In the eyes of most people, clothing is obtained by an
individual with the sole purpose of being worn. Granted in some cases, clothes
and shoes can be purchased with the intention of collecting – this is
particularly popular with trainers, or ‘sneakers’ as they are known in the US.
For example, musician and social media phenomenon, DJ Khaled, has a sneaker
collection amounting to 10,000 pairs. Not all the shoes are different, but some
are one-of-a-kind. He even owns a pair of Nike’s limited edition ‘Air Mags’,
the self-lacing shoes that brought Marty McFly’s futuristic hi-tops from
Speilberg’s Back to the Future 2 to life. The impressive collection is
estimated to be worth over $400,000 although recent auctions for the ‘Air Mags’
have seen the sneaker sell for $200,000, despite their original $10,000 retail
value.
But aside from collection, 99% of us would rather spend our
money elsewhere and when it comes to clothes, we buy things that we like the
look of to wear day to day. Whether you are interested in fashion and spending
a sizeable amount of your income on clothes or not, the purpose of the clothes
you buy is still the same. However, the emergence of streetwear ‘hype’ brands
may change your reasons for buying clothes altogether (a hype brand is simply a
clothing or fashion brand that is currently on trend and is highly desirable). Clothing
brands such as Supreme, Palace, Jordan’s or Kanye West’s ‘Yeezy’ and ‘Pablo’
merchandise, present an economic opportunity never seen before.
When it comes to valuable clothing, popularity is key – this
may seem obvious but let me explain. Supreme, for example, started out as a
simple streetwear brand in 1994 New York and was popular among skaters, but
that was pretty much it. However, the brand changed forever when, in 2011,
hip-hop artist Tyler, The Creator and his group Odd Future (OFWGKTA) began wearing
Supreme clothing in their music videos and were regularly seen sporting the
brand in posts on social media sites such as Instagram and Twitter. The brand
at the time was unknown, fresh and presented the opportunity for fans of Tyler
and Odd Future to mimic their idols through their underground clothing. Tyler’s
music video for the song ‘She’ featuring Frank Ocean was the first time we had
seen the brand on a popular artist.
Supreme however, despite the surge in demand for its products, remained true
to its core and continued to stock a very limited supply of its items. The
exclusivity of Supreme moulded it into a sort of cult, with its fans creating
Facebook groups and Reddit threads with the sole purpose of discussing Supreme
and buying, selling or trading items. As Supreme’s popularity grew, more
recognisable hip/hop and rap artists jumped on the bandwagon, with stars such
as Gucci Mane, ASAP Rocky, Drake and even Kanye West seen wearing the brand.
With Supreme products being so difficult to buy, the online
market for Supreme blew up. On Websites such as eBay and Depop, Supreme
products are sold to the world for incredibly inflated prices. One example can
be seen in the inflation of the ‘Box Logo’ hoodie. On the 8th of
December 2016, Supreme released new versions of the already existing ‘Box Logo’
hoodie with never seen before colours like peach and olive green The hoodies retailed in store and online for £150 but were seen selling
online later that day – when the shop and website had run out of stock – for
£700. The dramatic increase in prices is seen more severely in collaborations,
where Supreme will team up with well-known brands such as The North Face, Nike,
Air Jordan, Vans, Levi’s and Stone Island (to name a few). When collaborations
are released, demand hits an all-time high, as the items released are likely to
be one-of-a-kind and may never be stocked in stores again. In a collaboration
with The North Face in 2014, Supreme released an expedition jacket that retailed in stores for $338 but is now listed online (if you
can find them due to their rarity) for up to $1200. So, if the resell value is
so high on these products, how can I buy them for retail price? You might ask.
Well, if you want to buy items for retail price you have to either visit the
store or the website on the day of a re-stock. Seems easy, right? Wrong.
Purchasing products on the website is near enough impossible
as everything sells out in a matter of seconds; with people investing money in
computer ‘bots’ (computer programmes that do stuff very quickly for you) to get
the goods first. In addition, Supreme has only 10 stores worldwide, with London
and Paris hosting the only stores outside of the US and Japan meaning that option 1: visit the shop, is unachievable for many people across the world. If you are
lucky enough to live in a Supreme store city then why not pop down at 11
o’clock on Thursday morning when the shop opens after a re-stock and grab
yourself a new T-shirt. This is where option 2 might get in your way.
Option 2: you have to queue. On Thursday of every week,
Supreme sees queues that are only comparable to that of the queues seen outside
Carphone Warehouse when the new iPhone is released for the first time, or
outside Game when the new PlayStation debuts on shelves. The queues can last
anything from two hours, to 24 hours, with most people prepared to sit on the
street outside the store for the majority of Wednesday night, to ensure they
get their gear. In April 2014, Supreme was releasing a limited edition sneaker
with Nike called the ‘Foamposite’. The crowd attending the store in New York on
release day was so large that the NYPD was forced to shut down the opening and
send everyone home empty handed. The story seemed so bizarre that it reached
international news. Queues like this are seen across all ‘hype’ brands.
Palace opened its first London store in 2015 right around
the corner from its skating-turned-fashion counterpart, Supreme. Despite Palace
not having quite the same global firepower as Supreme, the same rules apply. The
products found in store sell for a relatively reasonable retail price in
comparison to the exceptionally large resell value. Palace also enjoy a
collaboration every now and then, famously joining forces with Adidas to
produce some very limited and very valuable products. Palace, in some ways,
rose to stardom off of the back of Supreme’s popularity. It provided an
alternative to Supreme that still produced the same sort of underground
products to fit the growing skate-wear trend. The same goes for Kanye West’s
‘Pablo’ merchandise that appears once every so often in pop-up shops around the
US, generating large queues and seeing all stock sell out on the day of
opening.
Unlike the impossible battle on the website, it is possible
to purchase Supreme, Palace and Yeezy products from the store, you just have to
face the queue. Or do you?
