The Bloglin’s Best of the Decade: The Top 10 Defining Phenomena in Streetwear
December 29, 2009

The folks at Mishka came up with a list of Streetwear's top 10 defining phenomenas of the decade. It's a pretty interesting read so here are some highlights.

10) Screen Prints to Oxford Shirts: The We Grown Up Now Movement

Like a lot of things in Streetwear, this happened in Japan first—by the time most folks stateside caught wind of Streetwear, Japanese brands were producing full cut & sew collections. Screen printing is a quick, easy, and dirty way to get an idea and an aesthetic across. But to tell a more complete story in clothes, at some point you’ve got to put some pieces together. Looking to grow as fully as some of the more established Japanese and US brands on the market, brands always dabbled lightly in cut & sew. But over the past two years, the predominant fashion trends took a lot of aging and less enthused Streetwear fans away from the candy colors and folded them into the new trends of Americana and heritage brands. The market demands, the companies supply. Plus come on, what are most people going to do with a goat head t-shirt past 26 years of age? (Well, maybe keep it safely stashed for when you hit 35 and inevitably hit the whole “Dammit! I don’t want to look like my dad” phase…)

7) 2003 AKA The Year Streetwear Broke

2003 was a noteworthy year for Streetwear, mainly because it was the year when the collective conscious of various like-minded entrepreneurs with similar tastes and backgrounds sought to go out into the world and leave their mark. That mark happened to be starting a Streetwear brand. We started in 2003, The Hundreds started in 2003, Mighty Healthy, King Stampede, 3Sixteen, Rockers NYC, Triumvir, Pricele$$ (RIP), and countless other brands (some still around) either started up or at the very least laid the seeds for what most might call the third major wave of Streetwear in ‘03.

But not only was this the year many of us went into heavy debt, it was also the year that the people behind these brands helped make the very noticed paradigm shift in saying Streetwear doesn’t exclusively have to be about Hip Hop. It can be about a whole wealth of other things that influenced us growing up besides the 5 elements. Still, truthfully, none of this would have been possible were it not for…

3) Pharrell and Kanye

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Pharrell and Kanye did more for Streetwear than your salty, jaded old head will ever want to admit. More than Kaws, Futura, or any other artist you can name who actively contributed their work and time into building this community. These two became the style icons to a generation of youth and gradually helped to destroy the oversized and baggy urban style that dominated everything skate to Streetwear for the past decade, and ushered in a whole new sense of Young Men’s fashion.

Smartly taking the lead as style leaders in hip-hop and pop culture, they spread the gospel, and next thing you knew, you got Lil’ Wayne in Bape, Jigga in Crooks, and every rapper starting their own street style line. These guys were one giant 24/7 billboard for Streetwear as a whole, and everyone (be it BBC and Bape or Мишка) benefited from their interest in this culture.

2) The Hype Blogs

Where would we all be without the hype blogs? It all started with sites like Beinghunted, Crooked Tongues, and RTHQ earlier in the decade—somewhat regularly updated and almost covert information sources for those who wanted to know what was happening in Streetwear, street art, and music. Soon after, Superfuture’s forum, Supertalk, became the place where those interested in Streetwear went to discuss and argue about what was and wasn’t cool. There was a time when you used to be able to go days without having to visit any of these sites and not worry about falling behind on the latest news in Streetwear, but that all seemed to change overnight with the coming of the hype blogs—a daily or constant stream of product finds and updates.

Hypebeast, High Snobiety, and SlamxHype seemingly sprang up in short succession. By scouring the other known fashion sites and sneaker forums, all three sites made sure that we got our instant gratification, multiple times a day. And since the old boys network of what was Streetwear prior to the sites’ arrival wasn’t exactly sending out press releases on upcoming projects or even validating the sites as legitimate media sources, these sites were more open to working with newer, upcoming labels by featuring their clothes and doing stories on them, something they (and we) quickly discovered that those visiting the sites were just as interested in learning about.

And who could forget the significance of sites like Satorialist, Lookbook, Facehunter, Hel-Looks, and even the WDYWT thread on Supertalk and the Hypebeast forums. While not hype blogs per se, these daily updated collections of snapshots of real people dressed at their best not only inspired customers’ style, but brands’ style as well.

Today, much like many of the brands that got their start this decade, the major hype blogs (Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, SlamxHype, and Freshness) are all thriving businesses of their own right. They have all started establishing their own unique identities and voices for this “culture”. Some changes have been subtle and calculated while others have been so drastic that, sadly, the very thing that spawned their birth (Streetwear) no longer seems to be as welcome as it once was on their sites.

Read the full article at Mishka Bloglin.