After winning the best menswear category at the 2018 CFDA awards, many streetwear fans have claimed that this is it for Supreme. But how can a brand be dead when they’ve just won the biggest award in fashion?
It’s hard to believe that the Supreme we know today is the same brand that opened its first store on Lafayette street in New York over 20 years ago. The brand has gone from a niche shop that solely catered to New York's skaters, to one of the biggest names in fashion in a relatively short space of time. And although they've remained a skate brand at heart, by constantly pushing the boundaries of what that means they've grown into something completely unique.
This ingenuity has been noticed by fashion fans and the industry alike, leading to Supreme being elevated to the level of fashion house - a move transition which was cemented by their 2017 collaboration with Louis Vuitton and CFDA win (which saw them beat icons such as Raf Simons, Thom Browne and Virgil Abloh). Couple this with the $500million investment from private equity giants The Carlyle Group the brand received last year, and it’s clear that Supreme are much more than just another streetwear brand.
Usually success is celebrated, but not in this case. Many diehard Supreme fans are claiming that the brand is in fact dead, but how can that be the case when they've just been valued at $1billion and won one of the most prestigious awards in fashion ?
When people say Supreme is dead what they really mean is, “Supreme isn’t cool anymore.” Which is fair enough tbh. Online flexing and an embarrassing must-cop culture have definitely made the brand tricky to wear for some of us.
On a personal level, there have been times where I’ve seen a Hypebeast walking through Soho – Yeezy's on fot, wearing a Box Logo and Bape facemask - and I’ve been embarrassed to be wearing the same brands. And I’m by no means an OG fan, so I can’t imagine how that must feel for someone who's been repping the brand from day one.
It’s not Supreme’s fault though. If you look back at previous designs, lookbooks and marketing strategies, they’ve done nothing to fuel the hype or feed the hypebeasts. Instead they just make nice clothes that people really, really want. How can a brand be played out when the clothing is so sought after?
The clothing is not only hyped as fuck, it’s (mostly) really nice. Yes, there’s always something quirky each season that makes headlines (like the brick or guitar), but there majority of their output is genuinely nice, thoughtfully designed, menswear. Supreme more than deserve their CFDA award, and people who think they don’t really need to look beyond the surface and the hyped-up headline pieces.
Obviously for the OG’s, the new creative direction and new wave of young fans is probably off putting. The simple fact is, Supreme now represents something other than the culture it came from. But that doesn't mean the is over - they've simply progressed. Don’t say Supreme is dead when they’re at the top of their game.
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