Can streetwear become more inclusive?

From its explosion to today, the world of streetwear has always had an undeniable male connotation. From communication to collections, brands have understood their potential buyers solely as the slice of men who have populated drops, launches and raffles, contributing to create what has become a closed system, in which the idea of inclusiveness has always been a mirage. Only in the last few years, thanks to a progressive widening of horizons, some brands have started to talk about genderless collections, while the releases of many sneakers still seem to be confined to men's sizing kept well apart from women's ones.

We had already talked about this gender disparity in the streetwear world, highlighting how even within the publishing industry the gap is obvious with an average of 73% for articles on men's collections against 27% on women's ones in a trend that sees its highest peak in 2019, when MEN articles exceed those of WOMEN by 101 against 39. In this scenario, it is the communities that must make the difference, transforming themselves into virtual hubs able to create and look after movements from below, unite and above all change things as fashion has already done. There, with horizons much broader than those of the streetwear world, ideas and suggestions have turned into contaminations in which elements coming from different worlds have created something new, even surpassing the very concept of streetwear, which has now become an almost outdated concept in its original meaning.

We talked about it with Elena Mottola, stylist and brand consultant, and with Giada Giacomazzo and Elisa Scotti, founder of the community In Her Kicks, in the sixth episode of the second season of The SneakerPod, the podcast of nss magazine produced in collaboration with StockX.