Within recent years, streetwear has become the focus of audiences and fashion designers all over the world due to image-centric platforms like Instagram that help deliver this fashion subculture’s loud aesthetic through imagery. With the help of passionate content creators and influencers, Streetwear has evolved from its previous origins in street subcultures into a new global community incorporating music, pop culture figures and luxury fashion.
Back in 2005, One of pioneering players in the birth of luxury streetwear, Highsnobiety’s CEO and publisher David Fischer, incorporated his interests in street fashion, footwear and luxury fashion all in his blog which began to gather the interests of other likeminded individuals. Since then, Highsnobiety has become a multi-faceted publishing site and creative agency with over 9 million monthly visitors.
When Fischer first started his blog, it was to tell about two genres of fashion he truly cared about: American street fashion and Luxury European fashion brands; Thus Fischer slowly fused both his interests through blogging by juxtaposing caps and loose graphic tees with Dior denim and Louis Vuitton accessories.
Despite seemingly being on opposite ends of the fashion spectrum, the fusion between streetwear and luxury brands was a harmonious match made in heaven, which garnered a lot of responsiveness from brands wishing to be featured on Highsnobiety. From there, the site started offering a variety of services helping streetwear brands better connect and listen to their audiences more effectively. Streetwear fashion after all, is collaborative process between all parties who wish to share their passions, thoughts and ideas.
“Everything is now a community”, Fischer tells “I think that’s the biggest thing that changed. It’s not a brand dictating to the community what’s cool anymore. Nowadays it’s much more about being able to understand what bubbles up from the community and being able to take that and turn it into something you can stand behind and own.” Designers and streetwear enthusiasts who deeply understand Fischer’s sentiments know the streetwear subculture is not just a fashion trend, but a thriving community where designers, influencers and audiences all interactive with one another.
As streetwear continued to thrive, it has reached the focus of many prominent people in pop culture and now musicians such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams come out on social media to show their appreciation for street fashion as well as promote their own streetwear lines. As more famous figures in music joined in the streetwear community, luxury brands also began to see how big the streetwear community phenomenon really is.
Soon brands such as Louis Vuitton started to do collaborations with Supreme and Off-white hoodies were worth just as much as Givenchy’s. The new luxury recognition that streetwear has recently gained added a special inclusivity to being apart of this fashion subculture, where a queues of people will gather to be apart of events revealing new merchandise and collaborations.
Taking a step back and looking at how streetwear has dramatically transformed over time, sets it apart from being any normal style of fashion. With all the elements incorporated into streetwear, it’s become a subculture, a lifestyle, an art form, a form of communication and a global community.
