From its origins in American workwear, via west coast subcultures, extreme sports and subsequent commercialism, streetwear has become to fashion as hip-hop has to music: a global phenomenon. Incorporating cultural codes of dress, the best in graphic design, as well as exemplary brand-building – the products not of corporate giants but cottage/tenement industries – the leading streetwear brands have become influential beyond the sphere of fashion alone. Streetwear may form a fundamental look for out-of-office-hours dress for teenagers and middle youth alike, but its leading lights have connections with the worlds of art, advertising, music and interiors that make them as potent as ‘designer’ brands many times their size.
Showcasing over 30 of the most exciting and – importantly – pioneering of streetwear brands, this book focuses not on the endless me-too labels, but those that have shaped the market since the late 1980s. Cult Streetwear tells the stories of the people behind the brands – from entrepreneurs to graffiti writers, DJs to surf dudes to sneaker nuts, from LA to NYC, London to Berlin and Tokyo. It explores each brand’s cultural resonance, and explains why so many have gained a cult following while continuing to break new ground in a market with unlimited scope for innovation.
