Streetwear, originated from American street culture, is a symbol and sign of the identity of young people. In the global trillion-dollar fashion market, streetwear as an emerging force has a huge commercial value. Streetwear consumers aspire changes and challenges. When social platforms provide everyone with the same display opportunities, they are eager to show their distinctive preferences on these platforms. Such ideas have spawned the outbreak of fashion brands. This article today will introduce the story of streetwear, how it disrupted fashion and luxury industry, but also how important streetwear is in China now, how it developed the unique expressions around street trends, KOLs, entertainment and gaming culture, and the extreme rise of sneaker shoe cultures. More significantly, how and why it can be a huge opportunity for Chinese fashion industry.

潮牌起源于美国街头文化，是一种年轻人群身份认同的符号和标志。在全球万亿美金的服装市场中，潮牌作为一股新兴势力拥有着巨大的商业价值。潮牌的消费者们热爱改变与挑战，在社交平台为所有人提供了一样的展示机会的时候，他们急切地要在这些平台上展现自己的与众不同，这些都催生了潮牌的爆发。本文今天将为大家介绍潮牌的故事；它们是如何进入时尚和奢侈品市场的；它们如何发展成为了一种围绕街头趋势，KOL，娱乐和游戏文化的独特的表达方式；球鞋文化的快速兴起；最重要的是，潮牌为何能成为中国时尚行业的巨大机遇。

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The History and Definition of Streetwear

潮牌的历史和定义

First, let’s define streetwear more specifically. Streetwear is about fashionable, casual and cool clothes targeting the younger consumers, usually below 25. Popular products include jeans, baseball caps, hoodies, track pants, leggings, oversized team jerseys, and of course the star products now, T-shirts and sneakers. Streetwear’s root is the countercultures of the 70’s to 90’s, including skate, hip-hop and rap music in New York, surf in California, and graffiti art, punk, new wave and heavy metal music, even Japanese street fashion.

首先，让我们更具体地定义潮牌。潮牌是针对年龄在25岁以下的年轻消费者的时尚，休闲和潮流的服装。流行产品包括牛仔裤，棒球帽，帽衫，运动裤，紧身裤，超大号球衣，当然还有现在的明星产品，T恤和运动鞋。潮牌的起源是70到90年代的反主流文化，包括纽约的滑板，嘻哈和说唱音乐，加利福尼亚的冲浪运动，以及涂鸦艺术，朋克，新浪潮和重金属音乐，甚至还有日本街头时尚。

Many surfers and skaters adopted a DIY approach to show their uniqueness. Shawn Stussy, a pioneer of the movement began selling cool printed T-shirts in California in the 80’s, featuring the same signature he placed on his own custom surfboards. In this way, he mimicked the limited feel of a high-end luxury brand with these two components of what makes a streetwear brand: T-shirts and exclusivity.

许多冲浪和滑板爱好者都采用DIY方式来展示自己的独特性。街头运动的先驱肖恩·斯图西（Shawn Stussy）80年代开始在加利福尼亚州出售酷炫的印花T恤，印制的图案与他在自己的定制冲浪板上的相同。这样，他通过构成街头服装品牌的以下两个要素——T恤和独一无二的标志——模仿出高端奢侈品牌的限量感。

The 90s were a big year for streetwear with its popularity spreading around the globe. Japanese brand BAPE was founded in 1993, Supreme opened its first store in New York in 1994. The mindset behind streetwear appeared even earlier in the 60s with Andy Warhol questioning what constitutes contemporary art, then artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring extended this conversation to street art, challenging traditional notions of “who could access art and who it was for”. In the same way, hip-hop and rap were breaking music rules, finding art and sound in unconventional ways.

90年代是潮牌发展至关紧要的一年，从这一年开始其流行程度开始遍及全球。日本品牌BAPE成立于1993年，Supreme于1994年在纽约开设了第一家商店。潮牌的思想基础出现在在60年代初期，当时的艺术家安迪·沃霍尔（Andy Warhol）质疑当代艺术的构成，接着让·米歇尔·巴斯奎特（Jean-Michel Basquiat）和基思·哈林（Keith Haring）等艺术家将这种思想扩展为街头，向传统的“谁可以接触艺术以及艺术服务于谁”的观念发出挑战。同样，嘻哈音乐和说唱音乐也打破了音乐规则，以非常规的方式寻找艺术和音乐形式。

Streetwear can be compared to an artist’s street art or a hip-hop artist’s lyrics: picking a spot and dropping a signature. This gives streetwear a level of authenticity unmatched in the fashion industry. Streetwear is not just a trend within fashion, rather the fashion expression of a larger popular culture, merging fashion, art and music.

潮牌相当于艺术家的街头艺术或嘻哈歌手的歌词：选择一个地点留下自己的标记。这让街头服装拥有了传统时尚界无法比拟的真实性。街头服饰不仅是时尚潮流，更是一种流行文化的表达，融合了时尚，艺术和音乐。

Streetwear and Luxury

潮牌与奢侈品牌

Let’s now understand how streetwear disrupted the fashion and luxury industry. Luxury fashion operates through a top-down effect, with insiders acting as gatekeepers of the newest styles and trends. Luxury fashion brands maintain a marketing strategy of trying to be always ahead of the trends and imposing their signature, their aesthetic vision. Streetwear, in contrast, reversed this formula with a more democratic model, where the tastemakers are the audience on the street and their opinions, of course they deviate from traditional fashion and luxury codes.

现在，让我们了解街头服装如何“扰乱”了时尚和奢侈品行业。奢华时尚通过自上而下的效果运作，内部人士充当着最新风格和潮流的守门人。奢侈时装品牌维持一种营销策略，力求始终领先于潮流，并加强自己的标志和美感。相反，街头服饰以更大众的模式颠覆了这一公式。在街头服饰中，趋势制造者是普罗大众，他们的观点自然与传统的时尚和奢侈品牌的准则不同。

According to Hypebeast, a leading online platform specialized in contemporary fashion and streetwear trends, consumers buy streetwear products because they are cool and comfortable. But they also mentioned exclusivity, status symbol and community. What began as a niche culture, with the printing of logos on T-shirts, is now a primary driver in the fashion luxury industry.

根据专门研究当代时尚和潮牌趋势的领先在线平台Hypebeas的研究，消费者购买潮牌的原因是因为它们既酷炫又舒适。但是他们也提到了排他性，地位象征和社交需求。最初那种在T恤上印徽标的小众文化现在已成为时尚奢侈品行业的主要驱动力。

Streetwear progressively aggregated different sectors, from pure streetwear brands to sport and sportswear brands, fashion and luxury brands up to haute couture, and also some specific sports categories such as basketball, baseball, etc. We can distinguish 4 categories of players at least:

潮牌逐渐聚集了不同的时尚领域，从纯街头服饰品牌到运动服饰品牌，从时尚和奢侈品牌到高级时装，还有一些特定的体育类别，例如篮球，棒球等。我们至少可以区分其中4类：

First, original streetwear brands like Supreme, BAPE, Stussy, Vans, Palace that offer accessible prices, comfortable clothing and authenticity. Products from these brands often resell at a high price point due to scarcity and high demand.

首先是诸如Supreme，BAPE，Stussy，Vans，Palace之类的原创潮牌。它们提供价格合理且舒适的服装，但由于稀缺和需求旺盛，这些品牌的产品通常以高价转售。

Then luxury streetwear brands like Off-white and AMBUSH, blurring the lines between original streetwear and luxury fashion, also driven by authenticity with a higher price and diverging from the streetwear uniform.

其次是像Off-white和AMBUSH这样的奢侈潮牌，它们模糊了原始潮牌和奢华时尚之间的界线，价格较高，也与经典潮牌的形制不太相同。

Third, sportswear brands like Nike, Converse, Adidas, Reebok, Puna, Fila, whose offering of athletic wear and sneakers are integral to the streetwear style. Their sneakers belong to the streetwear uniform.

第三是如耐克，匡威，阿迪达斯，锐步，普那，菲拉等的运动服品牌。运动服装和球鞋是街头服装风格不可或缺的一部分。

Last, we have brands from mass fashion to luxury fashion and even celebrity brands, that include streetwear trends and style in their product offering, but their brand origin is not authentically tied to the streetwear movement.

最后是各类包括潮牌趋势和风格的品牌，从大众时装到奢侈品甚至名人品牌，但这些品牌的起源与街头运动并没有真正的联系。

Most luxury fashion brands do streetwear collaborations like LV with Supreme, or with the hiring of Virgil Abloh, Gucci with Dapper Dan, BAPE with Comme des Garcons, Gosha Rubchinsky with Burberry, also sneakers capsule collections like Balenciaga with Nike, McCartney with Adidas, Fila with Fendi and Stussy with Dior resently. Few luxury brands stay away from streetwear as they wish to attract a younger audience and think that streetwear collaborations will make them cool in the eye of Gen Z, also because formal wear is less popular nowadays.

大多数奢侈品牌都与潮牌合作，例如与LV与Supreme，Gucci与Dapper Dan，BAPE与Comme des Garcons，Gosha Rubchinsky与Burberry。也包括运动鞋系列的合作，例如Balenciaga与耐克，McCartney与Adidas，Fila与Fendi，以及最近的Stussy与Dior。很少有奢侈品牌会远离潮牌，它们希望吸引年轻的观众，并认为与潮牌饰的合作能使奢侈品牌在Z世代的眼中变得年轻化，也是因为正装如今已不那么流行。

Streetwear and China

潮牌与中国

Western streetwear culture was imported to China many years ago, but until 3 years ago, it was a type of underground culture that only a small group of people was interested in. It changed recently thanks to popular Chinese reality shows, for instance Rap of China, which pushed it into the mainstream. It is now a way for young affluent Chinese consumers to show their uniqueness, a deeper and subtle form of self-expression. Also, streetwear sports like basketball and skateboarding are growingly popular.

西方潮牌文化传入中国已久，但直到3年前，它还是一种地下文化，只有一小部分人感兴趣。近来，一些中国真人秀节目（例如中国有嘻哈等）的流行将这类文化推向了主流。现在，潮牌成为了中国年轻的消费者展示自己的独特性的一种方式，一种更深刻和微妙的自我表达形式。此外，篮球和滑板等街头运动也越来越受欢迎。

In the west, streetwear is male dominated, styles are adopted and driven by men depicting masculine looks. In China, streetwear is more gender balanced. It could be an opportunity for China to develop a specific streetwear sub-culture.

西方的潮牌以男性为主导，风格被男性所描绘。然而在中国，潮牌更加平衡了性别，这可能是发展特定潮牌亚文化的机会。

The rise of streetwear culture in China is an opportunity for Chinese fashion brands, as China is starting to create its own streetwear eco-system. First, Chinese sports brands such as Anta are emerging, making interesting acquisitions like Wilson, Fila, Arc Teryk. Second, many digital streetwear platforms exist, like YOHO which partnered with Dazed created Yoho girl, promoting not only western streetwear brands like Stussy and Undercover but also new local brands. Events like Tmall China Day at New York Fashion Week or JD.COM runaway shows in London can also help emerging Chinese streetwear brands. Sneaker events like Sneaker Con or Innersect gather each year in Shanghai, attracting a lot of young consumers around a mix of western and local sneaker brands.

随着中国特有的街头品牌经济生态系统的诞生和演变，潮牌的兴起为中国时尚品牌提供了机会。首先，诸如安踏（Anta）之类的中国体育品牌正在兴起，并收购了Wilson（威尔逊），Fila（菲拉）和始祖鸟（Arc Teryk）等国际品牌。其次，许多潮流文化传播平台应势而起，例如YOHO与Dazed合作创建的Yoho girl时尚资讯平台，不仅推广西方潮牌（如Stussy和Undercover），也推广新的本地品牌。纽约时装周的天猫中国日或伦敦的京东“京·制”时装秀等活动也可以为新兴的中国街头潮牌助力。知名球鞋展会，如Sneaker Con或Innersect每年都在上海举行，许多中外球鞋品牌的亮相吸引着广大年轻消费者。

Young Chinese fashion designers influenced by streetwear can also leverage Chinese incubators like Labelhood in Shanghai or Alibaba’s Taobao Maker’s Festival in Hangzhou. Two Chinese designers recently used collaboration: Masha Ma collaborated with sports group Anta and Angel Chen collaborated with Labelhood and Adidas recently on sneakers. KOLs are also important for the development of streetwear in China, like VAVA, one of the most famous female rappers who gained fame with the Sichuanese rap, has brought a new wave of streetwear among her fans.

受街头文化影响的年轻中国设计师们还可以借力线上孵化社区来一展拳脚，例如上海的蕾虎或杭州阿里巴巴的淘宝造物节。最近有两名中国设计师运用了潮牌合作策略：马玛莎（Masha Ma）与体育集团安踏（Anta）合作，而陈安琪（Angel Chen）与蕾虎和阿迪达斯（Adidas）合作了联名款球鞋。 KOL对于中国街头服饰的发展也很重要，例如VAVA，中国著名女说唱歌手之一，因她的四川话说唱而声名鹊起，她对潮牌的热爱在她的粉丝中掀起了新一波热潮，从而影响更多年轻人。

Conclusion

结语

Understanding cultural trends is key for fashion and luxury brands if they want to be culturally innovative or at least stay relevant. We entered an era where culture and trends are more fragmented and fluid than ever, with niche interests turning quickly into major mass market trends with much shorter lifespans. So, there is not one streetwear culture but more and more fragmented sub-cultures that can grow and disappear very fast. This can be an opportunity for Chinese streetwear brands due to the speed of China market.

如果时尚和奢侈品牌想要进行文化创新或至少保持与时俱进，那么了解文化趋势就至关重要。我们进入了一个文化和趋势比以往更加分散和多变的时代，小众的兴趣会迅速转变为短期的主流趋势。因此，不仅仅是街头服饰文化，越来越多的其他零散的亚文化都有可能快速成长和交替。这种快速更迭的亚文化时尚以及中国市场的快速发展将会为中国潮牌创造绝佳的机会。

Millennials and Gen Z are crucial to the future of luxury fashion brands in China. Western luxury fashion brands have successfully engaged with many of them, but it is a big crowd and some of the Chinese Gen Z in particular will be willing to follow Chinese streetwear brands if they understand their desire to belong to a community driven by coolness but also values such as authenticity and a form of exclusivity.

千禧一代和Z世代对于中国奢侈品牌的未来至关重要。许多西方奢侈时尚品牌已经成功地与他们接轨，但是这是一个庞大的消费群体，尤其是Z世代中国年轻人，如果品牌足够了解他们对于个性化和社交的需求，以及他们崇尚真实和独特的价值观，他们将特别愿意成为这些品牌的忠实消费者。

Streetwear culture was a pioneer in cross-over between different sectors, fashion, music, art. Culture always comes before fashion.

街头服饰文化是时尚，音乐，艺术等不同领域的跨界先驱，而时尚永远是以文化为基础的。

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