New to the street game? Get familiar with the hottest brands worldwide right now.
Streetwear has come to the attention of retail. Yeezy aside (there’s no competing with that marketing), some are legacy brands with streetwear at their core – those guys are winning big with the current resurgence – others are new kids on the block.
1. Supreme – the kings of scarcity whose shoppers are the very definition of hypebeasts. They only sell menswear and deal in some stellar collaborations.
2. Gosha Rubchinskiy – the new kid on the block making post-Soviet fashion cool. Buddies with the Vetements crew, his own collection also sells out in a flash. This season he shot the Topman holiday campaign.
3. Off-White – if you didn’t know them already, you’ll soon spot wearers of their pavement striped motif. With an average price of $451, this premium label has fast sell through.
4. Kith – with just a four New York stores (plus the Bergdorf shop-in-shop) this US streetwear label is beyond buzzy. Its products are highly functional, cater to men, women and kids and frequently collaborates with Nike.
5. Vetements – if there was a litmus test for fashion/no-fashion, Vetements would be it. They are a polarising collective churning out hits like the DHL t-shirt, metal inspired Titanic t-shirts and super-luxe hoodies. Averaging at $1,142 an item, Vetements sits at the top end of the streetwear offering.
6. Vans – replacing Adidas’s Stan Smith as the cool sneaker of the moment is Van’s classic high top. The brand is stocked widely – in fact in the last three months there’s been a 45% YOY increase in new Vans arrivals.
7. Puma x Fenty – the sportswear giant has successfully bridged the athletic-street crossover with its Rihanna collaboration. Mostly monochrome, items from the line on average cost $157 and sell out in 19 days. In the last three months, the fur sliders and platform creeper sneakers have been bestsellers.
8. Hood By Air – priced similarly to Off-White at an average of $429, Hood By Air (or HBA) goes for conversational pieces with an overblown silhouette and punk fastenings and embellishment.
9. Rick Owens -the label has been dressing fashion’s edgiest followers for more than twenty years. Priced on average at $756, this is streetwear for grown-ups. It’s dark, fierce and utterly luxurious. Cue a new wave of devotees with streetwear’s resurgence.
10. Bash – rapper Wiz Khalifa’s collection for fathers and their sons. Enough said.
11. Fear of God – one of the fortuitously timely things about streetwear is its gender-neutrality and gender-blending. Fear of God do this well: their current menswear offering includes men’s kilts, carried by Selfridges, Barneys and Farfetch. The brand’s velcro strap hi-tops, priced at $1,195, with their unbranded dystopian look, have sold particularly well in recent months.
If you’re entering into streetwear, not only do you need to get the above brands on your radar, but you’ll also need to get familiar with your competitors. There’s players out there who understand product very well and have a great brand reach. We’re talking retailers like End Clothing, LN-CC, Oki-Ni and Need Supply.
Analyze what they sell at which price points and take a close look at what doesn’t work for them and ends up discounted. Which is what we’re here to help you with!
Katie Smith
