What’s up with Supreme?
Futura font, bolded and italicized. Apparently, that’s all it takes to replicate the logo of a clothing brand valued at $1 billion.
We see Supreme everywhere. Go on eBay, you see pre-owned Supreme hoodies selling for $700. A $5.5 fare Supreme metro card is sold for $200.
So why are people blowing away money for band-aids, water guns, or simple white t-shirts with ‘Supreme’ on them?
It all started from a small skateboarding shop in Lafayette St. New York, when James Jebbia, with a budget of less than $15,000, opened the first Supreme store. Since then, Supreme has evolved from being a regular skating brand to a whole new defining culture of ‘streetwear’.
At first, the store only sold hard goods: skateboarding decks, trucks, and wheels — all the essential elements of a skateboard. Jebbia then realized that all of the other skateboarding shops in New York sold ‘crap’ clothes. They would fit poorly and didn’t last long. In his point of view, skaters had to look cool and be able to pick up girls.
That’s when Supreme started to produce original clothes under its brand, and since then, they have gained dedicated followers and consumers.
Since the very beginning, Supreme did things differently. It distinguished itself from other skate stores. The high ceilings, clean walls, and immaculately displayed products almost resembled a luxurious fashion boutique.
Vogue actually compared the SoHo Supreme Store to a Chanel Boutique in their March 1995 issue.
Supreme, like any other high-end fashion brands, attempt to maintain the scarcity of their products.
On a GQ interview, Jebbia admitted that he unintentionally came up with the ‘drop’ system: “We’d order it, and we’d order small quantities, out of not having certainty or funds to deal with it if we were left with a ton of stuff that people don’t like. It was never intentional.”
“We’d actually have some seasons where — there’s our summer stuff, and we were sold out of the product at the end of March. We have nothing to sell in April, May, June, July. People would come in and be like, ‘This shop is shit. Why are people talking about this?’ And what are we gonna say? ‘If you’d have come in two weeks ago, it looked really good?’ There’s nothing in there. So it was more about that.”
By limiting production and consistently producing high quality clothes, Supreme was able to attract attention from celebrities and eventually luxury fashion brands.
A handful of celebrities have pulled off Supreme merchandise on Instagram, including Drake, Kendall Jenner, and Kanye West.
While Supreme was receiving all the attention from the fashion industry, its resale culture was starting to kick off.
Supreme’s retail value is extremely reasonable: around $50 for a shirt and around $150 for a sweatshirt. However, the limited supply is what drives the resale prices to a ridiculously high amount. This resale culture reinforces the exclusive aspect of the brand, with higher prices being another barrier for the majority to own a Supreme product. Reselling and exclusivity are complementary components that keeps the ‘hype’ of Supreme alive.
Controlling the supply chain increases the exclusivity, which encourages people who own the product to make a profit by selling it with higher price margins. The higher prices of these Supreme products maintain the popularity and hype of the brand until a new ‘drop’ is underway.
In 2016, Supreme collaborated with Louis Vuitton to release a limited, one-time collection at selected Louis Vuitton and Supreme stores. The Creative Director of Louis Vuitton at the time, Kim Jones, had personal experience with the brand.
He used to work for a company in London called Gimme 5 that distributed streetwear—Supreme being one of them.
This collaboration implied that Louis Vuitton recognized Supreme as a high-quality brand with great potential. To the fashion industry, this was a wake-up call, and high-end fashion brands started to merge the two fashion cultures: luxury and streetwear. Nowadays, we see luxury brands adopting streetwear culture into their own collections.
When James Jebbia first opened the store back in 1994, paying $2000 for rent and selling skateboards, I don’t think he expected his brand to literally transform 21st century fashion. His store was just a popular hangout spot for downtown New York skaters, who started repping their local brand. A decade or so later, even dads know about Supreme.
The most exciting and challenging part for Supreme, however, is maintaining the popularity of its name and the quality associated with it.
Thankfully, Jebbia still hasn’t lost his passion with the brand. In regards to the rapid and tremendous success that he achieved through Supreme, Jebbia states:
“We’re in the business where that can happen — it is what it is. Many brands have been through that; some come out of it, some don’t. We’d remain who we are; we wouldn’t change.”
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