Supreme

Supreme is an american skateboarding shop originally based in New York. The shop revolves around the skateboard scene, along with Hip-Hop and rock culture.They produce a wide spectrum of clothing and accessories, along with skateboards of course.

Value Proposition: To create and sell clothing based around skateboarding culture while crafting a lifestyle around it, bringing unique and scarce design and style to the community.

James Jebbia (Store Opening)

It is 1994, and there are no skateboarding shops within New York City; no simple shop to run in to grab nuts and bolts, grip tape, or a new deck. James Jebbia: an English business man and fashion designer who helped open Stussy NYC in 1991, (A streetwear clothing brand) realizes this and decides to make his change. Although James didn't skateboard himself, he wanted to make a change in the skateboarding community. Before long in downtown Manhattan, the first Supreme store was born. James spent around $12,000 to open his first store which originally sold skate merchandise from recognizable brands such as Spitfire, Independent, and more, along with James's decision to sell the shops own Supreme clothing as well.

Barbara Kruger

At the time of the logo’s creation, James was heavily inspired at the time by an artist named Barbara Kruger, which pioneered the red box design. 

The logo features a red box with the word “Supreme” in the Futura Bold Oblique font face centered in the middle, which some claim was a direct rip off of Barbara’s work; nonetheless, in design standards it works well.

 


Supreme's clothing originally focused around t-shirts, hoodies, and hats with their simple box logo stitched/printed on. Along with the classic logo,They have featured many images of celebrities, movies, and locations with the logo printed underneath in their early releases in the mid-nineties, and usually still continue to do this today although with many more variations than before.

Tyler Okama (Tyler, The Creator)

Tyler, The Creator & Supreme

Later on, rap artist “Tyler, The Creator” received clothes from supreme to wear at no cost; supreme’s decision was not in hopes of paying him to advertise the brand, but simply just to introduce Tyler to it, allowing him to be a part of the so called “supreme family” and spread word of the brand.

This simple marketing move would change their business forever.

Rise to Fame

Before long, the Supreme brand became more recognized as Tyler had spread the brand around with the Odd Future hip-hop crew, representing the brand in many of their music videos and band photographs. The word was out. 

Soon, many celebrities began visiting shops and representing the brand, creating buzz in the fashion industry. And as predicted, many fans of these celebrities and music artists the began trying to wear the brand alongside them, bringing in countless sales and revenue. Thus, bringing Supreme into the Hype-beast game; hype beast being one who follows fashion very closely and is always up to date on the latest styles.

At this point, Supreme was not just the originally intended skateboarding brand it was meant to be back in 1994, but more of a fashion lifestyle now, with countless people trying to hop on board and become part of the so called "culture" as you will. They took notice, and began to shift the brand from a simple skateboarding culture to part of the fashion industry. Supreme noticed the sudden buzz, and realized this was a huge opportunity, causing them to begin a new marketing strategy by playing with the factor of supply and demand with the stock. The brand evolved into something James would never imagine; that simple box logo design from 1994 had been introduced into the eyes of millions of people across the world, making everyone want to be apart of the family.

London Store: Winter Drop

Now that countless people drooled over the box logo and the brand culture itself, hypebeasts would do anything to buy a way into it. Supreme changed their whole algorithm, making all their stock in limited runs, for medium to outrageous prices. On top of that, once the run was out of stock, it was gone forever.

People began waiting days outside Supreme stores for a chance to snatch the latest fashion drops before everyone else, before it was all gone. Soon after, once the product could not be purchased in store anymore, items appeared on websites such as eBay for double to sometimes even triple the original retail price.

     Now, it technically didn't even matter what supreme released, as long as it had their notorious box logo printed or stitched on, supreme realized would wait any amount of time in line to spend their money on it: period. If a shirt originally costs $54.00, and shoots up quadruple the price, people want it: people buy it.

Upon release

Hours after being sold out on website / in-store

Supreme & Collaboration

As supreme rose to fame, they began collaborating with many brands that reached out because of their popularity, such as Nike, The North Face, Louis Vuitton, and other known fashion companies. Like most likely predicted although, supreme manufactures so little of these items, making it a very limited in run to disappear forever off supremes catalog after they have been sold out. Unlike regular items however, collab runs tend to boost up in value tremendously more than the regular over-priced hoodie.

ex. The North Face Collaboration

Replications

The extent that people have gone to trying to get their hands on supreme has gotten out of hand: many shops across seas have attempted to replicate supreme clothing and items for much lower prices than retail, usually lowering in quality as well. Although, some shops within China have been able to replicate clothing pretty well, often times people are scammed into buying a fake item when spending good money for the real deal.

Supreme has noticed this, and simply laughs at the idea of a replication. 

Recognition to the craze

     It started as a joke within the community that hype beasts would buy anything that had to do with the brand. It didn't matter if it was a roll of Charmin Toilet paper with a supreme logo printed on, people would desire. Supreme started noticing that their sales were doing extremely well, even on items that they weren't completely serious or confident about. They realized this, and began releasing random items such as crowbars, bricks, and water guns, all as long as they had their logo on it. As Supreme most likely could predict, these sold like hotcakes and absolutely BLEW UP in price soon after.

The Supreme Brick (orig. $36, now ~$250-300)

My Thoughts

The evolution of Supreme since its birth in 1994 has grown so much that many consider it to be the most trending in the fashion industry today. I find the whole change to supply and demand strategy so interesting that I have found myself following the movement as each clothing drop is released. I absolutely think that Supreme will retain its popularity and relevance for many years in the future with all the collaborations they have made, and continue to make.

If I were in James’s shoes, I wouldn't change a thing. The brand has gotten so out of control that they can do about anything they want by putting a logo on something, and people will go head over heels for it. It’s obviously working.

Would I consider spending so much money on a simple hoodie? Maybe if I like it enough, but i would still consider myself on a “sane” level compared to many other hype-beasts out there spending crazy amounts of money. It is honestly a funny topic, something that people can laugh at when they see the price of items on their site. I often show my family the prices as a joke, as we all sort of question who in their right mind would spend six hundred dollars on a wool parka with the logo only to be seen on the inside of the tag. I will continue to follow the craze, along with many other people out there like magazines and bloggers. The company is no longer about quality of their clothes, or what they provide, but simply the name being present on the clothing or product.

And I would call that a supreme success.