Luxury brands may have moved away from sneakers, down jackets and sweatshirts, but newer brands like Corteiz and Free The Youth keep street culture alive in fashion.
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In recent seasons, Balenciaga and Off-White have moved away from streetwear in favor of a more personal aesthetic.
Today’s consumers are shifting from sneakers and sweatshirts to loafers and oxford shirts, highlighting the changing menswear cycle.
However, many young brands such as Daily Paper, Corteiz and Free The Youth have made it big with classic streetwear strategies, selling logo-heavy clothes and merchandise to their loyal fans.
Luxury goes beyond obsession with streetwear.
Sneakers and hoodies are rarer than ever at Milan and Paris Fashion Week’s mega-brand shows this season, and partnerships with luxe streetwear like Air Jordans, Dior, Supreme and Louis Vuitton Less.
Under the creative direction of Demna, Balenciaga produced luxurious hoodies and chunky sneakers, but has since expanded its focus to haute couture and red carpet attire. Of late, Off-White has been pursuing a style closer to traditional luxury than streetwear, offering tailored suits and launching a couture line. At the brand’s Spring/Summer show in Paris on Thursday, boots and loafers far outsold sneakers for the first time under the artistic direction of Yves Camara.
There is a reason many brands change. The streetwear that has dominated fashion for most of the last decade is finally outdated. This is partly due to the natural ups and downs of fashion trends. Retailers note that as men’s silhouettes evolve in a preppier direction, hoodies and sneakers remain popular but face competition from loafers and oxford shirts. (Currently, the majority of streetwear consumers are men.)
Meanwhile, many consumers feel that clean streetwear brands have become overly commercialized and out of touch with their roots in 1980s street culture, hip hop and skateboarding.
“Streetwear has evolved from what people wear on the street – organic – to what big companies tell you to wear,” says writer Derek Guy.
But like skinny jeans, hoodies and sneakers aren’t going away anytime soon, just like another timeless trend that has recently been beaten. These items have been incorporated into the brand’s offerings, and Bernstein’s July review said sneakers continue to “dominate men’s footwear.” with cargo pants, casual shirts and workwear are heavily influenced by fashion in this category.
2010s streetwear still has a lot of fanatics, and Supreme, under parent company VF Corp., is expected to generate $600 million in revenue in 2022, up from $500 million last year. According to the reseller platform, Supreme is the #1 clothing brand on StockX as of 2020.
There is also a new generation of independent brands such as London-based Corteiz, Dutch label Daily Paper, Ghanaian label Free The Youth and Nigerian skate collective Motherlan that have successfully returned to the original streetwear paradigm. and trust them as the first and most passionate spokesmen for the brand.
In other words, streetwear is not dead, it is evolving.
“In menswear especially, more and more people want tailored trousers and polo shirts with sneakers rather than full streetwear,” fashion consultant and Twitter expert Chris Black told BoF. in July.
rise to the mainstream
Streetwear grew out of the strong cultural movement of New York’s hip hop scene and the Los Angeles skate teams. Rappers like Lil’ Kim and Biggie Smalls pioneered streetwear staples like bucket hats and baggy tracksuits. In the 1990s and early 2000s, this distinct style was promoted by designers such as D.
