Is Supreme Dead?

I was 11 years old when Tyler the Creator dropped “Yonkers”, a song that’s now memorialized for breaking the Internet. Ask anyone what they remember about the music video and you’ll reliably get a few typical responses: the out-of-pocket lyrics, Tyler eating a cockroach and throwing up, the surprise suicide at the end. Not me though, I didn’t care much for it. See, I was an East Coast kid, and at the time I could care less about what music was coming out of LA, but there was one thing that stuck with me though, and that was the hat Tyler had on. 

I wasn’t tapped into the streetwear scene at the time, but even I could recognize something special about that snapback with the word “Supreme” emblazoned on it. It felt too subtle to be a prop, clearly it was part of the outfit. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something special about those seven letters. A year later, Tyler’s Odd Future collective dropped their posse cut “Oldie”, breaking the Internet yet again. By no mistake, featured on top of a young Earl Sweatshirt’s head was a black Supreme snapback. It was clear to me at that point the brand was here to stay. 

Perhaps I’m giving Odd Future too much credit by pinning Supreme’s relevance on them. After all, the brand has existed since 1994 and operated solely out of New York City for the next ten years after that. Supreme founder James Jebbia admitted in an interview with Rizzoli (published in the Supreme book released in 2010) that at the time of the brand’s conception he “looked at Supreme as a skateboard store and not really a brand itself.” For the greater part of the brand’s infancy, you simply had to be in the know if you wanted to be a part of its consumer base, which is why that music video moment was so important. 

For the next several years after the Odd Future stimulus, Supreme’s brand image would rapidly grow in the mainstream. From featuring Kate Moss in their promotional campaign to collaborating with French fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton, to having their own episode on Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act, it would seem as if the New York label was running continual victory laps in the streetwear scene. Their “no supply, all demand” business model garnered much-deserved attention in the media sphere, with long lines outside of their Lafayette Street location becoming an Internet spectacle. Despite the newfound fame, the brand never softened its image and stayed true to its gritty New York roots. Simultaneously while their clothes were featuring pornographic images, they were also being worn by Rihanna. As Angel Diaz wrote in 2015 for Complex, “Supreme is still cool and will be for the foreseeable future. It's a brand that hasn't lost its soul yet.” 

Yet it seems that’s exactly what’s happened nearly six years later. A quick browse on Grailed will show pieces that once fetched astronomical prices are barely above retail. The media circus that once surrounded the brand has slowly died down, and it seems Supreme has disappeared back into obscurity - except now it has 12 retails stores around the world and a 2.1 billion dollar acquisition by the VF Corporation. So what’s the deal, is Supreme dead? 

It can be argued that the brand is not shaking the table like it used to. T-shirts that once said “Fuck the President” have now been traded for lazy double bogos. The skaters it originally sold to that maintained the brand’s esoteric image were replaced by hypebeasts that diluted the brand’s cool. Perhaps the hype that once surrounded the label simply moved on to more exciting things. 

There’s no denying that Supreme has gone corporate, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it was the logical step for a brand that had simply scaled at an unprecedented rate. The company is a long way from seeing bankruptcy or anything of that sort, but it likely won’t see the buzz we witnessed in its heyday. Recently, New York upstart Kith has seen similar growth, with everything from the emphasis on the box logo, to off-the-cuff collabs with the likes of BMW and the Simpsons. As the brand celebrates the opening of its new Paris location this year, it could be possible that we’re seeing the same story being told again. The hypebeast consumer will eat this up, but eventually, they’ll spit it back out.