Highsnobiety Guide – Sneek Peak

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Brands Are the
New Bands
A Letter from David Fischer
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There was no conscious decision
taken at any point that led me to
start Highsnobiety. I didn’t notice a
gap in the market that was underserved,
and I didn’t see an opportunity
to speak to an audience that
was into the same things as me.
I just wanted to create something.
I was interested in blogging technology
at the time—so I signed up
on Blogspot under the name
“Highsnobiety.” Back then, it was
obvious to me that this needed to
be about was my passions—and
my passions are streetwear, sneakers,
and fashion, quite frankly.
So, it was this mix of exciting
things that I saw coming out of the
Japanese and American market,
mixed with my European background.
Of course, if you were
Europe-based and into fashion, then
that conversation mostly revolved
around the luxury space. I was into
Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Viktor & Rolf,
Dries Van Noten, and other European
high-fashion brands. At the same
time, in the U.S. you saw this first
wave of streetwear brands that suddenly
elevated skate fashion. So the
$19 T-shirt was elevated to a $50
T-shirt with a great fit and good
quality. Supreme made a New Era
baseball cap out of cashmere and
sold it for about $59.50.
I was always in love with
these opposites. Cashmere and the
baseball cap, Louis Vuitton and
Takashi Murakami’s art. These
things lived on different sides of a
spectrum, but they worked really
well together. Right around the
same time there was this art documentary
called Beautiful Losers,
which was produced by Sidetrack
Films. It had ESPO, Harmony
Korine, Shepherd Fairey, Barry
McGee, Ed Templeton, and Mark
Gonzales—and again, that title
“Beautiful Losers,” I loved that as
well. This attraction of opposites
breaking down barriers and bringing
different worlds together. That
was always super exciting to me.
I was always in love with these opposites. Cashmere and the baseball cap, Louis
Vuitton and Takashi Murakami’s art. These things lived on different sides of a
spectrum, but they worked really well together.
Those are the things that I
wrapped my life around—be it
footwear, style, music, or art. At the
heart of it, I was collecting the very
best of what I found on the internet.
What‘s interesting about blogs is
that back then, blogs were a place
where people had personal conversations,
and they left notes. It was
very personal. I think a lot of that
conversation already existed on forums
about sneakers and fashion,
but nobody was doing it on a blog,
where you could expose all of this
great product to a potentially larger
group of people, who maybe didn’t
know what it was, but all of a sudden
wanted to get into it. This was a
pre-social media era, and for better
or worse I wasn’t even really looking
at numbers. But I started to understand
their significance when I noticed
the numbers were going up.
The name “Highsnobiety”
comes from the book How to Lose
Friends and Alienate People, and the
story‘s about this English journalist
Toby James that moves to New York
City, ends up working for Vanity Fair,
and suddenly gets thrust into this
dynamic social life with people in
high society. And he becomes a
complete asshole in the process.
The German title of the book was
“High Snobiety,” and to be honest, it
was only the name that stood out to
me. The name stands for what I
loved back then, and what I’m still
I‘m in love with. I love the wordplay,
I loved this idea of being a
“snob” about something, and by
“snob” I don‘t mean the negative
connotations of the word, but more
this idea of being obsessed with
something, like being snobbish on a
certain subject matter. It’s like a double-edged
sword. On one side, I’m
100% snobby about what I’m into.
On the other, I do my best to make it
accessible. It‘s not just for a certain
person anymore; anybody can come
into this world and be attracted to a
product, brand, or the lifestyle. The
snob part of it is a little bit of a play
on words, but what it plays to is this
idea that we‘re looking and trying to
cover something that‘s the best expression
of a product.

How Pusha T
Went From
Virginia Beach
Drug Dealer to
Kanye West’s
Right-Hand Man
Pusha T’s career isn’t characterized by a meteoric rise to the top,
but a slow grind built on a foundation of solid work ethic and
the constant improvement of his craft. Through sharpening his
talent the old-fashioned way, he’s garnered some key co-signs and
partnerships that have propelled him to the position of President
at GOOD Music, Kanye West’s label.
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career, signing with Kanye West’s GOOD Music
imprint in September 2010. His breakout pop
culture moment happened on the MTV Video
Music Awards that year, when he participated
in what became known as Kanye West’s penultimate
comeback moment. A year after being
derided for interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance
speech at the 2009 VMAs—an act that
painted him as a villain—West debuted the first
song off of his magnum opus of an album, My
Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
That night, Kanye West took to the
stage clad in a bright red suit and a MPC device,
performing his song as ballerinas began to
grace the stage. The enrapturing performance
came to a coda when Pusha T strode to the
stage for his guest verse, clad in a salmon-colored
sport coat and black slim trousers, courtesy
of stylist Rushka Bergman, a contributing
editor at Vogue Italia and a former stylist for
Michael Jackson. It was the first step in Pusha
T’s journey of becoming a worthy style icon in
his own right.
In the years after, Pusha T’s fashion
sense went into overdrive. His features on songs
like “Christian Dior Denim Flow” specifically reference
his Bergman-styled VMA outfit a year
prior, and in the music video for “Mercy,” a single
off of 2012’s Cruel Summer album featuring a
variety of GOOD Music artists, Pusha T flexes in
a quilted leather motorcycle jacket. Things came
to a head in 2013 during a release party for his
debut solo album, My Name Is My Name, when
Kanye West delivered a profanity-laden impromptu
speech proclaiming Pusha T’s cultural
dominance.
“Act like y’all ain’t based your whole
shit your whole lifestyle off this n***a Pusha T.
Everything is Pusha T,” yells West in a cell phone
video that went viral.
As if that wasn’t enough to prove
Pusha T’s style icon status, he began collaborating
with adidas in 2014. His first sneaker, an allwhite
interpretation of the EQT Running
Guidance 93, is a subtle nod to the drug references
that made him famous. Mixing fishscale
accents with cracked leather, it’s a quiet acknowledgement
of cocaine slang, but looks really
good on a monochromatic shoe. Four
collaborations later, Pusha T is currently the
president of GOOD Music and working on new
music. His sneakers are also covetable on the resale
aftermarket, and he claims his godson is an
avid sneaker reseller. Given his drug-dealing
past, it’s no surprise that he’s a fan of unorthodox
ways of learning the basics of business—especially
if they’re legal.
Everything wrong that could happen in rap has probably happened to me.
And when you realize that nobody cares, then you spend most of your time just
trying to perfect your craft, fighting through those obstacles.
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flipped for the line. And at the end of the season,
they would weigh in with final input on the
pieces before they would go into production.
The Clipse went their separate ways in 2009,
with each brother pursuing his own artistic endeavors.
This marked the rise of Pusha T’s solo
“It’s good to see how kids are working
their business minds early with something that
they’re super passionate about,” he says of
sneaker resellers. “I liken it to me and my music.
I love making music. There’s nothing better than
making music and making money.”

How Takashi
Murakami
Subverted the
Japanese Art
World to Become
One of Street
Culture’s Most
Prolific Fine Artists
The Japanese fine artist is known for his “superflat” theory,
combining motifs from Japanese anime and manga with a high /
low sensibility that speaks to fans of streetwear and high fashion.
It makes him the perfect collaborator for fellow creatives like
Kanye West, Pharrell, and Virgil Abloh.
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A Brief Primer on
Tyler, the Creator,
Street Culture’s
Ascendant
L’Enfant Terrible
Los Angeles artist and multi-disciplinary creative Tyler, the Creator
built a career on well-crafted music juxtaposed with shocking lyrics
and visuals with a visceral attitude. Alongside his compatriots—the
collective known as Odd Future—he pushed the envelope of hip-hop
culture and style to an even more subversive place, creating work
that alienated an older audience, but was perfectly suited for recruiting
a new generation of kids.
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Pharrell Williams,
One of Hip-Hop’s
Origina Originators,
Made It Totally
Acceptable to Be
Totally Weird
Before Pharrell Williams (known often by the mononym Pharrell),
hip-hop style had a preconceived lane. You had to pay respects
to the predecessors and progress forward in a familiar way. But what
he has proved throughout his career is there is much more reward
in diverging from the established path, and paving your own way.
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RICK OWENS
Colloquially known as
“The Dark Lord of
Fashion” by his dedicated
stable of acolytes,
American designer Rick
Owens has created
a brand universe
composed of exaggerated
proportions, aggressive
silhouettes, memorable
fashion shows—and
of course, plenty of black.
Born in 1962 in the relatively small California
town of Porterville, Rick Owens was surprisingly
reared in a conservative Catholic household.
After graduating high school, he studied fashion
design at the Otis College of Art and Design and
took up pattern-making and draping courses at
the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. One
of his first jobs in the garment industry involved
making illegal designer clothing facsimiles.
By the time he launched his eponymous
clothing line in 1994, he was heavily influenced
by L.A.’s underground subcultures. He got
involved in the punk and skinhead scene, which is
why his clothes are a paean to and celebration of
the alternative subcultures he grew up with. His
clothing is known for its plays on proportion—
elongated T-shirts that extend beyond the knee,
drop-crotch trousers with extremely skinny legs,
and basketball sneakers designed to look like
“monster trucks for your feet,” as he described
them in a 2015 Complex interview.
Part auteur, part-provocateur, Rick
Owens is known for fashion shows that double as
spectacles. His Fall/Winter 2015 “SPHINX” show
featured a look that exposed a model’s penis from
the neck of a sweater strategically tied around his
waist. A year later, at his Spring/Summer 2016
“CYCLOPS” collection, he famously punched a
model who tried to ruin the show by holding a
self-made sign threatening German Chancellor
Angela Merkel. One of his inspirations is French
fashion designer Claude Montana, known for his
exquisite leather pieces.
His attention to detail and control of
brand narrative is especially vital to the fashion
world Rick Owens has built. Owens himself, a
muscular figure with sharp, grotesque features
that have been compared to an Egon Schiele
painting, portrays a confident sense of dark
beauty. He is the best model and brand ambassador
for his designs, though his partner and
muse, Michele Lamy, is equally known for her
ability to carry a room and a charisma that
makes you want to sit at their table.
Owens’ take on the classic bomber
jacket has undergone numerous reiterations,
from oversized and cropped to extremely tapered
to elongated like a topcoat. What remains
the same is the signature attitude and
dark energy that he brings to the clothes. It’s
easy to make goatskin leather look tough, but
especially difficult to bring ruggedness to materials
like silk or cotton poplin. That certainly
hasn’t stopped Rick Owens, and military-inspired
outerwear will continue to be an important
platform for his design ethos. Below, he
explains why he keeps revisiting the MA-1 jacket
in particular.
Rick Owens’ eponymous furniture line is designed
by his muse, Michele Lamy.
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LEVI’S
More than just the
inventors of modern
jeans, what Levi’s
made has become a
canvas for selfexpression,
whether
it’s style-conscious
youth or acclaimed
fashion designers
reinterpreting their
vast denim heritage.
The blue jean as we know it was invented in 1873
by Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada who
purchased bolts of denim cloth from Levi Strauss
& Co., a dry goods retailer in San Francisco.
After reinforcing a particular client’s trousers
with denim one too many times, Davis had the
epiphany to add copper rivets to denim dungarees
to lessen the strain of wear at certain
points, like the crotch and pocket corners. Davis
and Strauss went into business together, and
created what would become the button-fly
Levi’s 501 dungaree, gaining a patent for riveted
clothing in 1873. By 1890, that patent had expired,
and other companies started reinterpreting
their invention, which is why Levi’s started
printing the inside of their pocket bags to tell the
story of their provenance, and touted their denim
as extra strong—abbreviated to “XX.” Around
the same time, they assigned their products
with the model number “501.”
Over the years, the jeans evolved, losing
the buckleback loop, having a second pocket
added, and the addition of belt loops, among
other cosmetic changes. In 1915, Levi’s made a
handshake deal with textile manufacturer Cone
Mills in Greensboro, North Carolina to be the
sole supplier of their denim, one that lasted until
the mill closed in 2017. By 1936, the Levi’s 501 as
we know it today first came out, with the final
addition of a red tab placed on the right back
pocket, created to differentiate Levi’s from its
competitors—many of which had already been
copying Levi’s signature arcuate back pocket
stitch, since the company didn’t trademark that
design detail until later on.
Levi’s fits and materials progressed
with the times, but maintained the brand’s numbered
naming scheme. The 505 jean featured a
zip fly and a straight leg, while the 517 referred
to their bootcut offerings. But in addition to its
jeans, Levi’s is also known for its equally timeless
denim jackets. In 1905, Levi’s introduced the
ideal complement to their hard-wearing jeans.
The Type I jacket featured a pleated button
placket and single chest pocket, and was designated
with the lot number 506XX. It was followed
by the Type II in 1953, with the lot number
507XX, originally introduced as the “two-side”
Levi’s Red Tab, calling attention to the double
chest pockets. The latter style was favored by
rock-and-roll pioneers like Elvis Presley, and represents
a nascent time in American menswear
defining its own heritage. But perhaps 1962’s
We’re using our collection to
tell stories about American
History, its culture and inspire
people with over 150 years of
history.
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Type III, now known as the Levi’s Trucker Jacket
(lot number 557XX), set the precedent for all
denim jackets that came after.
Building on the signature vertical
seams of the previous models, the Trucker
Jacket added pointed flap pockets and additional
hand warmer pockets on the sides. This
was the jacket that took Levi’s off of the ranch
and into the streets, becoming a subcultural uniform
for hippies, counter-cultural activists, and
archetypal punk rockers like The Ramones. It
was through these adopters that the Trucker
Jacket gained a second life, and many were customized
with patches or markers, had the
sleeves cut off to become vests, or cut apart and
resewn altogether.
Much of Levi’s own archive was lost in
a company fire in 1906, but thanks to the work of
enthusiasts, collectors, and historians, it’s been
able to recover much of what went up in flames.
In 1999, Levi’s began to explore its own archives
not just for inspiration, but for reintroduction. It
established its Levi’s Vintage Clothing label, currently
helmed by Paul O’Neill. LVC, as it’s known
for short, specializes in highly accurate reproductions
of Levi’s product from jeans to shirts
and outerwear. Its products include the 1947
501, a post-WWII jean that marked the return of
little details like stitched back pocket arcuates
(they were painted on during WWII), watch
pocket rivets, and a slightly slimmer fit that catered
to a rising leisure class in America.
“We have an archive of over 20,000
pieces to reference, and when we make our
Levi’s has evolved quite a bit from its early days outfitting miners. But one thing
remains true: Its commitment to quality, hard-wearing goods.

NEPENTHES
The Japanese distribution
company has quietly
built a fashion dynasty
through improving
American menswear
staples. Labels like
Engineered Garments
and Needles have
redefined classic
American style through
the discerning lens
of a true enthusiast,
crafting garments
rooted in the past but
with bells-and-whistles
that keep them grounded
in the present.
Nepenthes New York is located in the Garment District, and also displays art.
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Needles founder Keizo Shimizu was born on
July 1, 1958 in Kōfu, the capital city of the
Yamanashi Prefecture on the Japanese island of
Honshu. Known more for its great hiking paths
and breathtaking views of Mount Fuji, it’s hardly
the place one would expect to fall in love with
fashion. Yet, it was during bi-annual trips to
Shinjuku that Shimizu and his older brother developed
an appreciation for menswear. One of
their favorite brands was VAN, a Japanese
brand credited with bringing preppy “Ivy Style”
to the East.
In fact, it inspired one of Japan’s earliest
post-war style tribes, the “Miyuki-Zoku,”
which consisted of youths dressed head-to-toe in
items like madras blazers, loafers, oxford shirts,
and repp ties, which they saw as more modern
and stylish than their usual school uniforms. So
they wore them as a form of rebellion, famously
keeping their standard issue school gear folded
up in paper bags that they carried around.
“One day, I found a copy of Men’s Club
magazine on my brother’s desk. The issue was
about the Ivy Style,” recalls Shimizu in an interview
on the Nepenthes website. “After that Men’s
Club became my bible and I read every issue all
over. Especially for the ones featuring feature the
Ivy Style, I perfectly remembered
what’s on which page.”
Shimizu discovered
Men’s Club at 13, and by 19 he
moved to Tokyo, developing a
love for film along the way. He
especially liked films like
American Graffiti, not just appreciating the cinematography,
but the on-screen costumes as
well. It gave him context for the American
sportswear he held in such high regard. That
birthed a passion for vintage American heritage
clothes, from Levi’s 501s to Brooks Brothers
shirts. He eventually found himself working for
VAN, the brand he loved as a child, and after six
months working at a VAN branch located in the
basement of storied Japanese retailer Isetan,
Shimizu enrolled at the Bunka Fashion College.
After graduating, he joined the retail world, first
starting at a company called Union Square, then
moving onto a store called Redwood in 1982,
which specialized in American workwear.
It was here that he met Daiki Suzuki,
the future founder of Engineered Garments, and
the two bonded over a shared passion for
American menswear. During their time at
Redwood, Shimizu noticed a shift in the
Japanese style scene—the demand for casual
sneakers by Reebok and Nike was rising fast,
and ever-prescient, he became the first importer
of Nike’s Air Jordan sneakers to Japan.
“Redwood was the first ever clothing
shop which handled Nike products. Because of
the company’s regulation, only sporting stores
could sell the items until then,” Shimizu recalls.
“It was when Michael Jordan started to be active.
So I asked him to distribute at least Air
Jordan series. Then I finally got approved after
some ups and downs. Before that they had rejected
my offer consistently. As expected, the
products went like hot cakes soon after I started
to carry those. But it didn’t sell well at sporting
stores. So I bought all the excess Jordans in
stock from Japanese shops and sold it out.”
Shimizu’s desire to be the first to break
a trend became a running theme. At 29, he
opened his own store Nepenthes in 1988. The
company shares a name with a carnivorous tropical
plant. At the same time Daiki Suzuki, just
four years younger
than Shimizu, had
gotten a taste of the
West from a threeweek
trip he took visiting
San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and
New York—where he
developed a particular
fondness for the
seedy Hell’s Kitchen
neighborhood. So he
joined Nepenthes as a buyer, taking trips to
America to find unique brands and items to sell
in Japan. Suzuki’s taste complemented Shimizu’s
aspiration to be an early adopter of the next big
thing.
“Maybe I had a kind of twisted mind. I
strongly wanted to handle something that nobody
had ever sold,” recalls Shimizu. “It was not
just for business, but also for what I wore.”
In 1994, Suzuki moved to San Francisco
to be closer to some of Nepenthes’ business
partners. Four years after that, he moved to New
York to open the first Nepenthes New York store
on Sullivan Street in 1998. By this time, Shimizu
and Suzuki found it increasingly difficult to find
quality U.S.-made clothing, as there was a decline
in American manufacturing and more production
had moved overseas. So they took it
upon themselves to start making the type of
goods they wanted to see in the market. Needles
debuted in 1997 with a casual suit jacket styled
after one MIles Davis wore in the 1960s.
Engineered Garments started in 1999 as a brand
making high-quality American-made trousers.
It’s said the name for the latter comes from a
patternmaker who commented that the clothing
specifications were so severe it was as if the
clothing wasn’t designed—but engineered.
“Since it became really hard to find
American made products and I couldn’t find any
clothes I wanted, I thought I should make those
Maybe I had a kind of
twisted mind. I strongly
wanted to handle
something that nobody
had ever sold. It was
not just for business, but
also for what I wore.
167

y my own. That’s the reason I established a
brand,” recalls Suzuki in a Nepenthes profile.
The success of Engineered Garments
All the products I design must be of satisfactory quality and
appearance. Although high-end brands might be able
to make better stuff, I’d like to keep designing clothes only
Engineered Garments can produce.
led to a full line in 2002, and it eventually became
Suzuki’s full focus, shuttering the old
Nepenthes New York store. Known for silhouettes
like the Bedford Jacket—an unstructured
sport coat with patch pockets and peak lapels,
Suzuki developed a design language that mixes
heritage staples and military references with
high-end design nods to labels like COMME des
GARÇONS. The label is just as known for its occasional
bold colors and statement prints as
much as it is for its menswear friendly hues of
charcoal gray and navy blue.
“All the products I design must be of
satisfactory quality and appearance. Although
high-end brands might be able to make better
stuff, I’d like to keep designing clothes only
Engineered Garments can produce,” he says.
Suzuki’s success garnered him the attention
of the fashion industry at large, and he
created a high-end line for Woolrich Woolen
Mills for a few seasons, and collaborated with
footwear companies like New Balance, Hoka
One One, and Vans. His footwear signature became
seemingly mismatched pairs of shoes—
for his first Vans collaboration, released in 2013,
included several iterations of the Slip On sneaker
rendered in contrasting leather and suede
colorways.
Meanwhile, Needles continued to
push Shimizu’s vision forward, inspired largely
by Western style and a more psychedelic view
of Americana. Needles Sportswear, a line that
produces butterfly-embroidered tracksuits, has
become a favorite of artists like A$AP Rocky.
Rebuild by Needles, a line that consists of reworked
vintage pieces, like a “Seven Cut
Flannel” made entirely of strips of different
shirts sewn back together for a wabi-sabi newness,
have become a status symbol to an eagle-eyed
style cognoscenti.
Nepenthes continues to foster new inhouse
lines as well, like Rough & Tumble—
Suzuki’s take on modern shirting, AiE—a line by
Suzuki’s former assistant Kenta Miyamoto that
mixes punk and arthouse influences with workwear,
and South2West8—a hardy line of luggage
that has blossomed into a full label. What
ties all of Nepenthes’ sub-labels together is a
consistent attention-to-detail and the desire to
make even the most staid wardrobe items feel
new again, which is why the company continues
to attract the attention of astute consumers and
fashion editors alike.
The Nepenthes flagship store in Tokyo is off the beaten path of the Shibuya shopping district,
and is somewhat of a hidden gem. It offers a selection from all of the brand’s lines.
Needles is a line designed by Nepenthes CEO Keizo Shimizu. Its offering of butterflyembroidered
track pants in multiple colors are a cult item with many high-profile fans.
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A BATHING APE
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One of the most heralded
labels in Japanese
streetwear, A Bathing Ape
represents a time when
the country’s subcultural
scene broke from the
niche to the mainstream.
Its embroidered full-zip
hoodies and camo-laden
clothes helped define
the modern street fashion
vernacular.
Founded in 1993, A Bathing Ape—BAPE for
short—is a seminal Japanese streetwear brand
that remains one of the country’s preeminent
subcultural exports. One of the elder statesmen
of the early Harajuku shopping scene, the brand
has its roots in NOWHERE, a boutique that also
housed the UNDERCOVER label. It set the stage
for a rise of a homegrown Japanese streetwear
scene, giving rise to brands like Shinksuke
Takazawa’s biker culture-inspired NEIGHBOR-
HOOD and Tetsu Nishiyama’s punk-tinged Forty
Percents Against Rights (and later on, his military-influenced
label WTAPS). The new guard
co-existed with Japan’s pioneering lifestyle
brands like Nobuhiko Kitamura’s Hysteric
Glamour and Masayuki Yamazaki’s CREAM
SODA, both of which were heavily inspired by
rock-and-roll style imported from America.
BAPE began as a series of graphic
tees, printed on beefy blank Oneitta Power-Ts
with artwork inspired by a late-night Planet of
the Apes movie marathon. The runs were limited
by the brand’s start-up nature—it could only afford
to produce around 50 shirts a week at one
point—but that exclusive appeal certainly gave
owners of the gear a sense of individuality.
The graphics may pay homage to the
classic sci-fi film franchise, but the name is derived
from the Japanese saying
“like a bathing ape in lukewarm
water,” a complicated aphorism
from the adult manga Monster Men Bureiko
Lullaby, penned by Takashi Nemoto (sort of the
Japanese version of pulp comic artist Robert
Crumb). Nemoto uses the phrase to refer to an
act of overindulgence. It’s common to bathe in
extremely hot water in Japanese culture, so to
lay about until the water gets warm implies a
person has the luxury of laying about.
Early BAPE shirts included collaborations
with Japanese artists like rap group Scha
Dara Parr, and prodigious multi-instrumentalist
Cornelius—who also happened to get his moniker
from Planet of the Apes. BAPE’s relationship
with Cornelius developed into a collection of
tour merch, and then a performance at 1999’s
World Wide Bape Heads show. Before it blew up
in hip-hop culture, BAPE had already worked
with the likes of James LaVelle, founder of influential
Mo’Wax Records and member of equally
important electronic group UNKLE. Its associations
with the International Stüssy Tribe further
cemented its street cred.
One of BAPE’s most popular motifs is
it myriad camouflages. The 1st Camo was designed
by Japanese graffiti artist SK8THING,
and took a basic woodland camo and mixed
BAPE’s ape head into it. It appeared on several
items like waterproof shell jackets, full-zip hoodies,
and covetable phone cases. The pattern has
been repurposed and revisited several times,
giving the disruptive pattern material a different
meaning and context. What was once meant to
allow people to more easily blend in with their
surroundings became a surefire way to stand
out from the crowd. Bright red, purple, and blue
versions of the camo turned anything it touched
into a recognizable status symbol.
Arguably BAPE’s signature piece is its
full-zip hoodie that zips up all the way, concealing
the wearer’s face. It wasn’t the most practical
garment, but it certainly looked
cool—especially when the Shark Hoodie made
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its debut in 2004.
Inspired by the cartoonish-yet-menacing
faces
adorning the nosecone
of the A-10
Warthog jet, the
graphic remains in
play in BAPE’s current
offerings,
jumping off of the
hoodie and onto
other items like T-shirts, stickers, and accessories.
BAPE has reinterpreted its hoodie in numerous
iterations, adding academic-inspired
lettering and a tiger motif paying homage to traditional
Japanese art forms as well.
The mid-2000s saw BAPE go mainstream,
thanks to a surge in popularity among
some of hip-hop culture’s biggest stars, namely
Pharrell Williams, Lil Wayne, and Soulja Boy.
BAPE’s association with Willams and his group
N.E.R.D. and label Star Trak punctuated the
peak of its early popularity, collaborating with
the artist on numerous merchandise. Williams’
even paid respects to brand on the cover of his
2005 solo album In My Mind, depicting the artist
in the style of BAPE’s “Baby Milo” graphic, a
superdeformed monkey in the style of “kawaii”
anime tropes.
2006 saw the label expand its flagship
“Busy Workshop” stores outside its native
Japan for the first time. It currently operates
stores in New York, Los Angeles, Seoul, several
locations in China, a shop-in-shop at storied
London retailer Selfridges, and its latest flagship
in Paris—where lines snaked around the
block for the opening.
In 2007, BAPE collaborated with Kanye
West on a pair of Air Force 1-inspired BAPEsta
sneakers after the release of his debut album
The College Dropout, and the shoes remain

extremely rare today. Its approach to sneakers
mixed the appeal of storied silhouettes from
brands like Nike (replacing the trademark
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Swoosh with a shooting star motif) with a collectors’
mentality and bright pops of color inspired
by toys. Patent leather featured heavily,
and some shoes even came in clamshell packaging
instead of shoeboxes—resembling action
figures more than footwear. The sneakers were
so highly-regarded in hip-hop culture that they
became the subject of Soulja Boy’s 2007 song “I
Got Me Some Bapes,” a four-minute track that
doubles as a brag about owning a brand new
pair of the brightly-colored kicks.
Beyond working with established artists,
Kid Cudi also grew out of the brand. A former
shop guy at BAPE’s New York store, it was
there that he met his mentor, Kanye West, a frequent
customer. Cudi’s relationship with the
brand came full circle in 2015, when he released
a collaboration with BAPE and performed at the
10th anniversary of the New York City shop.
BAPE’s list of collaborators runs long
and extremely diverse. It epitomized the power
of a streetwear brand to move beyond basic
apparel and accessories and define an entire
lifestyle. It has a kids line after its Baby Milo
graphics, and even a line of upscale menswear
called Mr. Bathing Ape, infusing its signature
camo and ape motifs on tailored clothing and
preppy staples like oxford shirts, penny loafers,
and navy blue sport coats. It’s also created a collaborative
Microsoft XBOX, BAPE camo-covered
Pepsi bottles, and even made a capsule
collection with luxury luggage manufacturer
Rimowa in 2008—a full decade before Supreme
teamed up with the LVMH-owned brand.
In addition, BAPE works with artists
like KAWS, and multiple licensed properties,
from films Star Wars to video game franchises
like Pokémon and Street Fighter, and even hugely
popular anime series like Dragon Ball Z. These
licensed collabs speak to BAPE’s ability to add
just about anything to its brand universe, and often
consist of reinterpretations of key characters
in BAPE’s Baby Milo style.
The execution may seem simple on
the surface, but its malleability speaks to the
brilliance behind the branding, and why the label
continues to be a relevant player in the
streetwear space for over two decades. Its audience
remains as hungry as ever for new product,
and they continue to eat it up faster than the
brand can put it out. BAPE’s bathwater remains
as hot as ever, with no signs of it going tepid.
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172
173

THE NORTH
FACE
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Once a humble retailer
of third-party products,
The North Face has
climbed the ranks
to become one of the
world’s foremost
producers of technical
gear meant to withstand
extreme conditions.
But it’s also become
known for pieces that
aren’t just eatherproof—
but trend proof.
In 1966, Douglas Tompkins and his then-wife,
Susie, founded two climbing equipment stores
in San Francisco and Berkeley, California. They
called their business “The North Face Mountain
Shops,” a term referring to the hardest part of a
northern hemisphere mountain to climb—the
north face is usually the coldest, iciest, and
most difficult path to traverse. Originally, the
store didn’t make any of its own gear, but carried
premium products made with intent from
brands like Sierra Designs.
Two years later, the Tompkins sold the
shops to Dick “Hap” Klopp, and they went onto
achieve further success with the fashion brand
Esprit. Under Klopp’s tenure, The North Face began
manufacturing its own products, first under
the helm of Justus Bauschinger, who had experience
designing for The Ski Hut, a seminal
Berkeley-based outdoor product purveyor
founded in 1935 and one of the most influential
stores that birthed California backpacking culture.
He worked just two years before going on
to found his own backpack label, Class 5, but
had taken a young designer under his wing,
Mark Erickson, who eventually became The
North Face’s first design director. In 1971, The
North Face tapped graphic designer David
Alcom to make its famous quarter circle logo,
inspired by Half Dome, a
granite dome in California’s Yosemite National
Park that towers at 8,880 feet above sea level.
It was Erickson who led the charge in
some of The North Face’s earliest successes,
starting with a line of sleeping bags in 1969, then
expanding into parkas and packs. Portrayed as
somewhat of an eccentric, an August 1975 Field
& Stream magazine article paints a picture of
Mark Erickson as a guy who “bobs and waves his
way through the plant on a unicycle,” but goes
onto proclaim that “his designs are some of the
soundest and most original in the industry.”
Indeed, models like the Bigfoot mummy
bag kept users warm enough to sleep in
20-degree Fahrenheit temperatures, and early
iterations of their rain parka (a precursor to the
iconic Mountain Jacket) was lauded for its beautiful
tailoring and ingenious vents meant to reduce
interior condensation. Early packs like the
Wrapac and Kaksack set the stage for the modern
trend of utilitarian side bags, and their biggest
innovation at the time was the introduction
of the Dandelion and Morning Glory tents—collapsible
geodesic domes that expertly blended
form and function. It was also the year that The
North Face introduced their first down-filled expedition
parka, establishing a reputation for
blending attractive products with innovative
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technology.
In 1985,
The North Face debuted
arguably one
of the greatest
jackets of the modern
era. The
Mountain Jacket,
with its colorblocked
outer
GORE-TEX shell,
long side seam
pockets, and high-necked hood was made for
the worst of winter temperatures. It followed
that up in 1988 with the Denali, a zip-fleece jacket
first worn by climbers Todd Skinner and Paul
Piana during a nine-day ascent of the tortuous
Salathé Wall, a formidable climbing route up El
Capitan, a famous 3,000-foot high monolith in
Yosemite National Park. Ironically, the wall was
named by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, in
honor of rock climber John Salathé.
By 1990, the Mountain Jacket and
Denali were refitted to work in conjunction with
each other, allowing the Denali to function as a
fleece liner for the technical parka. It was also
around this time that The North Face gained
plenty of ground off of the slopes, and on the
backs of stylish city dwellers. Coincidentally,
The North Face’s penchant for contrasting deep
reds, bright blues, and radiant yellows with
black chest patches and its recognizable logo
made their gear all the more covetable among
sneakerheads, who notice the synergy with
some of the most popular colorways of Air
Jordan sneakers. Besides the Mountain Jacket,
puffers like the Nuptse and Baltoro similarly
gained a second life as status symbols.
In 2000, The North Face was acquired
by the VF Corporation for $25.4 million dollars.
The company also owns brands like JanSport,
Vans, Wrangler, and Timberland. It has given the
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STREETWEAR GOES BIGGER IN JAPAN
Thanks to the influence of the International Stüssy Tribe, members like
Hiroshi Fujiwara helped spread the streetwear gospel to the east. Fujiwara
is colloquially known as the “godfather of Japanese streetwear,” and is instrumental
in helping the movement proliferate in Tokyo and beyond. The
“Ura-Harajuku” scene of the ‘90s saw influential boutiques like NOWHERE
birth brands like UNDERCOVER and A Bathing Ape. Meanwhile, Rei
Kawakubo of COMME des GARÇONS brought attention to Japan’s high
fashion scene, along with designers like Issey Miyake and Yohji
Yamamoto. CDG has gone on to embrace streetwear to a certain degree,
stocking up-and-coming labels at Dover Street Market and collaborating
with sportswear companies like Nike. Japanese streetwear continues to
flourish, with labels like visvim, WTAPS, NEIGHBORHOOD, and Wacko
Maria putting their own spin on casual garments that speak to a discerning
consumer. In fact, its hotbed of covetable labels has become one of
the country’s coolest exports.
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BEEN CHILL
Summer style has a bad reputation for inhibiting your ability to put your best
‘fits on. Shorts are hard to pull off, some days are so hot you can only wear
a T-shirt, and you can forget about trying to rock your favorite pair of sneakers
without sweating through your socks. Unless of course you happen to
have a pair of breathable knit sneakers in your warm weather rotation—or
perhaps some super-rare sandals?
If you happen to be on vacation, just lean into it 100%. Looking good in the
summer isn’t so much about having all the right gear as much as it is having
the right mindset. All you really need are a few beach essentials to relax in
the comfort of your own cabana—or at least on top of your beach towel.
Resort life was made for rocking all the luxury Spring/Summer gear you’ve
accumulated over the past year, so why not just kick back with a cold one,
throw on your best pair of limited-edition sunglasses, and focus on all the
dope gear you plan to cop when you’re back in the city?
8

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JUST IN CASE
12
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15
It’s easy to flex on everyone else when you’re wearing the freshest
clothes you own. But when they’re packed up in a suitcase, it gets a bit
harder. Thankfully, there has never been as many ways to one-up your
fellow frequent flyers, whether it’s a subtle nod with a high-fashion passport
case or a full-on carry-on that turns heads everywhere you roll it.
The idea of travel itself has become synonymous with the way street culture
has spread to different countries. Before the internet, finding the
hottest brands in Europe or Japan involved buying a plane ticket and
physically visiting the store. With the advent of online shopping and
Instagram, it’s almost become necessary to cop new gear and accessories
before you leave, lest your style game gets caught slipping in the security
line. After all, the airport has become just another place for
like-minded people to easily spot each other, quietly compare their taste
levels, and continue onto their final destinations.
14

COME GET YOUR KICKS
ACNE ADRIAN SNEAKER
Acne Studios is a Swedish fashion label that became known for its minimal
aesthetic, before branching out with impressive collections that moved the
needle. But true to its roots, it still makes understated products like the
Adrian, a monotone leather tennis shoe made out of calfskin leather set upon
a hardy rubber sole.
COMMON PROJECTS ACHILLES
Common Projects’ premise is simple: Minimal shoes made from high quality
materials that speak for themselves. In a way, its white low-top Achilles is the
sneaker equivalent of a premium white T-shirt—understated, elevated, and
sure to make anything around it somehow look better. No wonder it’s their
most popular shoe.
VANS SLIP-ON
The Van Doren Rubber Company opened up shop in 1966, originally starting
with three styles of shoes. The Slip-On was one of them. It became a staple
for many members of California’s nascent skate scene—so much so that
Vans implemented a skateboard in its company logo. Now, it’s a favorite of
dedicated skate rats and stylish pedestrians alike.
SUPERGA X HIGHSNOBIETY 2750
In Italy, the Superga 2750 is known as “the people’s shoe,” a democratic
silhouette that means something different to everyone. That made it the
perfect canvas for a Highsnobiety collaboration in 2018. Consisting of six
colorways, the shoes were rendered in both a full suede upper and a suede
and canvas mixed upper.
MAISON MARGIELA REPLICA SNEAKER
Maison Margiela’s “Replica” sneakers are mainly based on the German Army
Trainer, a standard-issue sneaker given to members of the German military
around the 1970s. The fashion house adds a plush leather lining and an elastic
strap under the tongue for a more secure fit, while preserving the clean lines
of the original shoe.
CONVERSE CHUCK TAYLOR 1970 HI
The Chuck Taylor debuted in 1923 as the first signature basketball shoe for
Charles “Chuck” Taylor, when he joined a team sponsored by Converse. 90
years later, Converse revisited the original specifications of the shoe and
introduced the 1970s Chuck Taylor All-Star, made with a sturdier rubber sole
and vintage-inspired branding.
Sneaker trends come and go—with a new wave of silhouettes favoring a
chunkier sole and more maximalist design—but the soft-spoken, clean-line
sneaker will forever be relevant. And they’ve recently overtaken more formal
footwear as the go-to for giving even the most tailored looks a bit of relaxed
elegance.
The classic plimsoll has its roots in Britain in the 1830s, but the
genesis of the modern tennis shoe is closer to the 1960s, when adidas debuted
its first signature tennis shoe for Robert Haillet. By 1967, the simple
white model (with a green accent on the heel) was renamed after Stan
Smith, and the name has stuck since then.
Meanwhile on the West Coast, Vans’ silhouettes perfectly encapsulated
the laid-back attitude of California style and skateboarding. Sneaker
culture continues to progress at a fast clip, as companies like Nike and adidas
vie for the top spot. This creates a space where smaller brands can flourish,
and in 2004, Common Projects enters the scene offering minimal,
high-quality sneakers that inadvertently create a new market of luxury kicks.
SAINT LAURENT SL/10H
When Hedi Slimane remade Yves Saint Laurent into the more austere Saint
Laurent Paris in 2013, the fashion world was waiting with bated breath to see
what else he would do. The sneaker world didn’t know what hit them when
he released the SL/10H sneaker, a high-fashion high-top that took a few
design cues from the Nike Air Jordan 1, taking the basketball sneaker to new
heights in the process.
GUCCI ACE
Alessandro Michele became a household name when he transformed Gucci
into a verdant paradise of avant-garde fashion. His envelope-pushing designs
draw from Renaissance art and plenty of floral motifs, which he uses to
breathe new life into Gucci’s best-known staples. The Gucci Ace tennis shoe
is refreshed with intricate floral embroidery on the upper, mixing an upscale
elegance into the sporty sneaker.
259

PANTS FOR ALL OCCASIONS
ADIDAS YEEZY CALABASAS TRACKPANT
Originally meant to be sent out as the invite for the YEEZY Season 4 show,
these simple adidas trackpants remain highly collectible today. They feature
graphic details that allude to Kanye West’s collaboration with the brand.
“Calabasas” is screenprinted on one leg, a reference to the upscale California
city where West lives.
3SIXTEEN SL-100X
3sixteen specializes in selvedge raw denim, which is meant to be broken in
over a long period of time before the color fades into a personalized pair. The
company uses custom fabrics from Japanese textile factory Kuroki Mills. This
particular denim was worn in for three years, resulting in hard-earned rips and
high-contrast fades that only add to their appeal.
ACNE STUDIOS BLÅ KONST LAND JEANS
The Acne Studios label was known for its high-quality jeans when it first
started, so it returned to its roots by reinventing its denim offering in 2017.
Their new Blå Konst line is named after the Swedish words for “blue art,” and
they updated their jeans with Italian denim and new fits like the Land, a
mid-rise jean with a boxy fit.
ALYX X FRAGMENT PINSTRIPE WOOL TROUSERS
ALYX designer Matthew Williams collaborated with Hiroshi Fujiwara’s
fragment design imprint in 2017, creating a capsule collection of menswear.
One of the standout pieces, these wool trousers feature an adjustable velcro
hem, and a pinstripe material that repeats the “ALYX” label name on each
line down the fabric.
The classics are classics for a reason, and many timeless trousers still serve a
reference point for labels all across the fashion spectrum. After all, menswear
doesn’t move in a rapid pace where styles quickly shift from one to the other,
but rather a slow burn that involves transforming familiar shapes and silhouettes
little-by-little.
Chinos have ebbed and flowed in popularity throughout the decades,
but they’ve never gone out of style. The fits have changed (as has the
number of pleats), and while a modern, slim silhouette still reigns predominant
in this era of style, there has been a strong comeback in wider legs and smart
pleats, thanks to a wave of ‘90s nostalgia.
A.P.C. PETIT STANDARD WASHED JEANS
THE FLAT HEAD F310 JEANS
Denim remains as relevant and popular as ever, and now comes in a
French fashion brand A.P.C. has been around since the ‘80s, but helped The Flat Head is a Japanese denim company revered around the world for its raw
variety of fits, washes, and prices. Meanwhile, a trend towards comfort and
usher in a trend towards unwashed raw denim in the early aughts, thanks to selvedge jeans that fade into a great contrast after just a few wears. The F310 is an
more casual sportswear sees an uptick in trackpants and slim-fitting fleece
its modern fits. They also make several washed versions of their jeans, like update of their 3001 cut, a slim jean with a mid-rise that suits most body types, and
sweats dominating the style conversation among young, style-conscious men. the Petit Standard, a slim-straight jean with a bit of stretch in the fabric. a dark blue indigo color that eventually fades into a brighter blue shade.
271

Japan
Streetwear
History
Japan is home to many of the world’s most sought-after streetwear brands.
From A Bathing Ape to NEIGHBORHOOD to Wacko Maria, it all traces
back to one specific area that remains a shopping hub today: Harajuku.
286
Harajuku, like New Yorks SoHo
neighborhood, is known the world
over as the pre-eminent shopping
destination for fashion labels, big
brands, and of course, some of the
best streetwear companies in the
world. But also similar to SoHo, it
wasnt always the host to the cremede-la-creme
of street-inspired fashion
labels.
To trace the history of Japans
streetwear, you have to go to the
back alleys of Harajuku and Aoyama,
where around four square blocks
comprise whats now known as
Urahara, a shortened version of
ura-Harajuku, which means the hidden
Harajuku. What started as a
humble area of nameless shops and
independent boutiques became an
underground mecca for a booming
early-90s streetwear scene. In an
age before the Internet and
Instagram, one had to know a member
of the cognoscenti to be aware
of all the great shops hidden in in
plain sight—and then had to buy a
plane ticket to be able to get anything
from them.
The nearby Shibuya neighborhood
had already proven itself as
a haunt for local youths, and
Harajuku was also becoming home
to Japans nascent and varied style
tribes. There were the prep
school-wearing Miyuki-Zoku of the
1960s, known for ditching traditional
Japanese uniforms for traditional
American styles, the 1980s Karasu-
Zoku Crow Tribe that gave rise to
DC acolytes—an acronym for fans
of Designer and Character brands
like Yohji Yamoto and Rei Kawakubos
COMME des GARÇONS, and the
overly made-up nature of the
Ganguro Girls of the 1990s, which
inspired Gwen Stefanis hit song
Harajuku Girls.
Early pioneers of
the Urahara movement
brought trends, brands,
and styles from the West
and introduced them to a
Japanese consumer hungry
for newness. American
hip-hop and UK punk were
especially big influences,
with shops like A Store
Robot and Vintage King
leading the charge. Japan already
had a host of homegrown labels tapping
1950s and 1960s rock-and-roll
subculture, like Masayuki Yamazakis
CREAM SODA, and later Nobuhiko
Kitamuras HYSTERIC GLAMOUR.
But arguably the moment that
changed everything for Urahara is
when Jun Jonio Takahashi and
Tomoaki NIGO Nagao opened
NOWHERE around 1993.
Friends who met at the prestigious
Bunka Fashion College,
Takahashi was already establishing
himself as a designer to watch with
his label UNDERCOVER. NIGO got
his nickname from a facial similarity
to the Godfather of Japanese
Streetwear, Hiroshi Fujiwara. He
was called Fujiwara Hiroshi Ni Go, or
number 2. Its true that Fujiwaras
friendships with the International
Stüssy Tribe and Malcolm McLaren
and Vivienne Westwood would have
Pioneers of the Urahara movement brought trends,
brands, and styles from the West and introduced
them to a Japanese consumer hungry for newness.
a profound effect on the Japanese
scene. He became a champion for
this new movement of streetwear,
and even started a few of his own
projects like GOODENOUGH and
fragment in the wake of the
American streetwear boom that
arose after Stüssy.
NOWHERE set the stage for
the rise of UNDERCOVER and A
Bathing Ape. The latter started as
custom T-shirts that NIGO would
make for the store, and then his desire
to have his own brand to complement
Takahashis budding fashion
career. Beyond the retail world, the
two became heavily involved in
Japanese media, following in Hiroshi
Fujiwaras footsteps as Japans premier
cultural arbiter.
Hiroshi Fujiwara had a magazine
column, Last Orgy, which was
originally published in Takarajima,
and put readers onto new music,
films, gear, and DJ equipment, and
became a short-lived late night television
series that parallels Glenn
OBriens TV Party, a seminal New
York City public access show that
plucked artists like Klaus Nomi,
Debbie Harry, Jean-Michel Basquiat,
and Fab Five Freddy from obscurity.
NIGO was an avid fan of the series,
and titled his Popeye magazine column
Last Orgy 2.Later, Takahashi
and NIGO tag-tamed on a similar
column for Asayan magazine, appropriately
called Last Orgy 3.

The Influence
of: Punk
Punk ideology put an emphasis on authentic self-expression, shocking
styles, and aggressive music with an anti-establishment bent. Its nature to
provoke has created some of youth culture’s most important uniforms that
have gone onto influence numerous designers.
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In 2016, Joe Corré, the son of
Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm
McLaren, gathered around $6.8 million
dollars’ worth of punk memorabilia,
ranging from Sex Pistols flyers,
old Seditionaries T-shirts, to other
rare ephemera, and set it on fire.
Next to the items were effigies of
politicians like Theresa May, George
Osborne, and David Cameron,
Teddy Boys, a youth movement that
sought to revive Edwardian-era
styles like velvet-collared overcoats
and skinny drainpipe trousers,
often pairing them
with thick-soled D-ring
creepers from British footwear
manufacturer
George Cox. Teddy Boys
(and Teddy Girls) were
largely composed of
low-income youth, some
of whom would save up all
their money and blow it on
an expensive tailored coat, which
they’d wear to tatters.
By the 1960s, many Teddy
boys traded their Edwardian coats
for Schott Perfecto motorcycle jackets,
and the drainpipe trousers for
Levi’s jeans, becoming harder-edged
rockers. Or they went to
the opposite end of the spectrum,
appropriating M-51 fishtail parkas
Punk emerged in the 1970s as an amalgamation of
the numerous subcultures that preceded it, like
glam rockers, skinheads, rude boys, and mods.
adorned with the bullseye logo of
the British Royal Air Force and skinny
vertical-striped suits from
Carnaby Street haberdashers,
evolving into mods. The two subcultures
were instant rivals, and resulted
in altercations like a 1964 riot in
Brighton, ending with 51 arrests and
two stabbings. Somewhere along
the way, different subcultures
spawned that carried the traits of
both. There were the skinheads who
shaved their heads and wore crisp
Ben Sherman shirts with suspenders,
Levi’s jeans, and Dr. Martens
boots, and the later suedeheads
who wore iridescent suits, crombie
coats, and a less aggressive demeanor
than skinheads. The natty
Jamaican rude boys of West
Kingston, who flipped American
jazz style into something a little
more rough around the edges, and a
new crop of glam rockers like Marc
Bolan of T. Rex, David Bowie, and
Gary Glitter added platform shoes,
loud costumes, bold patterns, and
makeup into the mix.
Punk emerged in the 1970s
as an amalgamation of the numerous
subcultures that preceded it. As
before, a lot of the culture’s participants
were comprised of people
from lower economic classes, so
many proto-punks were anti-capitalist
and anti-fashion, eschewing
the fancy uniforms of the past in favor
of a DIY aesthetic that involved
patching up worn garments, at
times even holding them together
with safety pins, or using patches to
cover rips and tears. Hairstyles like
the mohawk became part of the
movement, with more extreme
styles like Liberty spikes coming
into the forefront. Leather motorcycle
jackets and vintage army jackets
were absorbed as part of the uniform,
with studded belts and spiked
bracelets inserting even more of a
shock factor.
which contained fireworks that exploded
above the river Thames.
“Punk was never, never
meant to be nostalgic,” he told the
crowd before he set the items
aflame. “Punk has become another
marketing tool to sell you something
you don’t need. The illusion of
an alternative choice. Conformity in
another uniform.”
It’s an ironic choice of words,
given that his mother was instrumental
in creating a good portion of
what is now known as the quintessential
punk uniform, and his father
was a visionary who managed two
of punk’s best-known bands: The
New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols.
But in burning all that memorabilia,
and using the opportunity to highlight
subcultural appropriation and
the dangers of climate change, the
act itself was unmistakably punk.
While punk rock came into
being largely in the mid-1970s, its
influences range from the garage
rock of the 1960s to British subcultures
in the 1950s, specifically the 305

306
This mode of dress, and the
act of bricolage re-contextualization
that was so essential to it, greatly
influenced Vivienne Westwood
and Malcolm McLaren in the 1970s.
Their shop Sex began selling
gear like toilet chain
necklaces, patchwork
sport coats,, and graphic
tees clearly meant to offend.
Some of the more
famous ones include the
DESTROY T-shirt, depicting
an inverted crucifix
and a swastika, as well as
Snow White and the Sir
Punks, which features an
unauthorized use of the
Disney princess committing
a sex act with all seven
dwarfs. The shop
gained further prominence
when it was renamed
Seditionaries in
1976, Punk graphics, from
the visual art of posters to
graphic tees, heavily relied
on collages, reinforcing
the subculture’s
penchant for mashing up
different materials and ideas.
Distressing and customization
played an important part in punk
style, often repurposing button-down
shirts with graphics, royal
stewart tartan trousers with zippers
In the United States, The Ramones came to
symbolize a more austere punk uniform, often clad
in Schott Perfecto jackets, ripped Levi’s 501 denim,
Chuck Taylor sneakers, and slim-fitting T-shirts,
an influence that can still be seen today.
on the backs of the legs, and bondage
straps on trousers. British stylist
Judy Blame rose to prominence
during this era, and established a
legacy of iconic punk aesthetics
that made the culture even more
credible in the fashion industry.
In the United States, The
Ramones came to symbolize a more
austere punk uniform, often clad in
Schott Perfecto jackets, ripped
Levi’s 501 denim, Chuck Taylor
sneakers, and slim-fitting T-shirts.
This more casual take on punk style
evolved to movements like Youth
crew, a scene characterized by its
moralist outlook, optimism, and
penchant for sportswear staples
like varsity jackets, military pants,
shorts, band T-shirts, and sneakers
from brands like New Balance.
Labels like adidas and Champion
were also popular. That movement
also gave rise to straight edge culture,
in which participants abstained
from drugs and alcohol
altogether.
Punk’s influence stretched
to Japan, where the in-your-face
aesthetics resonated beyond the
music. There, the subculture’s style
influence inspired Rei Kawakubo at
COMME des GARÇONS, whose
deconstructed designs and use of
unorthodox materials perfectly
align with the established punk
look. Jun Takahashi of
UNDERCOVER was greatly influenced
by the subculture, and his entire
label carries forth some of
punk’s most recognizable iconography,
like anarchist symbolism,
graphic print leather jackets, and
extremely skinny trousers with zipper
details. Hiroshi Fujiwara was an
avid fan of the Seditionaries label,
and went to great lengths to collect
the apparel, eventually teaming up
with Takahashi in 2005 on a limited-edition
book showcasing the
massive collection of gear they’ve
accrued over the years.
Today, punk continues to be
an important reference for streetwear
brands and fashion designers
alike. Young Los Angeles designer
Shane Gonzales first discovered
early punk bands while playing the
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater as a child,
and retroactively discovered The
Punk continues to be an important reference point
for young streetwear brands like Shane Gonzales’
MIDNIGHT STUDIOS and acclaimed fashion
designers like Jun Takahashi of UNDERCOVER.
Sex Pistols and other groups, directly
inspiring his MIDNIGHT STUDIOS
label. Supreme has done collaborations
using the graphics of The
Misfits for its Spring 2013 collection,
and the Dead Kennedys for its
Spring 2014 collection. That same
year it also partnered with artist
Raymond Pettibon, known for designing
the logo of punk band Black
Flag, on a capsule collection of tees,
hoodies, and skateboard decks.
Musically, the punk attitude
and aesthetic have been succeeded
by a new wave of hip-hop acts.
California crew Odd Future—led
by Tyler, the Creator—gained attention
for their shocking lyrical
content and visuals, and performances
that recreated the raw,
youthful energy reminiscent of a
punk show. Other artists like Travis
Scott and Lil Uzi Vert embody a
modern spirit of punk, both in their
bold fashion choices and their ability
to turn any of their performances
into an instant mosh pit. The
message is clear: punk’s spirit is
still very much alive.
307

Coolest Collabs: Schott
Schott x Supreme:
Since its founding in 1994, Supreme has become a company synonymous
with skater style and counter-cultural uniforms. In addition to introducing
blue-chip artists like Damien Hirst to skate decks, they’ve also
partnered with storied manufacturers to make high-quality versions of
garments that they otherwise couldn’t produce themselves. Case in point:
Why attempt to make the perfect leather jacket when Schott has been
putting them out for over a century?
That’s the reason Supreme and Schott have been collaborating
for years, whether it’s on a a buttery suede A-2 flight jacket or several iterations
of Scott’s double-rider Perfecto. One version eschews the extraneous
hardware for a minimal take on the motorcycle jacket, replete with a
blackwatch check liner. Another saw Supreme bring on Jun Takahashi of
UNDERCOVER for a bright blue leather take on the Perfecto.
Schott x Noah:
After cutting his teeth at seminal labels like PERVERT in Miami
and several years as the lead designer at Supreme, Brendon Babenzien
resurrected his Noah label in 2015, replete with a storefront that doubles
as a community hub in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. Noah initially
launched as a premium menswear label in the early 2000s, and was carried
at pioneering retailers like Nom De Guerre. The new iteration carries
forth Babenzien’s penchant for ethical manufacturing practices and premium
fabrics, with a strong stance towards environmental awareness and
issues like social justice.
In its first season, Noah and Schott teamed up to create a sheepskin
version of the classic toggle coat. Manufactured in New York, it was
an early reflection of Noah’s commitment to quality and roots in classic
menswear with a nod towards the versatility of men’s style today. Produced
in extremely limited quantities, it remains a rarity among the brand’s most
ardent fans.
Schott NYC was founded in 1912 and was the first company to introduce zippers on a leather jacket.
While in the past, it’s outfitted soldiers and policemen in standard-issue outerwear, it really
established its legacy on the other side of the law—when it introduced the Perfecto, a double-rider
motorcycle jacket that debuted in 1998. Since then, Schott’s heritage has toed the line between hardwearing
staples and rebellious counter-cultural symbols, making it an ideal canvas for plenty of
brands to work with.
318
Schott x VETEMENTS:
Established in 2009 by designer Demna Gvasalia, VETEMENTS is
a collective and fashion label comprised of veterans from houses like Maison
Margiela, Balenciaga, Céline, and Louis Vuitton. The label’s oversized
Champion hoodies, remade The North Face puffers, and pieced-together
Levi’s jeans gave them a reputation as the l’enfants terribles who shook up
the fashion world with streetwear-inspired silhouettes at luxury price points.
The brand’s Spring/Summer 2017 collection took the streetwear
inspiration a step further by consisting of collaborative garments.
VETEMENTS tapped everyone from COMME des GARÇONS, Juicy
Couture, Carharrt, and Hanes to make exaggerated versions of some of their
most iconic pieces. That extended to Schott, who created oversized iterations
of their Perfecto jacket and a sheepskin trucker jacket for the
collection.
Schott x 3sixteen:
3sixteen started out as a streetwear brand with graphics inspired
by New York and lyrics from rappers like Nas. In 2008, they evolved
into a denim company with a focus on melding Japanese materials with
American-inspired fits and garments. They developed a following for fabrics
like the “shadow selvedge” denim, which starts ink blue and fades into
a lighter wash with repeated wear.
In 2016, 3sixteen and Schott teamed up on a black Perfecto jacket
lined in lightweight chambray kitted out with sleek matte black hardware,
a longer body, and slimmer arms. They followed that up a year later
with the Arabica Perfecto, made of an exclusive Horween leather in a dark
brown shade that breaks into a lighter tan. Part of the inspiration for the
Arabica collaboration was 3sixteen founder Andrew Chen’s personal love
of coffee and coffee culture.
319

The
COMME
des
GARÇONS
Family
Tree
326
Designer Jun Takahashi got his start
in 1993, opening up the store
NOWHERE in Japan’s Harajuku
neighborhood. His partner in the
store was Tomoaki “NIGO” Nagao,
who would go on to establish seminal
streetwear label A Bathing Ape.
Takahashi’s UNDERCOVER line flourished
in its early years, attracting attention
for his punk-inspired clothes
featuring subversive graphics and a
cut-apart appeal that channelled
Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm
McLaren’s Seditionaries label.
UNDERCOVER
UNDERCOVER’s graphics pulls inspiration
from bands like the Jesus
& Mary Chain and Joy Division, and
even stretches to sci-fi fantasy franchises
like Star Wars. One of his
earliest supporters was Rei
Kawakubo, who urged him to show
his collection at Paris Fashion Week.
When he made his Parisian runway
debut in 2002, Kawakubo sat in the
front row, bringing their mentor-protegé
relationship full circle.
After graduating from Bunka Fashion
College in 1984, Junya Watanabe
got his first job at COMME des
GARÇONS as a pattern cutter and
apprentice pattern maker. He impressed
Kawakubo so much that he
was promoted to a proper design
position, and granted his own label
in 1992. He debuted his first menswear
collection, Junya Watanabe
MAN in 2001, and for a time was also
the head designer of the COMME
des GARÇONS Homme line.
Junya Watanabe
The Tokyo fashion
brand was
instrumental
in putting Japanese
fashion on the map
thanks to designer
Rei Kawakubo’s
meticulous attentionto-
detail and avantgarde
sensibilities.
Under her tutelage,
her and her company
have inspired and
empowered a new
generation of forwardthinking
designers.
Fashion runs in Chitose Abe’s family—her
mother was a seamstress.
In 1991, she began working on Junya
Watanabe’s collection at COMME
des GARÇONS. Eight years later,
she started her own fashion line, sacai.
The label is known for mixing
elegant patterns with rugged fabrications
pulled from the world of
menswear, like buffalo plaid flannel,
various tartans, and military-inspired
nylon.
sacai
In 2015, she collaborated with Nike
on two womenswear capsule collections
of activewear and sneakers
for the sportswear company’s highend
label, NikeLab. Abe’s penchant
for fabric mixing manifested in
sporty skirts made of contrasting
jersey and mesh fabric, and minimal
renditions of the Air Max 90
and Dunk sneakers, paring down
the details down to the eyelets—
opting for a snug elastic band
around the tongue that secured it
to the foot. The result was a label
that spoke to a rising class of discerning
female sneakerheads, who
appreciated Abe’s approach to
sportswear, although a good number
of men also gravitated towards
Abe’s collaborative kicks, too.
Moscovian Gosha Rubchinskiy initially
began his fashion career in the
world of hairstyling and makeup. In
2008 he started his eponymous line
initially consisting of cheap T-shirts
and embroidered Fruit of the Loom
sweatshirts, embodying the hardscrabble
spirit of streetwear.
Gosha Rubchinskiy
In 2010, while his rising label was
experiencing troubles with production,
Adrian Joffe, the president of
COMME des GARÇONS and retailer
Dover Street Market, was impressed
with the line, and eventually
offered to produce it and bring
Rubchinskiy’s label under the CDG
umbrella, where it remains today.
Known for his Post-Soviet aesthetic
drawing heavily on Russian ‘90s
subculture, he started a trend towards
Cyrillic typeface logos and
bootleg-inspired garments. The lofi/hi-fi
appeal of his elevated streetwear
has attracted a global fanbase
of youth.
Watanabe is known for his reinterpretation
of workwear tropes and
classic menswear silhouettes. His
ability to re-contextualize heritage
workwear and labels like Levi’s,
Carhartt, and The North Face injects
a newfound sense of excitement
into tried-and-true brands. In
many ways, his contributions to
men’s fashion have re-energized the
genre much in the same way CDG
designer Rei Kawakubo revolutionized
notions of womenswear. 327

Caption about this guy on the picture describing the situation and
giving some background information about how it was shot
Caption about this guy on the picture describing the situation and
giving some background information about how it was shot
336
337

DESIGN & FASHION
THE INCOMPLETE
NEW
Highsnobiety Guide to Street
Fashion and Culture
Editors: Gestalten & Highsnobiety
Features: Full color, hardcover,
stitch bound, 320 pages, 22.5 × 29 cm
9 × 11-2 / 5 inches
Price: € 39.90 (D) £ 40 $ 60
ISBN: 978-3-89955-580-6
Release : August 2018
[ SAMPLE COVER ]
about the book
Men’s style has come a long way from sneakers and hoodies and has never been
more dynamic or multi-faceted. The Incomplete is your compass through the most iconic
brands and the most desirable accessories.
Lifestyle publication Highsnobiety has covered the intersection between
high-end fashion and street-smart casual style for over 12 years. In The
Incomplete, it highlights the pieces and brands that have stood the test
of time and which aren’t just foolproof, they’re trend-proof. The new
men’s classics couldn’t be further removed from the oft-touted tailored
silhouettes commonplace in other menswear tomes—this book seeks
to define a more modern wardrobe canon. Part visual reference guide,
part snapshot of street culture, this compendium includes quotes from
some of the era’s most influential designers and brands speaking more
specifically about the continued relevance of certain garments.
[◊] HIGHSNOBIETY has become the authoritative publication covering
forthcoming trends and news in fashion, art, music, and culture.
With offices in Berlin and New York, Highsnobiety has steadily
built a strong brand in the online fashion and lifestyle world.
The site and print magazine sit among the most visited global
sources for inspiration. Innovation, progression, and always
being several steps ahead of the curve are just some of the core
values of Highsnobiety.
Gestalten | Die Gestalten Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Mariannenstraße 9–10, 10999 Berlin, Germany
Tel. +49 (0)30 72 61 32 000, Fax +49 (0)30 72 61 32 222, sales@gestalten.com, www.gestalten.com