To describe the changes, the evolutions and the future of the fashion industry, it is common practice to use terms deeply linked to the concept of time, nouns that define a very specific historical period, in which to identify rise and falls, new habits and old trends, unprecedented passions and future obsessions. Although in real life those time boundaries don’t always appear so clear, it’s reasonable to talk about the birth of a trend, its downfall, and finally its death.
Streetwear is a community. It’s groups of friends that have a common bond. We hang out on street corners, fight with each other, fight for each other. ‘Streetwear’ is a detachment to the above. ‘Streetwear’ is yelling [at] shop staff, starting fights at lineups, defaming us cause we didn’t get enough pairs of shoes cause everyone can’t get a pair. […] Streetwear is a culture. ‘Streetwear’ is a commodity.
The end of streetwear, its imminent death or its final shift into something else, has been discussed by the media and the industry for quite some time now, but recent developments on a global, social and economic scale are the main factors that could accelerate a decline that has already begun.
Two of the most important and distinctive characteristics that have always distinguished the streetwear industry from traditional fashion, elements of which the latter has taken possession, are the concept of hype and community. We’re talking about a culture - and an economic business model - built on scarcity, waiting, excitement, anticipation and adrenaline. Every week, every month, the most awaited, the most sought-after item is decreed, the one to buy at any cost. Buying a Supreme item, for example, has become a sort of online game in which the winners not only have the opportunity to get their hands on the long-awaited items, but have also the right to profit off by reselling them to those who have failed in the game.
If the player proves to be smart and fast, he will finally be able to buy it at the first attempt, at the time of the drop; if on the other hand he has failed, he can always make it up later, thanks to the resell market. It is this dynamic that has generated a specific community, where perfect strangers exchange ideas, opinions, money and experiences around a good or a brand.
It is an extremely fragile, unstable, consumer model, in fact already flawed, that establishes values and needs at a very fast, often unsustainable, pace. By its very nature, it is a mechanism that must always culminate in a climax, a very high point of arrival, and that for this very reason is constantly swinging, it’s a roller coaster not meant to last in the long run.
And how does an industry that for years has built its charm on the constant search for the next big thing change and adapt, when the world is on hold?
The spread of the Coronavirus pandemic all over the world, besides having caused dramatic consequences on the global economy, has sparked a debate within the fashion industry. With the momentary closure of stores, the temporary interruption of a fragile supply chain made up of different and dependent elements, and an inevitable drop in sales, brands and consumers have begun to question the meaning of 'essential' and 'necessary', also carrying out a broader reflection on the future of a business that had reached an insane speed.
The decision of Supreme and Palace, the pioneers and now the best-known representatives of streetwear, to continue with their drops on the same weekly basis of the past, a frequency belonging to a pre-COVID world, appeared tone-deaf, distant from reality, almost bad taste and simply inappropriate. Although Supreme and Palace have continued their releases of tees, hoodies and various accessories at a time like this, it is also true that those drops went sold out in just a few minutes, meaning that their fan base has continued to buy, with the only difference that this time they did it online, and not physically in the store.
At this point, one must ask a pivotal question: what do consumers want? In an attempt to outline a prediction on how the post-pandemic future will look like, many have drawn a comparison with the 2008 economic crisis. Back then, after two very difficult years, a decade of pure consumerism began, in which perhaps then more than ever, wearing a certain type of clothes or wearing a particular sneaker indicated the belonging to a well-defined social group and signaled more than anything else the social status of the wearer.
These are the years of the triumph of the logo - huge, colorful, printed in large letters; but it is also the decade of the rise of the Chinese superpower and the birth of the hype culture as we know it today, further enhanced by the visual culture of Instagram.
In order to save itself, in the aftermath of the pandemic, the fashion industry will not be able to return to old models that have already been abused, cannibalized, in a market that is now saturated and needs to be reformed in its entirety. A global disease has set new priorities, making us wonder what we should wear, what is essential, what we really need. Wearing a T-shirt with a large logo or carrying a two-thousand-euros bag has become an ethical issue, that must appear in line with the zeitgeist. We will witness a return to minimalism, not in an aesthetic sense, but in practical terms.
The criteria that will guide us when deciding whether to purchase a garment or not will depend on the quality of the product, its potential durability and its timelessness. The mentality that will dictate the purchase will be more focused on the long term than on the present. Brands and labels with a timeless approach and aesthetics, manufacturers of quality garments (often also sustainable) will return to thrive, or will finally emerge.
How many streetwear brands meet the standards listed above?
In December 2019, it was Virgil Abloh himself who declared that streetwear was dead, or rather, that it was turning into something different. One of the architects of the evolution of streetwear from subculture to mass movement returned on the topic a few weeks ago, after some protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd had degenerated into looting and theft in stores symbol of the streetwear and sneaker culture in Los Angeles.
The Supreme store in NYC has been plundered as well, so much so that the James Jebbia brand has been forced to cancel the fifteenth drop of 2020.
As difficult as it is to find a rational motivation behind those actions, it cannot be ignored that those stores were destroyed exactly like the ones belonging to powerful corporations, chain stores, international agglomerations. Destroying them meant vandalizing something that belongs to an establishment, to strong powers, that no longer has a direct relationship with the street, but that instead has become part of the dominant mainstream culture.
Over the last ten years, streetwear has been "institutionalized", it has entered luxury ateliers, it has populated the catwalks of the world, it has been replicated, copied, emptied, revolutionized.
A garment such as an Off-White™ hoodie or a Supreme Boxlogo has gone from being a symbol of carefully layered values within logos and graphics with a precise meaning within a specific reference community, to being part of a wider and global business, devoid of any cultural significance. This was the social drive that pushed kids to camp out for hours outside the stores, the ultimate goal was to feel unique because being part of a group of people who recognized value where others saw only a white T-shirt.
The spell has definitely broken: if the community is the entire market, the value of the good disappears, coveted by the whole market, the sought-after item from relative good becomes absolute good. Today streetwear has become global and the reference community is the market.
Consumers will go back to buying sneakers and clothes, but they will do it with a different mindset, dictated by a renewed sense of social responsibility. The ones who will survive to the pandemic will be a generation immune to hype, therefore making a purchase will have a much more political and cultural significance. Without a component that has become so central, streetwear, as we know it today, is unlikely to survive unchanged in a completely new scenario.
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