The Weekly Roundup (week of 2.26)
We're reaching late-stage TikTok
1. STANLEY CUPS HAVE STREETWEAR HYPE — BUT ARE THEY STREETWEAR?
I truly hate this trend of large brands tapping into streetwear for soulless collaborations. The fucked up thing is that it works on some level. Let’s be completely honest with ourselves, if you’ve resisted the disturbing and utterly fascinating frenzy over these fuckin Stanley cups all the way up to this point, BUT they collaborated with your favorite brand, I think you might at least be intrigued. Hiroshi Fujiwara and his label FRGMT are probably just trying to squeeze the last bit of juice they’ve got left to bring in some dollars, and for that I can’t entirely blame them. However, this is the exact kind of behavior that’s left streetwear culture in a desperate and sorry state. Shawn Stussy had an excellent post about the infamous Trump Sneakers:
Sneakers are not dead by any stretch of the imagination, it is the "culture" to which I allude... the massive trade show convention aspect I see on my phone with tables piled high with guys trading big stacks of cash for shoes that are just a commodity to those involved, cash cows if you will... it could be a gun show or an electronics convention in anytown USA... the sneaker world I grew up in was anything but this... we were on the hunt in a sparse jungle and needed to have our senses fully engaged, cash in the bottom of your pocket and no lint as Rakim would talk of... the world was different and there was nothing ahead of us to follow, the lush trail was being cut... so for me now to see the vibe that it has become, with that gold shoe being the visual and ideological end result of an evolution that I was there for, I feel I have the right and perspective to speak...
Beautifully said. Streetwear as a whole lost it’s fuck you attitude when it became a commodity to be bought and sold, and not appreciated for the storytelling, art direction, or connection to culture. It’s very much related to how a lot of people in the advertising world try to build campaigns. They think because they follow brand guidelines, look at audience research and social media metrics, that their campaign is gonna go viral. But it’s the mindset of dogmattic optimization and maximization that ends up neutering the entire creative process and leaves people afraid to break rules or take the risks true creativity requires. Some of the best campaigns we’ve seen this year were done by people who did something different and broke every rule in the book. In the same sense, streetwear and sneaker culture lost it’s way when it became another revenue driving line item in some larger conglomeration’s P&L desperate to reach its growth goals.
2. Yes you should dress your age
Blackbird Spyplane comes through with thoughtful answers to the quintessential fashion dilemma for the aging hypebeast. Should you dress your age? The short answer to this question is, yes, you should dress your age. Holding onto your youth is a natural and normal thing to do, but as you get older ideally your wisdom and grace grows as well. As he points out in the article, fashion is a language we use to communicate to others around us. Toddlers babble, kids misspeak, but older people ideally have a commanding grip over their oratory skills. In the same sense, you should expect an older person to know better about what their clothes say…
Read the full piece because there’s a lot of great advice and examples of older people puttin’ that shit on in an age-appropriate way.
3. TikTok Is For Millennials, It Turns Out
According to Pew, there are actually less young people on TikTok right now than there were on Instagram in 2014. Almost 40% of TikTok users are in their 30s and 40s. In 2014, that same age group (which we are trying not to refer to as middle-aged) accounted for only about 20% of Instagram users. Even crazier, according to Pew's survey, people aged 35-49 are more likely to actually upload videos than people aged 18-34. And, perhaps most damning of all, TikTok’s 30-49 demographic is actually growing faster than the 18-34 cohort.
I thought this was an interesting tidbit about the state of TikTok and social media as a whole, it’s a lot older than we think. For marketers and advertisers this is probably a disconcerting trend. With every brand trying to drink from the fountain of youth to juice their image with coolness, you have to wonder which of them is actually hitting the mark and which of them are being fooled by the brand partnerships people at TikTok who gas up all the numbers. Read the full piece here.
4. Is The Row’s No Social Media Policy the Ultimate Act of Quiet Luxury
Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times posted the label’s ask of attendees on X: “The Row looks forward to having you at the Winter 2024 Collection Presentation on Wednesday, February 28th at 12pm. We kindly ask that you refrain from capturing or sharing any content during your experience.” The disappointment was palpable, from fans and guests alike. “Oh. Ok,” Friedman added.