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Hereâs whatâs poppin right now!
HOT LINKS:
Another banger collab between PSG and x Jumpman (Jordan 1âs).
Would you buy a chore coat made from vintage Moroccan blankets?
Street style in NYC during the 80s.
Thereâs an online community for Negroni lovers. NEGRONI SEASON.
Coffee-themed sneakers, anyone?
Another young American headed to Europe. This time itâs AS Roma. Huge for US Soccer.
Digging a little deeperâŠ
The best collab Iâve seen a while.
One of my favorite brands right now is Notreâa clothing store in Chicago. They teamed up with Nike to drop a capsule collection centered around their roots of growing up the Midwest. Under the mantra of Made in the USA, they cleared an old warehouse out and built a set design as a nod to the blue collar folks.
What makes a collab like this so special is that digs deeper than the generic âhey, we made a t-shirt together!â partnerships. Thereâs soul to it. Youâre invited into the story a bit. Iâm here for it!
2021 Trends Report.
My pal Philip Jackson runs an awesome community called Future Commerce, a media research startup that covers consumer trends across culture and tech, helping eCommerce businesses.
They just released a 70-page report that you should 100% level-up and read. Click their link and download that. Good weekend reading if you wanna be dialed in to whatâs happening culturally.
A few more thoughts on streetwear vs. Gorpcore.
This week, I wrote about the future of menswear, and how I think Gorpcore will be the next style genre to go mainstream this decade. Some folks thought I was suggesting that means streetwear is just gonna die.
Thatâs not what Iâm saying. Let me add contextâŠ
Designer Virgil Abloh has been known for saying things like âstreetwearâs gonna die,â that itâs just a matter of time. Meanwhile, Bobby Hundreds (OG streetwear legend from The Hundreds store in LA) argues the opposite, saying that streetwear and its place as a fashion muse will live on forever. Heâs vocal about this in his bestselling book, This is Not a T-Shirt (highly recommend reading it btw!).
But itâs important to distinguish their definitions of streetwear. First, letâs look at streetwear in 3 cycles.
If I had to condense decades of style into a few buckets, hereâs how Iâd do it:
The Cycles of Streetwear
Streetwear as Community: This is synonymous with brands like Supreme and The Hundreds. They had a sense of purity and innocence to them early on. They existed because of their communities. Community wasnât a strategy, it was what came natural. People > product. The community is what drove the hype.
Streetwear as a Commodity: The next iteration on streetwear. Streetwear became a commodity everyone had to have. You saw retail stores selling skate and streetwear commercially. What began as an underground movement turned into wide distribution of streetwear. This is where brands like Diamond Supply Co signed licensing agreements to be sold at Tillyâs, Zumiez, etc.
Streetwear as a Luxury: This is where brands like KITH, Madhappy, and StockX sit. When Supreme is valued as a $Billion dollar brand, KITH sells out of BMWs in minutes, StockX has its own stock market for sneakers, streetwear becomes a luxury because itâs a scarcity. Scarcity means everyone has to have it because they know they canât. Thatâs what drove lines out the door. Luxury consumers became the new âcommunity.â
What does this mean?!
I think Virgil is alluding to when he says streetwear is gonna die is points #2 and #3, while Bobby is referring to #1 when he says streetwear will live on.
I agree with both. The brands that focus on building communities first will win in the long run. The brands that try to catch a wave, when they know itâs going to die, will fade with the evolving trends.
Hope thatâs helpful. Have a chill weekend! xx