Is Supreme worth the hype? Surprisingly, it is, but it isn’t.
Supreme is a staple in streetwear, as well as a staple in big cultures like Hip-Hop. Supreme is a skateboarding shop as well as clothing brand, which was started in New York City by James Jebbia. It produces designer streetwear, which is often sold with a limited quantity, and a high resale value. It is extremely popular, as people know their red box with the word “Supreme” in it. A lot of people do not like it, because they think the styling is weird, that the styling is not “luxury”, and that it is extremely overpriced. Although these points are somewhat true, they are also somewhat untrue. As a person who buys streetwear, I think both sides are correct, and there are a lot of reasons why.
Supreme is really expensive. It isn’t the retail that’s usually too crazy, like the Supreme store in LA usually sells their stores for around $42 and their hoodies for around $80-$110, which isn’t super bad. The part about Supreme that is insane is the resale prices. Since they usually release only a select amount of items when they drop, they are limited. Therefore, a lot of prices skyrocket. For example, this Supreme Brick was worth $45 dollars from Supreme, which is already a lot to ask for just a brick. However, the resale value is between $80–$120. Also, Supreme recently dropped box logo hoodies during the Fall of 2016. Some of these hoodies, can cost over $1000, like this Supreme x Comme Des Garcons hoodie that dropped in the fall. The resale prices are the reason that I do not own any Supreme clothing. Since we do not have a Supreme retail store in San Francisco, I stray from buying these pieces, unless it is something that I think I must have. There are a lot of smaller shops in San Francisco that sell Supreme items, but most are not near retail, since the shop needs to make some money.
Supreme is worth the hype, in the light that it helps smaller artists flourish. Supreme has always done a lot of collaborations with people who the world has never heard of, yet the clothes are always selling out. They also do collaborations with bigger brands, like North Face, Louis Vuitton, and artists like A$AP Rocky, Ghostface Killah, and many more. These collaborations are well sought after, and make a big splash in the streetwear scene. There are cheap collaborations, like the Kaws x Peanut, which the shirts go for about $16 dollars, then there’s Supreme collaborations, where some items (in the Louis Vuitton x Supreme line) go for about $86,500. Buying streetwear isn’t for the faint of heart. Is it worth it? Hell yeah! And hell no. A lot of the time, the only thing that justifies the price is the Supreme logo on the shirt. The quality is definitely there. You can tell it isn’t just some cheap shirt made in a factory filled with underage Asian kids. These shirts had more time and effort put into them, to make sure that they are comfortable and good quality.
Supreme has such a big name because of a lot of the people who wear it, as well as a lot of the people who back it and appear in it. Supreme would definitely be a lot smaller if artists like Tyler The Creator, Drake, A$AP Rocky, Kylie Jenner, and other artists of the sort didn’t wear Supreme every once in a while. There is even a picture floating around of Barack Obama wearing a Supreme box tee! Supreme has gotten a bit of help from the people who promote the brand. Supreme didn’t really need it, but it did help it gain a bit of popularity in the last few years.
Supreme is a weird topic for a lot of streetwear people. For example, I do not own any Supreme. I never have bought anything Supreme, other than one of their stickers, for a whooping $5. I do believe a lot of the Supreme items are worth the price, but not all of them. However, there are a lot of people who own Supreme, who will tell you it’s worth the price, because of it’s hype and it’s quality. There are people who do not own Supreme, and will tell you none of it is worth the price. Likewise, there are people who own Supreme who will tell you it is not worth the price as well. It all just depends on the eyes of the beholder; and in my eyes, some of it is worth it, but some of it is not.