No nike and adidas are not streetwear brands. One of the most important parts of streetwear is that the shit is all limited. Nike and adidas, while yes they do release limited shit but the majority of it is mass produced to rake in the money from the average joe customer. Streetwear was at one point a very small niche in a subculture of a culture. It mixed the skateboarding culture with the hip-hop culture with the punk culture etc etc. The "enthusiast" as you put it was driven to streetwear because of it's exclusivity and being able to have something that no one else had. Hypebeasts looked down at niggas shopping at the mall bc that shit ain't exclusive. As streetwear became more and more popular with rap artists and celebrities wearing it, the demand skyrocketed. Some of the more prominent companies capitalized on this and started mass producing their shit to the stores that would be able to make them the most money. Zumiez, Karmaloop, CCS, Pac-Sun etc etc. This expansion killed streetwear bc at the end of the day streetwear was about exclusivity. You weren't buying 48 dollar shirts with polka dot box logos on them bc they looked cool, you were buying them bc they were exclusive. That's why niggas waited in line over night in front of Supreme or Diamond or any of the other stores on Fairfax. The vast vast majority of all the streetwear heavyweights from 07-08 (IMO the golden age of "streetwear") are all selling to Zumiez or one of the other big boys. But Huf and Black Scale are only selling them certain designs or designs not part of their general release line. Then you have Diamond, The Hundreds, shit even Nike SB are all selling their full lines to Zumiez. This leads to saturation of the marketplace and the inevitable tools that shop there wearing it. Im not saying everyone that shops at Zumiez is a tool but come on. You kill the exclusivity you kill streetwear. Why you think Nike SB is no longer the sneakerhead shoe of choice? BC they stopped putting out the limited heaters that were game changing back in like 05-06 and started mass producing bullshit ugly colors for the zumiez mall crowd. Why is Karmaloop looked down upon in the hypebeast community? bc it allows anyone anywhere to have whatever brand they want whenever shipped to their house without having to go to a boutique or wait in line.
you could also make the argument that Freshjive went the way of passing up the "Zumiez" opportunity, kept that shit 3hunna and were like we're happy where we're at. We are going to stop branding all of our logos on our clothes and keep it out of the big shops. Yeah they aren't whipping Ferraris but look at Nicks old Myspace page that he hasn't been on in years. He was still whipping Bentley's and Ferraris before he started selling the entire GR line there. Back when Zumiez only got designs that were specially designed for them.
so tl;dr to be streetwear you need to be exclusive.
sorry if my thoughts are weirdly spaced. I was just typing as I was thinking. I would also like to bring up what Nick said in the 2008 Diamond Supply Co thread which was deleted so I have no proof but I specifically remember him saying this: Zumiez and Karmaloop will never get the full lines because he wanted to make sure that the boutiques and skateshops that carry diamond had a one up over the massive target audience that zumiez and karmaloop have.
also, not trying to fire shots at anyone or anything. I still fuck with this brand even though it seems I do a lot of complaining. diamond is run by some of the most talented people in the game and if it wasn't this brand wouldn't be where it's at right now.
