У моды два лица — глянцевое, тиражируемое тысячами женских журналов, и повседневное, отражающееся в витринах любого большого города, без лишних подробностей, но во всей своей оригинальности, демонстрирующее гардеробы людей.
Нынешние места рождения высокой моды дарят нам удивительных персонажей. Данный проект январского Vogue актуален, как никогда.
Word on the street.
Photographer: Lachlan Bailey.
Model: Sasha Pivovarova
Fashion Editor: Kate Phelan.
A tête-à-tête with seven street stoppers in Kochi who share their street fashion stories
Anoodha Kunnath
Director, Curiouser
‘Curiouser’ that she is, Anoodha is charmed by Mattencherry’s crescendo of bustling streets and its handsomely quaint streets. Characteristically anexplorer, she fell in tune with a medley of casual and high-street, influences that she picked up from the sprawling souks and malls in Muscat, where she grew up. Across the sea, her journeys to the rural villages of India instilled in her a sense of nonchalant fashion. “A lot of style has been inspired by indigenous fashion, like mismatched blouses,” she notes. Similar to her compositions and frames, she looks into subtlety in her ensembles. Her anime eyes lit up when she reminisces her fashion crush – her Sudanese neighbour who used to sashay on the streets with her cascading kaftans and matching lipsticks. After relocating to Kerala, her trysts with linen and cottons have gone beyond an acquaintance, and she jests about being in a live-in relationship withher palazzos and cotton dresses. What would she never be caught wearing, she quickly quipped, “Those bright orange Om-print shirts!”
SHANI SHAKI
Photographer and Restaurateur,Qissa
Shani is unapologetically fashionable. Seated comfortably in a pair of paisley trousers and a charcoal gray Fedora, he muses, “You can buy fashion, but never style.” When asked what surprises him with style, he picks men’s impeccable street style in Milan and Ranveer Singh’s fashion audacity. He enjoys sitting at an outdoor café and taking the role of a flâneur, observing the parade of high end fashion on the streets. Being a photographer, travelling has become a part of his agenda. Unlike being ensconced in the walls of hotels, travel to him is where he gets to meet people, engage in conversations and explore streets and local haunts while soaking in styles and fashion from
different cultures. To him the streets flaunt its beauty with the way lights fall on it, something truly photographic to him. One of his favourite treasures from one of his trips abroad was, “A vintage bird cage I bought in Budapest.” Fresh off his memory, Budapest is lined with a stunning meta-story for him to re-discover and re- capture.
ANN BENJAMAN
Chocolatier, A’s Chocolate Factory
While stiletto heels are a constant in high-street fashion, Ann is rather comfortable in a pair of her Prada platform shoes; a style making its way back in trend. She loves the fashion culture of sunny Dubai for its myriad pool of trends and style. Yet, something she feels swears by for summers is her undeniable loyalty for cotton.
KIM HASSAN
Couture Designer, Kim India
He adorns matching buttons to his tartan trousers and claims that his blazing orange hair is all natural. Kim remembers, “Once while on a trip to Vietnam, this girl rushed to me and asked if she could take a selfie with me. She had the hair colour as mine. I guess orange is the new black.” If Kim’s luggage is ever misplaced, you wouldn’t need a passport for identification; you just have to look into his suitcase. Classic beige trousers, crisp white and blue shirts, khakis … and pink socks. Kim is a fan of fashion from the streets of Moscow, Russia, where women and men cleverly pair formal with casual, as well as the ‘effortless’ style in the Philippine. He believes that a fine belt is a shortcut to high fashion, as well as a shiny pair of shoes. What’s a fashion jaywalking crime to him? You will never catch him on the streets wearing “floral pants.”
Preeti Nambiar
Chief Consultant & Founder, Banyan Tree
Her street fashion moment? While in Rome on a holiday once, Preeti spotted a woman sashay down a flight of stairs in a pink dress, her dress flounced in the gentle breeze – the Ellie Saab moment. At For Kochi, she whizzed in a dhoti and a Danish milkmaid braid while catching up for a coffee date with us. She looked straight out of a catalogue from the Marathi Theatre Association. Faux statement, but her attire was far from a faux pas. This funky ethnic outfit was an inspiration by readymade dhotis which characters used in plays to swiftly change their attires. Interestingly, this ensemble was tailored at a temple. Tokyo and Milan’s street fashion is eclectic and electric to her. So watch out for her fearless fashion looks – could be the D&G power prints and opulent accessories look or a traditional chattu-mundu to beat the heat.
Tanya Abraham
Art Curator, Kashi Café
Beyond the art galleries, the streets are books with endless narratives that illustrate antiquity, tradition, art and alsostyle. The wanderlust in Tanya relaxes on the beaches of islands far, far away that also love their art and fashion. Like Thailand and Sri Lanka. She is a fan of aesthetic fashion, such as the batik prints available in these nations. Her jewellery is a collection that constitute a rainbow of materials like bone, stones and glass. In her trove is a set of wooden bangles she picked up on a trip to Vietnam. She’s even put a spin to the traditional Keralite kashumala, stringing small coins on a thin chain and giving it a versatile and contemporary look. What she loves most about street fashion is the chance to catch something out of the blue. “I once saw a woman wear a khadi kurta with white straight cut pants, which I found quite interesting. Another time I saw this woman wearing a necklace that had huge crystal chunks interwoven with jute threads. I just had to go up to her and compliment her; which I did.” Now, that’s street art appeal.
Nuthan Manohar
Yoga Specialist, Me Met Me
As Madonna sings ‘strike a pose’, Nuthan can get into any complex matsyendrasannas (spinal twist yoga pose). She laughs it off by saying she doesn’t like clothes with ‘joints.’ Her fashion code is free-spirited, from sarongs to halter necks and a pair of comfortable footwear. She loves ‘sole wandering’ in the flea markets of Seoul and Hong Kong. She picked her favourite sun dressfrom one of those streets. Nuthan loves the Hanuman yoga wear and
cardigan. Always on t he run, from her yoga studio to workshops, she finds the key to comfort dressing in pants – harem to cotton.
Conceptualisation and Words by Atheena Wilson Photographs by FWD Media
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, what does 17,000-and-counting Instagrams (#HBA) equal? In fashion, discovery isn’t always about unearthing something unseen, it can describe the moment when you suddenly recognize the convergence of something you’ve been noticing everywhere. That’s how it felt when we heard about 25-year-old designer Shayne Oliver and his cult favorite menswear label, Hood By Air, as the conversation flared out from the front row at New York Fashion Week to major newspapers to the boundless realm of social media (all those swag grams!). The sheer wrap skirts, oversize coats, and delicate zip-away layers in his fall collection occupy a seemingly genderless space, conveying a message of power that appeals to both men and women. Oliver started Hood By Air with a collection of sweatshirts and T-shirts in 2006, and the street wear thread still runs through his clothes, which are favorites at boutiques like Opening Ceremony and Colette. But now, in addition to shirts that pun on glamour and cultural obsessions (for spring 2012, he created a line of tees that plays on the Paramount logo), Oliver is focusing on cut as much as content, the result of which is talk-worthy clothing that also just looks wearable and new. Hood By Air’s fanship speaks to its widespread relevance: Supporters include Kanye West, Rihanna, Ciara, Kendrick Lamar, and A$AP Rocky, the latter of whom closed the show during fashion week in February.
In between a production trip to Los Angeles and an upcoming voyage to the U.K. for sales meetings, Vogue.com visited Oliver in his apartment/studio in Brooklyn to talk to him about how he got started in fashion (he dropped out of both NYU and FIT), his love of music, and his vision for Hood by Air as an international lifestyle brand. On his side table there’s a fortune-cookie slip that reads: “The bottom of the ladder is crowded, there’s plenty of room at the top.” Of course, the top can be pretty cozy too when everyone there is poised to hear what you have to say.
What was your introduction to fashion?
My grandmother was a seamstress in Trinidad, and she didn’t want me to go to day care, so she would have me sitting with her. It became my play and my enjoyment to be around fashion. When I came back to America around age six, I was living with my mom. Everyone in America was wearing T-shirts. I would glamorize mine with paints and sew different T-shirts together. And then I just knew what I wanted to do. It never dawned on me that I was a designer. It just continued.
A lot of your branding and the imagery you use is pulled from well-known logos. How do you fuse them with high fashion?
It’s that formula of redefining things that mean a lot to us. I think that’s how we’re going to move on to new concepts in fashion. It’s all about grabbing people’s attention with something familiar and putting it in a totally different context. For instance, all the movie logo concepts. That was actually such a backhanded thing—not in a negative way—just the sense of how people in fashion, especially with social media, create this whole movie for themselves. They create a legacy. I designed a Feature Presentation T-shirt. The person that buys that is either a jerk, or they get it. It’s good and bad, but we have to understand that it’s happening and control it, and create trends for the rightful purpose.
Who are the designers you most admire?
I love Margiela, I love Helmut Lang for sure, Gaultier is a huge influence, Comme. There’s a list, you can go on and on and on. But I also admire people who do stuff that I don’t think I can do. Like Dries. He does what I wanna do, but in this other way that’s so free-flowing and gorgeous. Mine has more of a Frankenstein feel. And Phoebe [Philo] gets it. She’s doing this thing that’s like womenswear, but it’s stronger. And yet you couldn’t dare call it menswear. I appreciate people who take the time out to make these different worlds.
A lot of your work is gender-neutral, even though you’re designing in the menswear category. What are your thoughts on that genderless space?
That’s the battle that I find interesting every season. Like, if I know that I want to look like Serena Williams this summer, I have to think: “What do I admire about that woman that can translate into a man’s pant?” What is the freedom of it, or the lightness of the fabric—these things embody power to me. A lot of the clothing is menswear, but it’s more like powerwear. It’s about exuding power and fluidity. I’m not really interested in unisex, per se. But if this person wants to give off an energy of power, then Hood By Air is for them.
Is womenswear in the future for HBA?
Womenswear is definitely coming. It’s on its way. Everyone around me is a woman! I have this faraway appreciation for men—an admiration for them. I like how laid-back they are about things. Like swag. I hate that word, but that whole thing, I admire that about men. Truly, though, my aura is femininity.
What are your current obsessions as you work on spring 2014?
It’s always the sense of Americana and how twisted and subversive our concepts are. Denim is very important to me. I’ve been trying to lean into it for seasons! I think this will be where it’s taken to the next level.
How do you come up with concepts for new collections?
It starts with something strong on the street, something that has a voice. It’s not even necessarily rebellious, just hasn’t been presented in any formal way. That’s what I’m trying to embody in my work. Because I left school, I’m trying to find ways of explaining myself. I’ll write out an outfit as a list. It’s very administrative. It’s very coded, like computer science: I push in codes and get looks.
Youth culture is so important to your expression—so what do you do for fun?
I hang out with my boys, and we go to dive bars. I love DJing; I like Home Sweet Home, but I also like Top of the Standard. I like the juxtaposition of dive bars, and then there’s the thing of DJing in a carpeted luxurious place. I have an appreciation for both.
What are your hopes for HBA in the future?
That there will be an understanding about what is trying to be said. It’s meant for the beauty of it. It’s meant to be this beautiful product that people enjoy, but it should speak volumes because it takes this sense of luxury in a different direction.
Hood by Air
Photographed by Geordie Wood (portraits and interiors); Courtesy of Hood by Air (runway)
Streetwear has long served as a lens for bigger and often dual forces happening in the world. So with 2020 being a year of dualities unlike any other before, it’s only fitting that brands from any industry can learn from stories in the world of streetwear.
Streetwear has long served as a lens for bigger and often dual forces happening in the world. After all, modern streetwear itself exists at the convergence of contrasts: accessible and high-fashion, cutting-edge and vintage, subversive of the ‘norm’ yet both inspired by it and an inspirer of it.
And while born from subcultures, streetwear has gone mainstream – a tension which last year sparked Virgil Abloh to ponder if streetwear could die in 2020, a provocation which has since been flipped on its head by a year where streetwear has seen new life.
So with 2020 being a year of dualities unlike any other before, it’s only fitting that brands from any industry can learn from stories in the world of streetwear and the related spheres of sportswear and athleisure.
Streetwear brands and influencers continue to democratize entrepreneurship and experiences, despite the pandemic’s constraints on these areas
COVID has not disrupted the resale market for sneakers, streetwear, and related accessories. According to Jesse Einhorn, Senior Economist at StockX, a stock market style online platform where buyers and sellers transact by setting their own bids and asks over these types of items, the platform has seen success despite the pandemic. Here’s what he says on StockX’s website when introducing the StockX Snapshot,1 a report on the platform’s recent performance:
“Over the past six months, StockX has seen extraordinary growth across our platform. Despite unprecedented, industry-wide challenges due to the global pandemic, we surpassed $2.5B lifetime GMV (gross merchandise value), 10M lifetime sales, and in May and June, we saw the two biggest months in the platform’s history.”
In fact, according to the StockX Snapshot report, “Between February and June, the average resale price for the top 500 sneakers increased 6%, while the S&P 500 decreased 10%.” Platforms like StockX have proven that sneakers go beyond social currency and are literally an investible asset that can turn a profit even in a pandemic. More than simply making the market for sneakers and streetwear more accessible, StockX has provided consumers with more transparency, given them a seat at the table to help shape trends, and provided them an avenue for entrepreneurship – areas where Gen Z in particular has a strong appetite.
Even as people flock from the city, their aparrel is still inspired by the streets.
Speaking of appetite, 2020 has also seen streetwear’s influence spread to new areas, such as food: Travis Scott’s highly successful partnership with McDonald’s includes a streetwear merchandise line, including items from shirts and hoodies to a McNugget body pillow. Even for consumers unable to buy any of the merch, the $6 Travis Scott meal is a refreshingly accessible and affordable product that can help consumers feel a new type of connection to a broader community and one of its now literal tastemakers. Two weeks after the launch of the partnership, McDonald’s stock price hit an all time high – a remarkable achievement for a restaurant this year – with analysts seeing the Scott partnership as a key factor.
And when it’s time to work off that meal, this year has been the first time consumers can turn to the Nike Training Club app for free. The move to free was motivated by the pandemic but subsequently made perpetual.
In Nike’s latest earnings call,2 CEO John Donahoe reported that Nike has seen “an all-time high” in global use. And regarding the Nike Run Club app, Donahue said “four consecutive months of more than a 1 million downloads each month” and noted how the app has filled the social gap for runners who engaged in group runs pre-pandemic.
Athleisure and streetwear have long enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Streetwear has inspired the sweatpants and hoodies of athleisure, and athleisure has helped fuel mainstream acceptance and what is now being called athluxury. Athleisure of course has driven the day-to-day uniforms of seemingly everyone this year. So even as consumers this year have stayed out of cities, they’ve still been inspired by city streets, considering how their everyday athleisure outfits are likely influenced by streetwear.
This year Virgil Abloh’s Off-White announced an athleisure focused line called OFF-ACTIVE. And Lululemon, who launched its streetwear line called Lab last year, has seen a net sales increase of 3% in Q2 despite the pandemic.3
Speaking of going strong in the pandemic, according to SimilarWeb data cited by MorningBrew, site traffic in Q2 jumped by more than 130% for Alo Yoga, and by more than 90% for Vuori and Nike.4
Athleisure is a core example of a category whose brands were well-poised for a pandemic and its implications on consumers’ new day-to-day life contexts and digital shopping needs.
Streetwear faces a self-awareness moment around inclusivity
The most crucial duality streetwear has had to face this year is around diversity and inclusion. So much of streetwear and its influences are rooted in Black culture. Yet despite this, many of the brands who play in the streetwear space don’t reflect the diversity of the audiences who have fueled their business. Brands involved in streetwear are also facing questions around cultural appropriation and elitism.
The killing of George Floyd and the subsequent momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement have made the world of streetwear take a much needed look in the mirror. In a recent LA Times article, 10.Deep founder Scott Sasso remarked, “You can’t ignore the fact that there aren’t many Black brand owners in the streetwear space.”5
This year has also seen strong examples of streetwear brands take a stand. Samuel Ross of A-Cold-Wall announced 10 grants to support Black-owned businesses. And he has continued to pursue his brand’s bigger purpose in this area, recently quoted by Vogue saying “My long term, mid term and immediate goal is to support Black infrastructures and economics – not just talk to fashion, but sectors from agriculture to fintech.”6
Alife sold out of its hoodies honoring the name of Ahmaud Arbery and donating all proceeds to his family. Complex stated that “Alife was one of the first streetwear brands to take any sort of action in light of these recent current events.” 7 Alife released the hoodie on what would have been Arbery’s birthday – May 8 – three weeks before the killing of George Floyd.
Streetwear pioneers Bobby Hundreds and Pharrell gave new meaning to the idea of fashion collaboration by showing the power of collaborating around a cause, with their ‘The Hundreds’ and ‘Billionaire Boys Club’ streetwear lines dropping a collaborative Black Lives Matter t-shirt, with all proceeds donated to Black Lives Matter & the Black Mental Health Alliance.
And numerous other brands in this space have dropped pieces and made donations supporting racial injustice, hopefully a sign that streetwear brands will stitch inclusivity into their strategy ongoing.
Change for good
Streetwear and its related spheres provide provocations for all brands
This sampling of stories of streetwear and athleisure from 2020 offers thought starters for any brand to consider. Looking at the examples of StockX, McDonald’s, and Nike, can your brand help consumers transcend the current constraints by democratizing experiences in new ways that perhaps go beyond your core product? Taking a page from the athleisure playbook, is your brand set up to fit into the new occasions of your consumer’s lifestyle? And most importantly, is your brand and industry being authentically inclusive and if not – what role can you play?