Is Supreme back at it? After two disappointing seasons and without the hype mechanism, the New York brand seems back to its roots
Just past August, while in Italy he was once again worrying about the increase in contagion and in the USA Trump declared war on TikTok, Supreme published the lookbook of its FW20 season - a collection that has garnered very positive reviews from fashion insiders and web communities thanks to its fun collaborations and the richness of a proposal that includes with a new spin all the staples of the American brand. More than for the singles, however, with its FW20 collection, James Jebbia's brand seems to have rediscovered that creative confidence that seemed to have lost in recent seasons, criticized for their repetitiveness and predictability and for the feeling that the cult brand had been resting itself on its laurels. But this time things went differently: the first drop of August 20 was literally raided in a few minutes (although some items still remain on the site) and the second, scheduled for the last weekend of August, was postponed to dispose of shipments of the first drop and avoid delays due to the pandemic.
On the collaborations side, however, the collection recovers that wackiness that had definedthe Supreme's legendary accessories and collectibles in its golden age. If the recent feeling was that of a brand interested only in printing its logo on trivial objects such as toolboxes and kitchen scoops, the new lookbook has reserved some surprises. The first is definitely the Supreme x Pat McGrath Labs lipstick, an interesting hybrid of streetwear and beauty industry, a prestigious and significant collaboration for both brands involved presented with the typical Supreme campystyle. Among the other collabos - which lately had thrilled very little as in the case of Supreme x Lamborghini - stand out also unexpected names such as The Smurfs (which, to be honest, were not the most loved part of the collection, so much so that they survived the first post-drop raid), the watch and jewelry brand Jacob & Co. that created for Supreme a series of four-part steel watches and a padlock, Mortal Kombat who created an arcade, Colgate (yes, the toothpaste brand), Kartell and even a talking model of Chucky, the killer doll starring in the cult horror franchise of the same name Child's Play.
What's important here is how Supreme has reclaimed its role as an unofficial archive of a nostalgic, underground and somewhat fringe pop culture that underpins its vocation as a cross-cultural brand - symbolic of the very soul of its native New York. The brand's most modern tendency to dialogue with the world of luxury design will remain within future plans: according to some rumors, in fact, among the undisclosed collaborations of this season there will also be the legendary Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto - who is not only an avant-garde designer whose Gothic aesthetic is loved by a small number of acolytes but is also one of the pioneers of collaborations between luxury sports and sportswear , having launched its Y-3 line together with adidas in 2002.
The future of the brand
The next three years will be crucial to understand the new direction and the definitive identity that Supreme intends to take on as a brand. Its mission is undoubtedly to find a balance between the commercial success and cultural ethos that has distinguished Jebbia's brand since its humble beginnings - when it was the Mecca of the New York skater community. During the lockdown, the brand maintained an attitude in line with its original spirit: it did not stop the drops, kept away from the chaotic fuss that was the conversation about the future of fashion and the end of the hype and played its game. In short, the brand has remained faithful to its autarchic attitude, despite the certainties on which the mechanism of hype and cultural changes within the fashion world seemed increasingly irremediable.
Just before the summer, many were ready to bet on the decline of the New York brand when items on sale appeared on the site, something that hadn't happened since 2014. In short, many clues suggested a crisis of creativity and image of the brand that after being bought in 2017 for 500 million from the Carlyle fund and riding the wave of hype, struggled to find both a consistent positioning in the luxury streetwear market and its omnivorous and irreverent soul typical of a skate brand born on the street. Now, however, Supreme seems to have taken over the helm of its creativity after seasons spent hostage to his own success. To put it in Jebbia's words:
“If people’s taste and style change radically, I’m not really sure. That would mean that we’re not evolving”.
