Supreme: Fashion's newest unicorn is built on scarcity 🦄💰

[Quartz Obsession] Supreme October 12, 2017 The supreme paradox --------------------------------------------------------------- Last week the underground fashion brand Supreme [sold a 50% stake]( to private-equity firm Carlyle Group for [a reported $500 million]( (paywall). The $1 billion valuation puts the streetwear darling in the big leagues. “As a small brand, we do it all,” Supreme founder James Jebbia [said just last year](. “We don’t need an investor.” That independent, insiders-only attitude is a key part of the Supreme mystique, though Business of Fashion also reported this week the company quietly took on an outside investor [in 2014](. So what is Supreme? It’s a skate brand founded by a guy who doesn’t skate. It’s an underground fashion label everyone knows about. Its t-shirts and hoodies are accessible compared with luxury brands, yet it thrives on exclusivity. Now Supreme is poised to get even bigger, especially in Asia, and everyone is watching to see if the brand will survive the effects of its own success. by the digits [11:]( Number of Supreme stores globally. [$100 million:]( Supreme’s projected annual earnings. [74,552:]( Subscribers to Reddit’s /r/supremeclothing subforum. [$3,350:]( Winning eBay bid for a denim baseball jersey that was part of Supreme’s 2017 collaboration with Louis Vuitton. [$4,704,000:]( Estimated cost to build a house out of the bricks stamped with the Supreme logo, which sold for $30 a piece. raw ingredients[giphy (47)] Supreme casts a wide net for the graphics and cultural references behind its products. Here’s a random selection of things, people, and brands it has collaborated with or referenced. Low supply, high demand The scarcity game --------------------------------------------------------------- In most of the fashion world, a designer will create a big collection for the season, put it all in stores more or less at once, and leave it to sit on shelves for months. Not so Supreme. Every week the company releases a “drop” of a about a dozen new items—[the batch for Oct. 12 includes a lot of “Scarface”-branded gear]( from a $44 t-shirt to a $598 leather jacket. The idea is to keep the product line fresh, demand high, and the lines outside stores insanely long. “Supreme’s recipe for success is a simple one. Make good product, put it out consistently, and ensure the supply outweighs the demand,” [Alec Leach writes at Highsnobiety.]( When each drop invariably sells out, the secondary market kicks in, with items changing hands for up to 10 times the retail price. That suggests that Supreme could increase supply and/or raise prices without losing its cultish appeal. ”You don’t need a hoodie to be 10x retail,” Josh Luber, founder of StockX, tells Highsnobiety. “If it’s 5x retail on a secondary market, it’s still really rare and expensive and hard to get.” [atlas_B1g7E-a3Z@2x] take me down this 🐰 hole! Shopping at Supreme is not for the faint of heart. (For the uninitiated, here’s[a detailed guide to how it works]( And if you really want your mind blown, check out this story on how [botmakers in Florida]( cash in on the company’s e-commerce site, which receives billions of hits for every drop. pop quiz! Which item did Supreme *not* make at some point? NunchucksAirhornSalt and pepper shakersBathtub Correct. But this would be awesome, no? Incorrect. Supreme made this, as well as a calculator, a hammer, and duct tape. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. origin story The history of streetwear --------------------------------------------------------------- 1984: Shawn Stüssy, a California native known for his innovative surfboards and cool graphic designs, [launches a skate- and surf-inspired apparel line](. [1986:]( Japanese tastemaker Hiroshi Fujiwara first meets Stüssy. He will become part of the so-called “International Stüssy Tribe,” a loose confederacy of trendsetters instrumental in popularizing streetwear. 1990: Fujiwara and friends Sk8thing and Iwai open Goodenough, Japan’s first streetwear label. 1991: Stüssy enlists James Jebbia, whose New York shop Union carries his clothes, to open the first Stüssy flagship in New York. 1993: Fujiwara disciples Nigo and Jun Takahashi open a store in a remote section of Tokyo’s Harajuku neighborhood. Takahashi peddles his punk-inspired label Undercover there. Nigo soon launches his own brand, A Bathing Ape, or Bape. 1994: Though never a skater himself, Jebbia opens his own skate shop, Supreme, on Lafayette Street in Soho. 1995: Kids, Larry Clark’s controversial movie about New York teenagers, debuts. Some cast members work at Supreme. “Everybody hung out there,” Clark later [tells the New York Times](. 2000: Supreme uses Louis Vuitton’s logo without permission on its skate decks. Louis Vuitton responds with a cease-and-desist letter. 2003: Nigo connects with US music producer Pharrell Williams. Bape, and streetwear more broadly, quickly becomes a staple for American rappers. 2012: Supreme has grown into one of fashion’s coolest labels. Kanye West routinely wears it. Frank Ocean makes his Saturday Night Live debut in a Supreme hockey jersey. 2017: Supreme and Louis Vuitton, no longer at odds, team up on a joint collection, marking Supreme’s influence across fashion. department of jargon Supreme’s logo is known as the “box logo.” On sites such as Reddit, that often gets shortened to “bogo.” watch this! A love supreme --------------------------------------------------------------- Released in 1995, A Love Supreme is the first skate video the brand ever made. It’s set to the first two tracks on John Coltrane’s album of the same title, and shot around New York City in moody black-and-white. quotable “What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers.” —Artist Barbara Kruger on Supreme. The brand’s logo is a blatant appropriation of Kruger’s propaganda art. Kruger [made the comment]( after a streetwear site asked her what she thought about Supreme threatening to take another designer to court for knocking off its logo. talk to us Would you stand in line for a $44 t-shirt? [Click here to vote]( Is Neil Young on it?I still buy them in three-packs.No, but my bot might. the fine print In yesterday’s poll about [LaCroix]( 35% of you said you’re “Pamplemousse 4 Life” and one of you said you’d never even heard of LaCroix. Today’s email was written by [Marc Bain.]( Images: [Ashim D’Silva]( on [Unsplash]( (tools). Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann (Kruger’s 1987 artwork). The correct answer to the quiz is Bathtub. Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. Quartz | 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10011 | United States Share this email