STREET-LUXE: FASHION'S HIP-HOP OBSESSION

It's a business, coming from the street, which brews billions and transforms the Champs-Élysées. To attract millennials, luxury has taken over hip-hop culture, multiplying collabs and ultra-limited drops. One buys ?

Justin Bieber does his shopping there, a physiognomist jealously guards the entrance, it would be the new holy of holies of the fashion sphere... Nicknamed "The Eldorado of sneakers", "The Temple of streetwear", Kith - the new boutique -an ultra sharp Yorker created by Ronnie Fieg – opened its Parisian flagship rue Pierre Charon, a stone's throw from the Champs-Élysées, last February. “Back to the future” effect? Inside, you think you've been transported twenty years back to Colette, Ronnie Fieg's favorite address, reviewed and corrected by Apple's minimalist architect. By comparison, the Supreme boutique on rue Barbette looks like a crappy favela toilet. It's that we are here in the former Pershing Hall, a space of three floors and 16,000 m ² dedicated to XXL luxury. Here we find everything. But be careful, at the cereal and ice cream bar, there are no vulgar Chocapic, these are compositions imagined by Virgil Abloh or by the co-founder of Colette, Sarah Andelman, which we taste with an inspired air. At the Kith, there is also a “brunch only” restaurant, Sadelle’s , frequented by foreign tourists who multiply the selfies. We almost forget that with its sellers and personal shoppers who look like ultra cool and uber-tattooed skaters, Kith is also a store where you can find trendy books, 1000% Bearbricks, Kaws, Banksy statues , a few clothes on racks (Stone Island, Ksubi, Casablanca, Moncler…), without forgetting Kith hoodies with, in print, the face of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. And of course, exhibited like treasures, in "The Room" (so chic), adorned with three marble armchairs, crazy sneakers, and in particular exclusives like the Casablanca X New Balance or the Nike Air Force 1 Low Paris launched for the opening. I love a Comme des Garçons Teddy and a pair of Nike sneakers. 2500€ to look like Justin Bieber, is that reasonable?

“DRESS LIKE A STAR”

Collected by the big luxury brands, streetwear now generates billions and has transformed the sneaker into a social phenomenon. This hasn't always been the case… Streetwear has its roots in the 1980s and 1990s, in the United States, in particular with the birth of hip-hop and graffiti. At the time, it appeared as a means of asserting one's difference despite belonging to a disadvantaged social class, with a marked visual identity that clearly said “Dress like a star. Be a star”, they said at the time (“Dress like a star. Be a star”). You have to wear cool clothes, like a pair of pristine white sneakers, in order to convince others that you are rich. In addition, sneakers allow you to escape the cops between two graffiti and wide pants or tracksuits allow you to fully indulge in the practice of breakdance. For Virgil Abloh, it is “a form of aesthetic and subjective life rather than a style, because it integrates cultural, social, economic, sporting and musical values”.

THE COOL EMPIRE

Since then, social networks have become the new street (we speak of “screen style”), and creative fifty-somethings around the world are wearing sneakers. Supreme, the skater brand founded in 1994 by James Jebbia, was sold for 2.1 billion last year to the textile group VF Corporation, owner of Vans and Timberland. Moreover, a sign of this Street inflation, a hoodie from his 2017 collaboration with Louis Vuitton, originally sold for 935 dollars, went for 6,048 dollars at Sotheby's...

“STREET CULTURE IS THE NEW POP CULTURE. – WILLIAM LE GOFF

Today, the trio made up of Virgil Abloh (the creator of the Off-White brand was recruited by LVMH to breathe "screen-style" into Louis Vuitton Homme), Demna Gvasalia (has stood out with his Vetements brand before being recruited by Kering to reconfigure Balenciaga into a WTF-cool brand), Kim Jones (when he was DA at Louis Vuitton, he was the first to succeed in luxury sneakers; still at LVMH, he is today at the head of Dior Homme) reign on several continents, and multiply the collections with rap superstars like Kanye West, Travis Scott, Cardi B... "Street culture has won and now permeates the world of luxury , assures Guillaume Le Goff, street culture expert and former editor-in-chief of the Clark magazine. What was cool but underground in the 90s is mega cool and mainstream today. The new Lagerfeld is Virgil Abloh because it was time to change. And Matthew M. Williams is the artistic director of Givenchy Homme. The financial stakes are colossal and street culture is THE new trend, the new pop culture. »

When asked why everyone wants to look like PNL singer Guillaume Le Goff, who today wears Vans, a baggy Carhartt and a Stussy T-shirt (“still my favorite brand”) laughs. “In the schoolyard, there was a fascination with the cool kid in a hoodie with his skateboard and a Walkman on his head, because he was different, he appealed to girls. Cool, as defined by the pioneers of hip-hop, has won. And is on the way to becoming the dominant culture. »

PURE OPPORTUNISM

With his old Weston boots, Levi's jeans, a tweed jacket and a thrift store T-shirt, Marc Beaugé, editorial director of the chic men's L'Étiquette (a collaboration between the So Press group and the DA Franck Ferrand) and columnist on the Quotidien show, takes a more Bourdieusian look at the phenomenon: “The power of large groups is such that now we are imposed our tastes. It's just like music. It used to be that when a major hit a new song on the radio, you found it lame on the first listen, you tolerated it on the fiftieth listen and you bought it after the thousandth time. This is what happened with fashion. With great blows of advertising pages, com 'on Instagram and influencers, we come to desire clothes that we reject at first sight. For the dandy journalist, fashion has taken over streetwear out of sheer opportunism. “For years, when we bought a fashion garment, it was understood that it was a luxury garment, very expensive because it was fashionable and above all well made. For 20 years, the fashion industry has managed to break that. Apart from a few rare houses (Hermès, Chanel, Prada…), she has managed to disconnect fashion and luxury. The great success of the sector, which now makes it infinitely profitable, is to have created a market for less well-made but equally expensive garments. Streetwear is a good vector for this. Thanks to him, a brand like Balenciaga can sell a pair of heat-sealed plastic sneakers made in China for the price of a suit made in Italy. It is much more profitable. Conversely, it must be said, when Dior collaborates on a pair of Jordans, they do so in good conditions, in Italy, with superior leather. They sell it expensive, of course, but it makes sense. We are in real luxury. »

Mechanically, fashion brands have two obsessions: to bring consumers, who are increasingly younger, back to their stores on a regular basis and to sell them clothes on which they earn as much as possible. “If they sell a timeless garment, perfectly made and puncture-proof, it's not profitable. So we create ephemeral collections, very marked in time, and which expire after six months. The fluo hoodie with the diamond logo, six months later it is obsolete, people no longer want to wear it. So why bother doing it right? We go to Portugal, we take a basic jersey, we stick a big logo, we make a margin of x20 and presto, the customer is happy. Because he buys social status for six months, not clothes for life. Or as Maurizio Gucci's ancestors would have said: "Caveat emptor" ("Let the buyer be vigilant", editor's note). Moreover, Virgil Abloh, ready to move on to the next phase of his masterplan, prophesied a year ago, “streetwear will collapse, vintage will soon dominate”. Translation: luxury, having well digested the codes of the street, will get back to producing more durable and timeless pieces, like those presented in its last Louis Vuitton Men's show. In a word, more luxury.

Another fundamental movement to be expected for 2022: the Street-Green. “There is a whole trend for eco-responsible sneakers, confirms Noémie Verstraete, curator of the Sneakers exhibition, sneakers enter the museum at the Musée de l'homme. All the brands are doing it, with vegan shoes or shoes made of natural materials, without glue and entirely recyclable. Others combine their street influences with their pop-cultural or gaming tastes. At Balenciaga, after dominating the last Parisian fashion-week with his Simpsons film created with Matt Groening, the brilliant Demna Gvasala continues to create clothes for our Fortnite game avatars (as well as a series of black hoodies with the Fortnite logo) without forgetting to test the future with his new BFF Kanye (the full face mask, the protective jacket, etc.)…

INDEPENDENT LUXURY COMPANY

“Brands have always been communications,” recalls our street expert Guillaume Le Goff. The novelty is that they have largely become their own medium. Media always eager for novelties, unpublished content... Balenciaga, after having nibbled at street culture, will continue to explore pop culture and, above all, gaming. There will be no crazy stuff in the Metaverse dear to Mark Zuckerberg and the luxury brands will be 1000% present there…” And once our avatar is dressed in an outfit sold at the price of one or more minimum wage?

Marc Beaugé dreams of a world where actors from the street regain their independence: “Kanye West is strong. He breathes in brilliant aesthetics, radicalism. But why doesn't he crush the market by setting up his own brand? With Virgil Abloh, they could produce good, sincere, honest, independent stuff, and make the culture of their beginnings triumph. It would be so much stronger than making a few billion more, via rap culture, for luxury brands…”

A bit like Frank Ocean who launched Homer, an “independent luxury company” which offers a collection of jewelry made up of diamond-encrusted bracelets, enamel pendants and gold rings, as well as patterned silk scarves. With prices ranging between those of the street, $435 and those of the ultra-luxury, $1.9 million… A special case? Or the first of a long series?

By Marc Godin