A Streetwear Dynamic: brands

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Rick Owens Makes Clothing For Goth Ninjas

You thought I was kidding.

I love Rick Owens. He is one of the greats when it comes to fashion designers of the 21st century. If you like dressing conservatively, you probably won't rock with Rick's designs so much. His dark, flowy, future-goth aesthetic is as insane(ly cool) as it is iconic. He is the godfather of "brutal chic". His last three collections were called:

SS17 WALRUS
FW16 MASTODON
SS16 CYCLOPS

Which is cool as hell.

Walrus

Mastodon

Cyclops

The man himself, Tricky Ricky

I can keep lauding over Rick, but I'll give some background and real facts. Owens is a designer originally from Porterville, California, though he spends most of his time nowadays in Europe. He studied fashion design at Otis College of Art and Design in LA. He eventually dropped out and began his journey into the fashion world by making knock offs of designer clothing, not knowing he would eventually make designer clothing that gets knocked off. He designs both women and menswear. Owenscorp (his company) made about $120 million in revenue back in 2014. This just goes to show his impact on the industry, and the colossus that he has created.

Lenny Kravitz head to toe in Rick

In the streetwear scene (god I cringe just saying that sometimes) Rick is ever present in his sneakers. Geobaskets and Ramones specifically. His monstrous, powerful homages to Nike and Converse shoes are his most popular sneaker silhouettes. I also want both but I don't have $2000 to spend.

Geobaskets

Ramones

That's a little background on one of my favorite designers.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

My Favorite Brands: Undercover by Jun Takahashi

Television's Marquee Moon album cover beautifully printed on an Undercover jacket

Undercover is fashion's most groundbreaking design house. There, I said it. Now you know how I really feel. In all honesty, I'm a broke boi and I don't own anything from Undercover, since it's way out of my price range at this point. However, I can definitely appreciate it from afar.

This Japanese label was started by punk rocker / fashion god / genius, Jun Takahashi.

The man himself.

Takahashi was the lead singer for the cover band Tokyo Sex Pistols. With this rebellious, punk rock attitude, Takahashi's Undercover label took off.

Their designs are almost always creative (to a fault) and way out of the norm. Conforming isn't really Jun's style though. He pushes the boundary of known fashion trends, and creates new ones at the same time.

Not only is Frank Ocean one of the greatest musicians of the last century, he also has great taste in fashion.

Early on, Undercover was well known for their graphic tees.

Iconic.

Where Undercover shines, however, is in their collaborations with other brands. Collaborating with Undercover will never be a mistake, as Takahashi pushes the boundaries of the collaborating brand to match with his vision, almost always resulting in something iconic.