The hidden meaning behind Supreme's accessories We went to the biggest Supreme's auction to understand what's the sense of these crazy items
Try to name a fashion brand that in less than 25 years has produced - apart from tees and apparel - a series of accessories that range from classic stickers, ashtrays, a ladder, a pinball, ceramic statues, a kayak, a vault, a set of knives, an electric guitar, a crowbar, a paperweight, a trumpet, a skirmish gun, a baseball bat, a basketball, a hammer, a fake bible, a fire extinguisher and - trust me - much more.
If only the vibrato sound of "Supreme" comes to mind then you are correct, because there is no other fashion brand that has elevated the production of accessories to pure art as much as the brand founded by James Jebbia in 1994.
Supreme's accessories are magnetic and interesting: they represent the most obscure and avant-guard side of the brand's production. Some consider the accessories part of an ongoing performance art, some see a profound bond with crime and others treat them as sacred relics.
We went to Hong Kong to the HART Hall gallery where the Sotheby's auction house organized The Supreme Vault: 1998 - 2018, an exhibition of the complete collection of over 1300 Supreme accessories produced between 1998 and 2018. The collection went to the online auction that closed on May 28th.
The arty theory
“A brick? Supreme has made a f***ing brick with a Box Logo on it!”
Equal reactions of amusement and bemusement swept through forums, Facebook groups and Reddit threads when Supreme unveiled their Fall/Winter 2016 preview, which included a Box Logo-branded brick in its selection of accessories. With the brick release, Supreme proved the point that they could literally sell anything with a boxlogo on it. From the point of view of those who bought the Supreme brick, it is an act of faith towards the brand, those who buy it do it only for the symbolic value of that object or because they understand the joke.
It was a bold move, as Piero Manzoni did with his shit in a can, to prove that every act of an artist is art. The Supreme brick is a piece that recalls the ready-made art movement, in this sense, Jebbia is in line with the Duchampian vision of the eternal balance between the teasing the viewer (and the art system) and the claim of the artist who elevates a common object to work simply by signing its elevation.
Supreme is not the usual streetwear brand and its products trigger emotions in the public for the complexity of the aesthetic, the strategy and narratives behind every single item.
