From a small niche style within the corner of the fashion world to one of the biggest modern-day styles worldwide, streetwear has come a long way. It has embedded itself into a core element of fashion, with many designers picking up the opportunity to provide new items to achiever the desired looks.
The core design of streetwear has always remained similar, a comfort, baggy design that allows the person to express themselves and show who they are through their clothes, with them often being branded or having certain art styles on them with different graphics located on the clothing.
Such items as the men’s varsity jacket was originally part of skaters everyday wardrobe, it’s expanded into rooting itself into virtually every design choice in recent times. What was once a tiny part of fashion has since become embedded into most designs of clothing currently being made.
The rise in popularity of streetwear shows how culturally we’ve shifted to wanting to express ourselves more instead of everyone looking the same. With this rise, people have been trying to find the balance between their usual clothing and mixing in some streetwear to ensure their own style and personality still shines through.
The Core Design
At the heart of streetwear lies a similar trend that has been there since the beginning of the subculture. It involves the overall look being comfortable and practical, through baggies, more oversized looks and graphic elements. Which was originally designed to give skaters full freedom of movement when skating to ensure they weren’t constricted when trying to pull off difficult tricks, as the loose clothing would give them full freedom they needed.
Whilst being oversized, they also featured a number of different brand and graphic prints, normally plastered all over the item of clothing which differs from other clothes which traditionally only have one small logo on. This allowed the skaters to express themselves and show off the brands they loved and enjoyed wearing, as people could see from a far what the brand was.
This also gave the brands much more scope for design as they could put virtually any number of different graphics on the t-shirts giving people even more flexibility and freedom to do what they wanted with their designs.
Cultural Shift of Streetwear
Although still connecting to its routes, more and more influencers and celebrities have started to embrace streetwear. This caused a shift within the fashion industry as fashion designers and small companies jumped on the rising trend and due to the popularity circulating the fashion hype. As this trend evolved and grew it became evident that it was not a momentary hype but a core style that presented itself on a daily basis without the need for large marketing ploys to make it popular.
People started to blend this with their own wardrobes meaning the streetwear entered a new age as it was being blended into people’s everyday lives. People who previously wore smarter clothing items started including oversized t-shirts, hoodies and even jeans, something that had previously been only for skaters.
People who had previously dressed this way realized they could now start to express themselves via their fashion in a way they’d never done before, with people able to mix and match to really expand and glow up their wardrobe with these streetwear items.
With streetwear seemingly coming out of nowhere in the fashion world, people took to it very quickly and before you knew it, it was in everyone’s wardrobes and designers were incorporating it into every piece of clothing they were creating. Brands that had never even considered streetwear were now diving headfirst into that world and were trying to allow people to wear a brand they knew and loved whilst also taking their first steps into the world of streetwear.
From the streets of New York to a powerhouse style in the fashion industry, it became a style that was both bold and telling. Embedded in most people’s styles without them even realising. There is influence of this style through music, style and entertainment and shows no sign of slowing down in popularity.
The question is will there ever be a style like it? To become a stable fashion trend chosen not through influence but rather personal choice.
