OAMC and Jil Sander's Luke Meier on Streetwear and How High-Fashion Should Leave Skateboarding Alone

Luke Meier, who is the co-founder of OAMC and now also co-creative director at Jil Sander (along with his wife Lucie), recently sat down with Slam Jam Socialism to talk about the current state of fashion, streetwear, the role of collaborations, and more. Meier is no stranger to the industry as he’s cut his teeth at Supreme and started OAMC — he’s thoroughly familiar with what works in both streetwear and high fashion. Now that he’s part of Jil Sander, one of luxury’s most respected design houses, Meier is able to give his own insights on what and what doesn’t work and how to give consumers the most authentic products.

Read some excerpts from the interview below and check out the full story here.

On the word “Streetwear.”

The word streetwear is very loaded right now. With OAMC the goal wasn’t to try to get labeled. It was to try to make cool shit from cultured and eclectic ideas; it was that simple. Take a guy like Shawn Stüssy. He liked Chanel, London club culture, and music, but he loved surfing too. What he created was very natural as it reflected who he was. There were no rules then; it was all new so it was organic the way that people approached design and product. It was more about developing a great brand that represented some ideas you had that you felt strongly about. It’s weird now that somehow certain rules have been established and now everybody is trying to break them down.

On why some collaborations are practically “useless.”

My perspective is that the point of doing collaborations is to create something that you couldn’t do otherwise on your own. That should be the same for both sides. When you talk about Nike and Undercover together, for example, that works well to me because it is something they couldn’t do separately. Collaborations are lame when they are just about coloring, labeling, or branding. That sucks, because there’s no point for those products to exist. It’s commercial, a quick money grab, but it’s not real, it doesn’t resonate.

On standing out without being loud.

It’s super hard and, unfortunately, the things that dominate now are shallow and pointless hype garbage. We believe that we’re doing something that’s relevant and has a real value. The reality is, no matter how hyped your stuff is, it’ll disappear from the first page of a blog in like 20 minutes. Most of the time, a lot of the things you see online, that’s all it is. If you go and see the piece, it’s crap, really poor quality, a super high price, and poor fabric. It’s empty. But when you ask how we try to stand out, we have something real behind it and it’s something unique.

On authenticity and high fashion’s relationship with skateboarding.

We don’t compromise at all, actually. And this goes back to your very first question, as it refers to authenticity. Because if you can’t do it authentically, then you’re wack. Our customers are quite clever about this, and they can see and feel what’s authentic. If you’re trying to do something just because it’s trendy, that’s obviously inauthentic. High fashion should leave skateboarding alone. Don’t do skateboarding! (laughs) Or when you see inauthentic and almost disrespectful appropriation, that doesn’t feel right and I think people can tell too.