(dapperdanofharlem.com)
rather than appropriation but doesn’t it seem
unfair that when Gucci steals from Day, it’s
a compliment and when Day does it, he is
put out of business? Kim Jones did a very
similar thing by collabing with Supreme
when in the beginning of the 2000s, Louis
Vuitton sued Supreme over stealing their
logo. How come now streetwear is being
allowed in luxury houses when only a
decade or two ago, they were snubbed?
The obvious answer is money.
Millennials and GenZers have proven to
have deep wallets when it comes to luxury
fashion and they are only growing in
importance; the Business of Fashion states
that by 2025, millennials and GenZers will
make up 45% of the luxury market. Brands
have a clear incentive to build up brand
loyalty as soon as possible and the love of
the younger generations and streetwear is
intense. And it is definitely working—
Balenciaga, currently headed by Demna
Gvasalia, the founder of the streetwear label
Vetements, is the fastest growing brand in
the luxury conglomerate Kering and has
been since 2017. Luxury streetwear clearly
has a market and fashion houses are ready to
tap into it.
Ana Andjelic, SVP and Global
Strategy Director at Havas LuxHub—a
luxury fashion consultancy—may have said
it best when she spoke to Complex: “It’s
like, “I’m [luxury fashion designers] going
to take references, mix them and make them
my own, but I don’t have any appreciation
for the street to really understand that it’s
an actual mixture of music, of street artists,
of the local, interesting people…’ It’s very
fashionable to be street.” So Alessandro
Michele takes from Dapper Dan; Kim Jones
collabs with Supreme, but they do not fully
realize what streetwear was built out of.
They cheapen the roots of by-word-of-mouth
stores that belonged to a subculture of
people who knew what Supreme and
Thrasher were beyond a cool logo by
printing out $1000 sweatshirts.
The rise of streetwear has not been all
bad; Gucci collabed with Dapper Dan to
open a new appointment-only, hand-crafted
store. There has been a rise of bedroom
designers producing their own streetwear
designs, but alongside the soaring prices of
luxury streetwear, luxury houses may be
nearing their Icarus moment—if Paris Haute
Couture week showed us anything, it’s that
streetwear isn’t the only option.
BY MARGARET BLATZ
www.clichemag.com
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