Streetwear is a casual fashion style that came into existence in the 1990s. It is a comfortable fashion style yet trendy. Almost every person has at least one of the things from popular streetwear clothing, including hoodies, sweatpants, sneakers, and graphic tees.
Streetwear fashion has taken its inspiration from hip-hop and skater-style culture. Moreover, in streetwear fashion, you will find an intentional element of product scarcity. People who follow streetwear styles are known as hypebeasts. These followers can go to great lengths to produce limited-edition shirts, sneakers, baseball caps, and many more things.
History of Popular Streetwear Clothing
The trend of streetwear clothing brands started in southern California in the 1980s. It was when surfers sold printed T-shirts so that they could boost the sales of their hand-shaped surfboards. In the 1990s, skateboarding shops and boutiques in New York City started selling their streetwear products after getting inspiration from the street style of Los Angeles’s surfers and skateboarders.
In the 2000s, sneaker culture overlapped with streetwear fashion. Sneaker culture centers around collectors who like to collect expensive sneakers. The collaborations abounded in a way that the hypebeasts paired their graphic tees with the athletic sneakers.
Another addition to streetwear clothing was luxury streetwear in 2010. It was when young people and social influencers started making streetwear an essential part of pop culture.
Essential Characteristics of Streetwear Style
When we say streetwear, it can encompass a wide variety of fashion styles. However, there are four essential elements of streetwear that people often consider.
Streetwear Clothing is Comfortable
As popular streetwear clothing consists of casual clothing and athleisure staples like joggers and sweatshirts, they are comfortable. Moreover, the rule of thumb is that it might not be streetwear if you cannot skate in it.
Streetwear Clothing has Scarcity
The main focus of hypebeast culture is selling limited-edition products in the market. This intentional Scarcity of the items makes the products more fashionable. It is the same principle that haute couture follows, but streetwear is most accessible.
Streetwear is Close to Menswear Style
People of all genders wear streetwear clothing, but streetwear clothing is close to menswear. Moreover, in popular streetwear clothing, you will see traditionally masculine items like bomber jackets and workwear.
Streetwear has Contemporary Art
You might notice that some of the most successful graphic tees and other streetwear clothing borrow the work of contemporary artists. Sometimes the streetwear clothing brand borrows the art by doing collaborations and sanctioned, and sometimes they don’t.
Streetwear Styling Tips
The main aim of streetwear clothing is buying and selling limited-edition clothing items. However, it may not be feasible for everyone, but there are still numerous ways to incorporate streetwear fashion into your look.
Purchase Sneakers
Investing in sneakers is an essential yet expensive part of streetwear styling. Therefore, if you want to create a significant style impact with one clothing item, you should invest in sneakers.
Invest in a Single Logo
While adopting streetwear culture, one thing to keep in mind is that you should be loyal to one brand. You will not see a fan layering different popular streetwear brands in a single look. Therefore, if you have a limited number of items from other logos, you should try to show off one logo at a time. You can supplement the rest of your look with workwear and athletic clothing.
Wear the Clothing in Different Proportions
One of the most prominent fashion senses that the hypebeasts follow is wearing baggy and oversized clothes. Moreover, you might have seen streetwear aficionados wearing oversized sweatshirts and baggy denim jackets. Loose-fitting clothes represent breaking the rules of fashion.
Show Your Personality
Streetwear culture is mixed and consists of DIY. Therefore, whether you perceive it as full of rules, the truth is that while adopting streetwear culture, you can efficiently represent yourself. Therefore, it would help if you did not get afraid of putting together unexpected combinations.
Streetwear Fashion Clothing that Almost Every Hyperbeast Owns
Streetwear clothing is a complex fashion even for the people in fashion. The reason is that in streetwear fashion, the trends are famous by the masses and not by the fashion elite. Therefore, it might be challenging to define streetwear fashion.
If you are new to streetwear culture, you might feel it overwhelming and daunting to select which item you should add to your wardrobe. It is why in this article, you will have a look at the different types of streetwear clothing that are always trending.
Popular Streetwear Clothing and Sneaker Culture
Sneakers are the essential element of streetwear clothing, and it is impossible to talk about streetwear fashion without talking about sneakers. We see that Millennial and Gen Z sneakerheads can spend most of their money on sneakers in the sneaker industry. If we look at the streetwear market report of 2019, we see that in most streetwear luxury brands, sneakers are the top-selling items at 72%.
In today’s market, streetwear culture is seeing an overflow of sneaker collaborations. Fashion creatives include old-school brands like Nike and Adidas and luxury brands like Yeezy, Off-White, cult favourites like Supreme, etc., creating limited-edition sneakers.
Graphic Tees
Logo and graphic tees have been a staple of streetwear brands from the beginning, and all thanks go to OG streetwear brands like Stussy and supreme. Slapping the logo on the t-shirt started as a niche trend among skateboarders, but it soon became the norm among streetwear brands.
The popularity of graphic tees is driven by product scarcity and high demand, just like expensive sneakers. You can sell both products three to four times their original value on resale.
Hoodies
Hoodies are the most popular and by far the most sought-after type of streetwear sweatshirt. Graphic hoodies, just like graphic tees, are in high demand, and they have colossal internet hype due to product scarcity. Most famous streetwear hoodies include concert merch, designer logo hoodies, and sports team logos.
Sweatpants
Sweatpants are a sign of defeat in the mind of many people and the clothing of a lazy person. However, with the increase in the popularity of streetwear brands, sweatpants have gone from lazy to luxury. Streetwear fashion rose to rage at the same time when another fashion movement, athleisure, was becoming famous. Moreover, after the pandemic, sweatpants have become 100% acceptable to wear in public.
Denim Jackets
Denim jackets have been a staple in our wardrobes for ages. You will find denim jackets in the closet of people of every age and gender. In streetwear fashion, you will notice people wearing denim jackets layering over t-shirts and sweatshirts. The most popular choices of denim jackets in 2020 are oversized, distressed, and vintage-inspired styles.
Jeans
Those days when skin-tight jeans were famous are now long gone. People now find comfort, and as streetwear is all about comfort, you will discover straight-leg jeans have replaced skinny jeans.
Hypebeasts are known for their love for denim, which is why most people stick with classic Levi’s jeans. A streetwear-approved pick for both men and women is the 90s style Levi’s jeans.
Bottom Line
Streetwear clothing is famous for numerous reasons. People like to wear comfortable clothes that look both stylish and luxurious. Streetwear style is a mixed clothing culture and consists of different clothing fashions. Adopting streetwear fashion can be overwhelming at the start, but you will love trying different styles once you understand it.