrupted so much by technology.

You are one of the busiest people in fashion, period. What do you do to just chill out?

AW: Family vacation in the Hamptons!

We’re halfway into pride. I’m curious, what’s the gayest thing you’ve done this month?

AW: Every day is a gay celebration.

As a figure in the luxury industry, what do you think the most luxurious condom in the world would look like (or feel like)?

Okay, let me think about this. I would say, if I could, I would tint it black. I would say that it would have the technology or the innovative nature to be able to adjust to each person’s preferences, whether it’s size or texture or body heat, all of those kinds of characteristics. Maybe one day we won’t have to have different condoms but just one that captures all of those characteristics.

We’ll see. If anybody would do it, it would be Trojan.

“ It almost sounds like you’re describing something with a Bluetooth function. ” What are your Pride plans?

We have the float that we worked on, and we’re excited to bring it back this year. It was inspired by that outdoor Venice Beach gym vibe, and imagining it in a Brutalist, black-metal, industrialist way.

Then we’re headed to a party at Pier 30.

Aside from the parade, how do you celebrate Pride in New York?

I really just get together with my friends—this is the one time of year when we all get together and just celebrate.

Jean Chen Li Ning New York Fashion Week chief designer Chen Li Jie. He is also the lead designer of the street basketball series Badfive and transformers toy collectors born in the 1980s. Designers Declaration: sports bring the essence of the core for the trend, give the trend the soul. Young people in China pay more attention to healthy lifestyles and personalized self-expression, which is the driving force behind the sports trend in China. is responsible for Li-Ning’s premium lifestyle collection as well as Badfive, our streetwear urban collection. The design strategy for Li-Ning’s Lifestyle offering could be concluded using the following words: Chinese Heritage, Modern Design, and the Li-Ning brand’s Sport DNA. The practical street style is integrated into the show works, and the inspiration from traditional weaving techniques is combined with functional fabrics and industrial materials to increase the possibility of modern young people to wear more. Design concept: combination of hardness and softness, harmony between man and nature Ancient Chinese elements blend with western silhouette. The modern and popular crisp fabric is used to shape the sense of structure of the garment, and the traditional Chinese embroidery technology is used to increase the sense of quality of the garment. The craft of the hem hem of traditional Chinese clothing runs through the whole series. The traditional craft and the modern structure are perfectly combined together. The color is mainly white, supplemented by red and black. The interweaving of symmetry and asymmetry, such as the front of the garment and color, reflects the modern state of combining hardness and softness and the unity of man and nature.

108 “It’s all about the pursuit of excellence by facing and overcoming challenges and competition.”

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Li-Ning

LI-NING F/W 2019 Vanity Teen

LI-NING F/W 2019 Vanity Teen

LI-NING F/W 2019 Vanity Teen

LI-NING F/W 2019 Vanity Teen

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Select Exhibition & List of Works (In Order of Brand by alphabet)

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Alexander Wang Alexander wang, spring 2020 Alexander wang fall winter 2015 campaign Alexander Wang x Adidas adidas Originals by Alexander Wang Drop 3 Collection

Y-3 Fall 2000 Yohji Yamato, Photo: JB Villareal Y-3, spring 2020 Y-3 SS13 Campaign Y-3 Spring/Summer 2018 Campaign Y-3 Winter 2019

BAPE Coach and Bape, spring 2020 Bape Unveils 2017 Spring/Summer Collection THE BAPE X COACH THE BAPE X UGG

Li-Ning Li-ning, Spring 2020 LI-NING Spring/Summer 2021 Campaign - Fucking Young!

LI-NING F/W 2019 Vanity Teen

Off- WHITE Off-White, spring 2020 FW18 men’s Off-White™ “Business Casual” collection campaign image. photography by Piotr Niepsuj Basquiat x Off-White™ Off-White’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection Items from the new HOME collection

Stussy Stussy 1990- Shoot by Ron Leighton Aman wears hoodie STUSSY X I-D. Jeans Sytlist ’s own.

Stüssy in the haute-couture universe Stüssy, spring 2020 Stussy Fall ‘19 Campaign by Colin Dodgson Stussy / i-D Collaboration KEEDAN, stussy-spring-2018-campaign

Others* ALVA TEAM -Tony Alva Team 1988 Workwear OGs such as Dickies and Carhartt Totally Krossed Out- Kross Kris, shoot by SHA BE ALLAH Miss 2000s Streetwear ,Photo: Getty Images Kanye’s Yeezy Season 4 show Image come from The philosophy of a living fashion design legend for Yohji Yamamoto by Admin

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Previous Fashion Shows

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ALL ALEXANDER WANG COLLECTIONS

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Pre-Fall 2009

Spring 2009

Resort 2009

Fall 2010

Pre-fall 2010

Spring 2010

Resort 2012

Fall 2011

Pre-fall2011

Fall 2008

Spring 2008

Resort 2010

Fall 2009

Spring 2011

Resort 2011

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All Alexander Wang Collections

Fall 2012

Fall 2012 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2012

Fall 2013 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2013

Spring 2013

Spring 2013

Resort 2013

Spring 2014

Spring 2014 Menswear

Resort 2014

Fall 2013

Pre fall 2014

Spring 2012

Spring 2012 Menswear

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Spring 2015

Spring 2016 Menswear

Spring 2017

Spring 2015 Menswear

Resort 2016

Fall 2016 Menswear

Resort 2015

Fall 2015

Fall 2016

Fall 2014

Fall 2014 Menswear

Fall 2015 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2015

Pre-Fall2016

Spring 2016

127

All Alexander Wang Collections

Fall 2017 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2017

Fall 2017

Spring 2017 Menswear

Resort 2017

Spring 2019

Fall 2018

Spring 2018

Resort 2018

Spring 2018

Fall 2020

Spring 2020

Fall2019

Fall 2018 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2018

128

100% Streetwear

STUSSY COLLECTIONS From 2019-2021

129

Stussy Collection From 2019-2021

Fall 2019

WomenSummer 2020

Fall 2020

Summer 2020

Women Holiday 2020

Pre- Fall 2020

Holiday 2020

Women Fall 2020

Spring 2021

130

100% Streetwear

ALL Y-3 COLLECTIONS

131

All Y-3 CollectionS

Fall 2006

Spring 2006

Spring 2006 Menswear

Fall 2007 Menswear

Fall 2007

Spring 2007

Spring 2009

Fall 2008 Menswear

Fall 2008

Spring 2004

Fall 2003

Spring 2007 Menswear

Fall2006 Menswear

Spring 2008

Spring 2008 Menswear

132

100% Streetwear

Spring 2011

Fall 2012 Menswear

Fall 2014 Menswear

Fall 2010 Menswear

Fall 2010

Spring 2012

Fall 2011

Spring 2014

Fall 2013

Spring 2010

Fall 2011 Menswear

Spring 2013

Fall 2009

Spring 2011 Menswear

Fall 2012

133

All Y-3 CollectionS

Spring 2017 Menswear

Spring 2019

Spring 2017

Fall 2016 Menswear

Spring 2016 Menswear

Spring 2019 Menswear

Fall 2018 Menswear

Fall 2016 Menswear

Fall 2016

Fall 2015 Menswear

Spring 2018 Menswear

Pre-Fall2016

Spring 2015 Menswear

Fall 2017 Menswear

Spring 2016

134

100% Streetwear

BAPE COLLECTIONS FROM 2019-2021

135

BAPE Collections From 2019-2021

2019 AW BAPY

2020 SPRING MEN’S

2020 AW BAPY

2020 SUMMER MEN’S

2020 SPRING LADIES

2020 SUMMER LADIES

2020 AW MEN’S

2021 SS MEN’S

136

100% Streetwear

ALL OFF-WHITE COLLECTIONS

137

All OFF-WHITE CollectionS

Spring 2015

Spring 2016

Spring 2015 Menswear

Spring 2016 Menswear

Fall 2016 Menswear

Fall 2015

Fall 2015 Menswear

138

100% Streetwear

Spring 2017

Resort 2018

Spring 2019 Menswear

Spring 2017 Menswear

Spring 2018

Fall 2018

Resort 2017

Fall 2017

Pre-Fall 2018

Fall 2016

Pre-Fall 2017

Fall 2018 Menswear

Pre-Fall 2016

Fall 2017 Menswear

Spring 2018

139

All OFF-WHITE CollectionS

Fall 2019

Fall 2020 Menswear

Spring 2021

Pre-Fall 2019

Fall 2019 Menswear

Spring 2019

Resort 2019

Pre-Fall 2020 Menswear

Spring 2020

Resort 202

Spring 2020 Menswear

Resort 2021 Menswear

Resort 2021

Fall 2020

Pre-Fall 2020

140

100% Streetwear

ALL LI-NING COLLECTIONS

141

All LI-NING CollectionS

Fall/Winter 2018

Fall/Winter 2019

Spring/Summer 2020

Fall/Winter 2020

100% Streetwear

142

Bibliography Book Designed by: Xinyi Ma Headline Font: Terminal & Circular Std Body Font: ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro Fashion Designer: Alexander Wang, Jean Chen, Shawn Stussy, Nigo, Virgil Abloh, and Yohji Yamamoto.

Brand: Alexander Wang, Li-Ning, Stussy, BAPE, OFF-WHITE, and Y-3.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

Article Block, E. (2017, November 01). The history Of STREETWEAR: From Stüssy TO VETEMENTS. Retrieved April 07, 2021, Petty, F. (2019, March 14). How streetwear became a uniform for progressive youth culture around the world. Retrieved April 07, 2021.

Okwodu, J. (2019, June 10). Alexander Wang hosts his BIGGEST, Boldest pride float ever.

Retrieved April 07, 2021.

Kaiser, A. (2017, February 13). Yohji Yamamoto off the cuff. Retrieved April 07, 2021.

All the designer biography comed from The Business of Fashion

Photograph All the image come from internet or their own brand website Print & Bind in China.

Culture Stimulus