Does streetwear open a new era for fashion industry?

Streetwear is no longer a culture, it has become a new era for fashion lovers of the 21st century.

In recent years, on various catwalks, streetwear designs (street fashion) appear more and more dense. Many fashion houses, once famous for their conservative ideals like Louis Vuitton or Balenciaga, are also starting to take more risks in choosing streetwear fashion experts to hold the position of creative director for the company.

Streetwear is no longer a temporary trend, it is considered a mandatory business turn of fashion brands because Millennials customers are dominating the market.

What is Streetwear?

Originating in 1980, the streetwear trend exists in skateboarding clubs. The members often create their own style, so that the opposite people recognize who they are.

At that time, streetwear was defined as skateboarding enthusiasts, wearing typical street-style costumes such as sneakers, hoodie, printed T-shirts … Streetwear style brought a variety when it could be variations from active-wear (sports fashion), army-wear (soldier’s clothes), polo … to items influenced by hip-hop culture, urban or skateboarding …

Understanding the desires of the skater, Stüssy created T-shirt designs with doodles that resonate with the street. The brand has created trust, helping young people know more about streetwear.

Sinatra Jr. shared with Complex: “It was the beginning of Stüssy, a brand that defines streetwear”. Stüssy does not create a street fashion culture, but they know how to bring enthusiasts together.

A Bathing Ape, AAPE (Nigo) also contributed significantly to the development of streetwear wave. “If Stüssy started the era of street clothing, Bape would have an impact on the world,” Paul Mittleman – Creative Director of the company shared with Marx.

The connection to the hip-hop movement is the key to streetwear’s success because clothing helps the wearer to express his or her passion.

Controversy revolves around culture

In 2017, Bain & Company made a report on consumer elegance, finding that high-end fashion brands started to care about streetwear culture. The expansion of about 10% of the high-end sneakers market in the period of 2016 – 2017 reached 3.5 billion euros; and the 25% of the t-shirt product is also valued at 2.5 billion euros. “There are two factors that have led to this being the trend of normalizing expensive costume designs and the importance of Millennials,” says Federica Levato, Bain & Company employee.

The customer files belong to the age of 8X and below. This is a special group of consumers who do not like what is too classic and rigid, want to own items with high applicability but still luxurious, prefer to follow unique trends. These factors contributed to the streetwear boom, boosting luxury goods sales by 5% (about US $ 309 billion in 2018).

In the third quarter of 2018, many new brands that made the list of Lyst’s votes were street fashion: Off-White, Stone Island, Moncler and Raf Simons. This is also the first time these names have been compared to many long-standing fashion houses. Experts have argued this is quite fierce because they think that fashion must be high-class spirit, while streetwear is just a street culture.

Autumn-Winter 2017 show of fashion house Louis Vuitton combined with Supreme.

The situation became even more explosive when the streetwear Supreme brand representative sat in the front row of the Louis Vuitton Spring-Summer 2017 show. Half a year later, the French fashion house officially embarked with Supreme to launch a collection for men. with criticism from many fashion experts.

New York Times editor Guy Trebay said: “There is nothing more harmful than this combination. It is the fashion version of a suicide.” Despite the onslaught of the conservative faction, the heat of Louis Vuitton’s Supreme streetwear collections still spread around the world, generating 23 billion in brand revenue.

The controversy between streetwear and couture could not come to an end, when Louis Vuitton chose Virgil Abloh to become the Creative Director to replace Kim Jones. The result for this bold direction is the collection of Louis Vuitton Spring – Summer 2019 which is surprising and interesting for the grave.

Abloh’s entry into the big brand in LVMH Group is considered a major turning point for the world industry. Instead of continuing to follow the “path” of traditional designs, Louis Vuitton positioned the brand with generous fashion colors.

Abloh is one of the first fashion houses to understand how important contemporary fashion engagement is no longer about logo design. “The fashion style that I do is aimed at the younger generation. The products are all like Haute Couture but have a more modern feel. It’s a culture of mixing,” Abloh said in an interview with Slam Jam Socialism.

Another designer who has also taken streetwear culture to the next level is Demna Gvasalia of Vetements. In just three years since the launch of his first collection, he changed his mind, unilaterally redefining Balenciaga fashion DNA.

Like other streetwear designers, Gvasalia is inspired by everyday wear, “breaking” the safety of seeing mainstream fashion with a street-style liberal. This has caused Demna to be ostracized by experts and followers of Vetements.

The transition to streetwear fashion is a difficult and trade-off period for a brand. The new direction, though bringing in revenue from young customers, also means that the old customers can leave the brand.

Does Streetwear open a new era of high fashion?

Many people ask whether high fashion is regressing because of the sales or streetwear culture problem that will open a new era for high fashion. In fact, customers are the followers and follow the trend. Brands that want to stay in touch need to be on the fast track, understand what consumers need and want.

The main evidence is the revenue growth of Louis Vuitton after the company started working with Supreme and Abloh. According to Highsnobiety, in 2018 this brand grew 18% over the same period in 2017.

Brands “break” old thinking with intimacy because they understand that high-end fashion is not only for adults but also for young customers (the group that has high desire to buy fashion products).

In an interview with the Financial Times, Demna Gvasalia explained: “The younger generation is looking for something that stands out and makes them more special than an inappropriate luxury design.”

Smart consumers need the right things, not necessarily buying luxury to prove class. So why make a $ 3,000 product that is only available to a few high-end customers, while high-end brands can still design simple T-shirts with brand logo on the price lower than 500 USD.

Cédric Charbit CEO emphasized: “Balenciaga has changed this mindset so it is wise to cooperate with Gvasalia”.

If you don’t want to step foot in place, you have to be the leader. To lead, you must listen and accept changes to balance the inherent class but still create modern breath-taking designs.

This is a difficult problem that the creators of old brands urgently find solutions. No one knows whether street fashion will be popular in a few years, but streetwear is the new era of high fashion.