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Streetwear was built on sexism — now women are shaping its future
Most Thursdays, one can walk down Manhattan’s Lafayette Street and find a winding, densely packed line seeking entrance into clothing boutique Supreme, their hands and wallets eager to snatch up the fresh merchandise, most of it emblazoned with the brand’s distinct logo nestled amidst a slew of pop culture references. Other days, these same individuals may wait in the rain, their colorblocked parkas nearly soaked through, for the opportunity to enter the Yeezy Boost 350 lottery — a chance at a chance. These clothes and shoes, and those who covet them, have scaled from oddity to full-blown phenomenon. The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian have attempted to congeal the world of streetwear into a bite-sized morsel for the average public intellectual to discuss at cocktail hour.
What many of these “X designer is a game-changer” profiles and “The phenomenon of the Supreme line” viral video clips fail to fully digest is the absence of women from the surface level of this culture,and the problematic nature of this absence. Despite a media culture that is championing the work of women more than ever before, they have failed to offer their perspective as vital to the most electrifying fashion moment of our lifetime.
In order to understand the full breadth of the fashion revolution that is streetwear, one mustn’t…
