Have you ever seen a person kitted out will all supreme logos, from caps to hoodies all the way to shoes, or maybe they were wearing kanye west yeezys, or frankly anything which has been worn by an influential hip hop star, well they might be hype beasts.
A new culture is setting its feet firmly into the ground in the world of fashion, wearing the most exclusive, expensive and lavish clothing. It seems having some sort of style has went out the window, rather pieces of clothing which have the highest recognition among fellow hypebeasts is the way to go.
Camping in front of retailers for hours sometimes days to get the latest offering has become a regular, when pieces of clothing are announced months before released the preparation starts where and when will they have to be to obtain the product.
Fostered by the very smart business mechanism of selling the idea that the product is limited, creating hype which generates a must have thought process, and sure does it work. One of the key front men of the rise of hypebeasts is Supreme, the skate brand has always has kept a limited stock selling platform, depending on the product such as the nike x supreme foams have caused havoc due to such a desire of people wanting the shoes to the point police were called and the store was shut down to tackle the commotion.
One major component of the culture of the ‘hypebeasts’ is content sharing on forums, social network sites and personal websites designed to showcase or rather ‘flex’ on others of their prized and valued collection. Sharing ones ‘fit’ creates discussion on how well the individual has coordinated their pieces of clothing together and whether it works, more expensive pieces are valued higher where people state their envy and praise the person for having such product.
Key celebrity endorsement of clothing by simply wearing clothing are also fundamental, figures such as Kanye West, ASAP Rocky and Wiz Khalifa are frontal to what is the next must have piece of clothing; Rockys involvement with Guess and otherwise ‘dead’ brand saw sales booming for the select products rocky endorsed.
It seems this opening of individuals who are willing to splash masses amount of cash on clothing which is created to be rare and selective, but also endorsed by celebs is a strategy will be ever so profitable for retailers and even the resellers who will gladly profit off small supply but huge demand.
The point of concern is how this impacts the image of fashion, it can be seen that this whole ordeal is about the value of clothing in monetary value, despite quality, look or aesthetic. The damage that this does is that people disregard beauty and what these items do, a t shirt which costs 500$ on ebay with the simple ‘supreme’ logo doesn’t do anything to stimulate the eyes.
What this leads to is someone kitted out in thousands of pounds of items thinking that price of the items and demand equates to looking good. Sure on the rare occasion it could look great when pieced together well, but the point being about this all comes back to a great saying ‘money can’t buy taste’.
Clean Culture 