Especially when looking back on it now. On one hand, it is remembered as a gaudy, obnoxious, and tasteless period where hordes of people would do the most insane things just to get their hands on a white T-shirt with a simple logo on it. Kids would queue overnight outside streetwear stores, and some people would capitalize on the hype by reselling clothes for ridiculous prices on the very same day they dropped.
Many people view this era as one centred on greed and shameless displays of wealth rather than actual fashion. However, surprisingly, many people are still very nostalgic for this time and remember it fondly.
It was a much simpler time, and it was exciting to queue up with your friends and other like-minded streetwear fanatics for a streetwear drop. The community aspect didn’t stop there. Once you got home, you could hop onto the Basement Facebook group or other hypebeast online communities to share your “what did you wear today” post or sell the clothes you bought with your birthday money from your grandma and double your investment overnight to fund the next release you were excited for. People say it’s been downhill since the early 2020s, and that was probably the last time you genuinely got excited for a Supreme drop.
Gone are the days when one could indulge in rampant consumerism and gain a real, in-person community experience as a byproduct. Getting a five-euro, piss-weak matcha slop drink from a chain coffee shop and taking fit pics just doesn’t hit the same as sitting in a camping chair on the streets of Berlin or Tokyo at 4 a.m., with nothing but your “by any means necessary” Supreme and The North Face collaboration jacket to shelter you from the torrential rain. While I personally never queued for a Supreme or Palace drop during that era, I still have very fond memories of it.
I think everyone is familiar with how hypebeast streetwear culture came to be, but what happened after? Where did all the hypebeasts go? It felt like one day it was omnipresent and inescapable, and the next it was just gone. Where are all the hypebeasts today? From what I’ve read in books and magazines, it all started in the mid-to-late 2010s, when hypebeast culture became overhyped and the mainstream began to take notice, with high-end luxury brands scrambling to capitalize on the streetwear mania.
I think the Supreme collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2017 marked the beginning of this shift, with Virgil Abloh becoming the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton in 2018, acting as the final nail in the coffin. I’m not saying that what Virgil did at Louis Vuitton killed streetwear or hypebeast culture.
This isn’t a critique of Virgil. I simply think this moment signalled a cultural shift where the wider luxury fashion industry went all-in on streetwear, and in doing so, it caused the movement to lose its edge.
If the children of multi-millionaire Middle Eastern oil tycoons are dressing like kids on the streets of London or New York, then it’s probably not that cutting-edge anymore. Virgil himself acknowledged this in a 2019 interview with Dazed when asked what he thought would happen to streetwear in the 2020s. He said that it would die, explaining that there are only so many T-shirts, hoodies, and sneakers one can own, and that fashion would move toward expressing personal style and knowledge through vintage and archives.
He predicted that fashion would move away from buying box-fresh items and toward wearing pieces from personal archives. In hindsight, he predicted the next five years of online fashion culture almost perfectly.
Archive fashion began gaining popularity at the start of the 2020s, driven by curated shops on social media and the rise of fashion knowledge as a form of clout. While vintage and thrifting had always been popular, the 2020s turned it into a competitive sport. Going into the decade, there was still a market for hypebeast clothing, and sneakers remained strong, but streetwear was slowly moving away from being synonymous with hypebeast culture.
If you genuinely care about fashion rather than just signaling wealth with flashy logos, then, as Virgil said, there are only so many hoodies, sneakers, and T-shirts. This is when streetwear became “Pinterestified” and diversified. Prior to the mid-2010s, styling at the height of hypebeast culture was largely non-existent.
You might disagree and believe that your 2016 outfit—consisting of a Supreme logo T-shirt, ripped jeans, and Yeezys—was a carefully thought-out expression of individuality. However, the most revered outfits of that era were usually matching sets from the same drop. The popular “How Much Is Your Outfit?” series by Unknown Vlogs perfectly captured this mentality. By the early 2020s, people grew tired of having all the gear and no idea, and wanted their outfits to communicate something beyond wealth or exclusivity.
Some swapped Bape hoodies for Stüssy April fleeces, favored Birkenstock Bostons over Yeezys, and began hopping between TikTok micro-trends. At the very least, there was now an attempt at styling—whether it was the sandwich method or a strict earth-tone palette.
Some gravitated toward Uniqlo-style minimalism, others toward vintage and workwear, while many dove into archive designer fashion. COVID and the rise of TikTok played a major role in this shift, as people spent more time consuming fashion content online rather than wearing clothes in real life.
During this period, taste and curation became more culturally valuable than owning the most hyped item. This is also when being knowledgeable about fashion became cool, particularly among men. YouTube streetwear channels helped bridge the gap between hypebeast culture and a more diverse, chronically online fashion landscape by introducing people to deeper, more creative approaches to clothing.
If mid-to-late 2010s streetwear was defined by hypebeast culture, then early 2020s streetwear is defined by the Instagram brand apocalypse. Suddenly, everyone had a clothing brand selling graphic T-shirts, hoodies, and wide-fitting joggers. However, many of these brand owners didn’t care about fashion history or designers like Rei Kawakubo.
Mention Alexander McQueen to them, and they’re more likely to think of a rapper than the designer. These brands often come from hustle culture, applying dropshipping logic to streetwear. Many of these creators speak about “escaping the matrix,” despite doubling down on the very capitalist systems they claim to criticize.
This explains why so much content about running a clothing brand focuses purely on profit rather than creativity. Virgil Abloh’s “free game” document and design principles are sometimes blamed for this, though the real issue lies in how they were mythologized and misunderstood.
Virgil was a trailblazer who achieved incredible success without traditional fashion education and openly shared his creative process. He inspired countless people. However, he didn’t account for those who would pursue fashion purely for money rather than passion.
The issue with the “free game” document is that most of the information is easily accessible elsewhere. If someone lacks the curiosity or drive to learn independently, they likely shouldn’t be starting a fashion brand. If you need to be introduced to the Adobe Suite, you probably lack a genuine creative vision.
The misinterpretation of Virgil’s “3% rule” further fuelled this problem. Changing a logo or slogan by three percent doesn’t make a brand innovative. Virgil’s sixth principle emphasized societal commentary and intentionality—something many brands ignore in favour of shallow graphics and empty symbolism.
To be clear, this isn’t an attack on Virgil. His impact was immense, and the issue lies in how people responded to his openness, not his actions.
While many true fashion enthusiasts avoided low-effort Instagram brands, questionable practices have become common even among higher-tier independent labels. Pre-orders, long delays, and inflated hype have replaced overnight queues.
This brings us to the modern hypebeast. While the term originally referred to people flaunting trends and wealth, it now describes a new archetype. Many people still buy into hype—just in different clothes.
The modern hypebeast is defined by three pillars: buying into hyped brands, flexing wealth, and pseudo-intellectual elitism. Today’s hype revolves around indie and Instagram brands, resulting in uniform aesthetics disguised as individuality.
The second pillar remains wealth signalling. Instead of resale value, exclusivity is now defined by high retail prices. The third pillar—elitism—is new. With no real exclusivity left, superiority is expressed through perceived cultural knowledge.
Fashion has changed, but the desire to stand above others hasn’t. The clothes are different. The mindset remains.
- Thomas Piter (Creative Director)