Streetwear is a style of casual clothing which became global in the 1990s. It grew from New York hip hop fashion and Californian surf culture to encompass elements of sportswear, punk, skateboarding, 1980s nostalgia, and Japanese street fashion. Later, haute couture became an influence, and was in turn influenced by streetwear. Streetwear centers on comfortable clothing and accessories such as jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps, and sneakers. Brands may create exclusivity through intentional product scarcity; enthusiasts follow particular brands and try to obtain limited edition releases, including via proxy purchases.
Billionaire Boys Club (BBC) is an American fashion label based in New York City founded by Pharrell Williams and Nigo in 2003. Its sublabels include Ice Cream, Bee Line and Billionaire Girls Club.
Steve & Barry's was an American retail clothing chain, featuring casual clothing, footwear and accessories. Headquartered in Port Washington, New York, the chain operated 276 stores in 39 states before liquidating throughout 2008 and 2009.
Sneaker collecting is the acquisition and trading of sneakers as a hobby. It is often manifested by the use and collection of shoes made for particular sports, particularly basketball and skateboarding. A person involved in sneaker collecting is sometimes called a sneakerhead.
Kiks Tyo is a Japanese fashion brand founded by DJ, designer, photographer and streetwear/sneaker culture personality hobby:tech in 2006.
Nigö is a Japanese fashion designer, disc jockey (DJ), record producer and entrepreneur. He is best known as the creator of the streetwear brand, A Bathing Ape (Bape), and currently serves as artistic director for Kenzo. Additionally he is a member of the Japanese group Teriyaki Boyz, serving as their official in-house DJ since the group's 2005 debut.
L'Officiel, full name L'Officiel de la couture et de la mode de Paris, is a French monthly fashion magazine. It has been published in Paris since 1921 and targets upper-income, educated women aged from 25 to 49. A men's edition called L'Officiel Hommes is also published, as are many foreign editions of the magazine. In 2022, it was acquired by AMTD, a Hong Kong-based company.
Ports is an international luxury fashion house founded by Japanese Canadian fashion designer Luke Tanabe (1920–2009) in Toronto in 1961. It specializes in luxury women's and men's ready-to-wear as well as accessories. Acquired by Chinese Canadian brothers Alfred Chan and Edward Tan in 1989, Ports expanded into the Chinese market in the early 1990s where its parent company — which traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2018 and has since been privatized — now operates more than 300 retail stores. Sub-brands of the fashion house include Ports (International) in China and Asia as well as Ports 1969, with subsidiaries in Milan and New York City as well as a flagship store in Paris, for global distribution.
Comme des Garçons is a Japanese fashion label based in Paris founded by Rei Kawakubo. Its French flagship store is located in Paris. The brand has physical retail stores in London, Melbourne, Seoul, Hong Kong, New York City and in the Aoyama district of Tokyo. Other than fashion, the label has expanded to include jewelry and perfume.
Supreme is an American clothing and skateboarding lifestyle brand established in New York City in April 1994. Supreme is recognized for its influence on streetwear culture, with products that cater to skateboarding and urban fashion trends. The company makes skateboards in addition to clothing and accessories. The red box logo with "Supreme" in white Futura Heavy Oblique is thought to be largely based on Barbara Kruger's art. VF Corporation, a US-based apparel and footwear company, bought Supreme for $2.1 billion in December 2020.
The Hundreds is a streetwear brand founded in Los Angeles in 2003 by law school classmates Bobby Kim and Ben Shenassafar. The Hundreds also sells a print magazine, footwear and eyewear. In 2011, Complex magazine named The Hundreds as the fifth-greatest streetwear brand.
Golf Wang is an American street-wear brand established in 2011 by American musician Tyler, the Creator. The name Golf Wang is a spoonerism of his Los Angeles-based musical collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) or Odd Future for short, of which he was a co-founder. Golf Wang is known for its colorful visual aesthetic. In 2013, the brand expanded beyond its Odd Future affiliation and established itself in the fashion industry. It is designed by Tyler, the Creator. The brand offers clothing, footwear through collaborations with converse often under the name GOLF le FLEUR*, jewellery, upon other products. "Holiday 1991", the brand's first look book, was released on December 11, 2011.
DFS Group (DFS) is a Hong Kong-based travel retailer of luxury products. Established in 1960, its network consists of over 420 locations, including duty-free stores in 12 major airports and 23 downtown Galleria stores, as well as affiliate and resort locations. It is privately held and majority owned by the luxury conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), alongside DFS co-founder and shareholder Robert Warren Miller. As of January 11, 1997, DFS Group operates as a subsidiary of LVMH.
Virgil Abloh was an American fashion designer and entrepreneur. He began his own line of luxury streetwear clothing, Pyrex Vision, in 2012, and became the chief executive officer of the Milan-based label Off-White, a fashion house he founded in 2013. Abloh was also the artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection beginning in 2018, and was given increased creative responsibilities across the LVMH brand in early 2021.
Chrome Hearts is a luxury brand from Hollywood, founded in 1988 by Richard Stark, Leonard Kamhout and John Bowman. It is currently co-owned by Richard Stark and his wife Laurie Lynn Stark. Its logo contains a cross with the brand name around it on a circular ribbon. The brand produces silver, gold, and diamond accessories, alongside eyewear, leather items, apparel, furniture, kitchenwear, and random objects. They are known for using leather, silver, and ebony. The production site covers three blocks in the middle of Hollywood and consists of multiple buildings and factories around the world. Production is mainly done in-house at the big production site in Hollywood. As of 2021, they have 1000 staff at their Los Angeles production site. Although not officially disclosed by Chrome Hearts, the brand is estimated to be worth around $1 billion.
Stadium Goods is a retailer specialised in the resale of aftermarket sneakers. Based in New York City, it operates a shop and a drop-off center in SoHo, Manhattan as well as an online store. The store sells sneakers and streetwear, including rare and limited edition sneakers.
Kevin Ma is a Hong Kong-Canadian businessman who is best known for starting Hypebeast, a Hong Kong listed company that focuses on contemporary culture.
Hype in marketing is a strategy of using extreme publicity. Hype as a modern marketing strategy is closely associated with social media.
Warren Lotas is a Los Angeles–based streetwear company. Started in 2014 and incorporated in 2018, Warren Lotas is best known for its graphic-heavy T-shirts and hoodies. While most items are sold via E-commerce, Warren Lotas also has a retail store location in Los Angeles, and its clothing can be found in luxury department stores around the world.
Madhappy is an American clothing and lifestyle brand established in Los Angeles in 2017. The brand is centered around optimism both locally and globally, and was created with the intention of designing products and experiences that uplift people physically, mentally, and spiritually through digital and physical content and activations. Since its inception, the brand has been worn by celebrities and cultural influencers including Dua Lipa and Cardi B, among others.
