» HADOUKEN « get in losers, we're going to 2008
It was a late August night in 2002, one week before my freshman classes commenced at NYU. We were in a large duplex on the corner of Carmine and 7th Avenue. The host? We met earlier that afternoon at orientation. My then-roommate and I were incredibly social people, so let's just say that this was the kick off event of what would become a four-year run of us How to Make It in America-ing our way through downtown New York. Until that point, I had met my fair share of privileged kids growing up in the upper-middle class portion of the should-be suburb that is Staten Island, but I had never been in the presence of that much casual wealth before--the kind of wealth that brings with it access and exposure to certain aspects of life that only with tremendous effort and luck have come within my reach over the last two decades.
Simply put, we were as out of place as Vincent Cassel and Co. at Galerie AVI in the French classic La Haine. We couldn't yet tell the difference between the West Village and Lower East Side, never mind the difference between a Malbec and Pinot Noir. But in terms of our cluelessness, what stood out most from that night was the following quote from a fellow reveler:
"Is it Halloween already, or did someone invite the NBA Western Conference All-Star Team?"
The astute reveler was of course referring to the fact that I was decked out in a throwback Kobe Bryant MPLS jersey--complete with the matching baby blue Yankees New Era fitted, Diesel jorts and some Reebok Club Cs. If that wasn't enough, I was joined by two friends from home (my roommate somehow always avoided the miasma of Staten Island guido culture which was, at the time especially, inextricably attached to hip hop culture), one in a Nowtizki jersey, the other, Garnett.
While it took the rest of the world, particularly the coastal and emerging crunk southern rap scenes a few more years to fully jettison the extra-hood oversized athletic- and military-inspired uniforms of the early aughts, this was my first memory of watching a particular trend in menswear begin to fall from grace. We didn't know it at the time, but the likes of Kanye West, Pharrell, Kid Cudi and Lupe Fiasco, to name a few, were about to link up with some legendary Japanese dudes, notably Hiroshi Fujuwara and, of course, Nigo, and eventually import their prep-inspired streetwear back to the states. Saturated polos, rainbow colored Bapestas, Evisu painted denim, limited release Nike Dunks, shutter shades, fox tails, Rugby Ralph Lauren--the list goes on and on. This would eventually merge with the budding hipster movement to create one of the most outlandish and creative periods of fashion, particularly menswear, the world has ever seen (colloquially referred to as "hipster hop," for those of you that care!).
Just one year removed from 9/11, the world was had changed politically, economically, culturally and now, aesthetically. Six years later, from the ashes of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and countless regional banks and hedge funds that blew up during the subprime mortgage crisis emerged a similar style scenario. An entire generation of men, almost overnight, began to take more consideration in how they dressed. It was as if every Millennial and Gen Xer had decided that they wanted to be prepared to take an interview on a moment's notice (I mean, there was a massive shortage of jobs at that time, so, yeah): tailored garments, soft accessories, proper welted footwear, raw denim, durable heritage workwear and Made in America were their rallying cry. They (read: we) challenged the frivolity of fast fashion and organized Tumblr meet ups under the guise of zany email subject lines like "Buy Better, Buy Less (Clothing, Not Booze, We're Getting Fucked Up Tonight At Westway): A #Menswear Happy Hour." Of course, it wasn't a clean break as the hipster hop movement lingered on with rappers like Childish Gambino and Theophilus London continuing to wear bowties ironically with colorful sneakers, varsity jackets and chain wallets, of course). Come to think of it, it couldn't be any more obvious why a brand like Band of Outsiders could be so successful during this time--it hit on all of these tropes perfectly!
This movement lasted just shy of a decade. In the mid-twenty-teens, while one cannot point to a single global crisis as the catalyst, we saw yet another shift in menswear: the emergence of streetwear and post-modern fashion as the preferred method of dress for young people. There have been many theories of why this shift in menswear took place so rapidly and without an accompanying negative event to kick it into high gear. If you consider the proliferation of Instagram and selfie culture as a negative event, you may disagree, but the point remains: suits and boots just weren't as flavorful a look for the new undisputed king of social media. Further, in a digital world where a revolving wardrobe is your currency, classic garments are expensive. Not to mention, they hold little to no value on the resale market, another phenomenon that sprouted from this period.
I take a more nuanced approach in trying to understand this period. It all starts with the idea that ever since the Beatles wore blue jeans, young people have wanted to dress like rockstars. With rappers having assumed the role of rockstars at some point in the 21st century, the stage was set. First, rappers began dabbling in avant garde designer fashion. A$AP Rocky's Peso video and seemingly ever rapper's love for Riccardo Tisci's Rottweiler tees and leather pants abruptly changed the script. While Jay-Z would continue to make hits about his suits and ties, youth culture was fast becoming more interested in knowing the origins of you jacket (Margiela?). Next, when Kanye declared that sweatshirts are fucking important, well, it couldn't be any clearer that the young men were about to embark on a wild journey of hoodies, graphic tees, sneakers and all sorts of youthful garments that collectively at one point in time were easily identified as streetwear. I say "at one point in time" because eventually, as designer houses and fast fashion alike began to draw cues from the once-hallowed and niche movement, the word "streetwear" would lose all meaning. A similar phenomenon happened to the word "hipster" in the late-00s: as the look and feel was coopted and aestheticized, those who would historically have embraced the word as a sign of their counter-culture began openly expressing a hatred for the term while those early-majority trend followers who probably had cracked jokes about the term only a few years earlier all of a sudden decided to grow a mustache, buy some skinny jeans, drink Pabst and ride a fixed gear to work as a single origin roast serving barista in Williamsburg.
But I digress. While streetwear, or what it morphed into, had (and in many ways, continues to have, at least for certain parts of the market) enjoyed a great run, it invariably began showing signs of fatigue. Perhaps the most damning example of this fatigue occurred last December when Virgil Abloh declared that streetwear is "definitely gonna die" in 2020. Only 18 months after his historic appointment as men's artistic director of Louis Vuitton, the bastion of the movement and father of many subsections thereunder (particularly, collaboration culture and a non-stop IV-drip of new product drops) began experimenting with haute couture and tailoring on the catwalk. So too did his esteemed contemporaries: from Kim Jones at Dior to Jerry Lorenzo at Fear of God in collaboration with Zegna (Zegna!), seemingly everyone wanted to take a crack at the classic suit.
Then Covid happened. The world was dumped on its head. And I wrote a really long newsletter.
Your reward for making it through the drivel that I penned after midnight on a Tuesday evening? No, not a list of links. Instead, just one: a recent piece by one of the Godfathers of the #menswear movement, Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean, who was compelled out of a content creation retirement of sorts to address this recent development of what is fast becoming known as #Menswear 2.0.
While I haven't had the time to synthesize and present my thoughts in a coherent matter on this topic, I hope to do so at some point in the near future. Until then, I can commit to the following: the post-sneaker world is definitely real but overblown and misunderstood, we won't see people dressing as if they are extras from the set of The Great Gatsby, it's too early to relegate graphic cut and sew to the rafters next to my MPLS jersey just yet (though woven and knit shirts will be on a steady rise), oversized will revert to more fitted (but still relaxed) proportions, post-modernist interpretations of traditional garments will (continue to, as this really began with the rise of Demna Gvsalia in '16) rue the day (but in a less turbo way) and the shift in aesthetic will be more of a transition than a clean break (mix and match will continue to dominate the overall look).
Interested in talking this through a little more? Join me for the next edition of OFFICE HOURS, tomorrow from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.?!
P.S. - I didn't give this newsletter a top edit--not even a once over for grammar. My apologies if any of this stream of conscious rambling results in an assault on your eyes. I hope we can still be friends.