High street to streetwear

There was a period once upon a time ago when streetwear heads donned luxury brands to show their peers how ballin' they were. Since then the fine lines between the high end and the streets have not only been broken, but fused to create the plethora of products that sit on shelves of both luxury and streetwear stores.

Being able to afford Luxury brands was a testament to streetwear crew, a statement noting that although once you were living in the ghetto, you've made it. Your freestylin' lyrics have sold enough records, you ran enough drugs to be able to afford or in the case of the Lolifes, you just boosted your shit fulfilling your expensive taste. Even now the same bridge is still being crossed, Nike bikies carrying guns in LV and Gucci bumbags, eshay adlays fascination with Polo/Nautica/Gant, chav's rocking high end labels looking sharp to elude "the bill" on the way to and from football games.

It used to be a case of streetwear brands paying homage to Luxury brands; the LV monogram print has been re-appropriated a countless number of times, Supreme's infamous Box tee has played host to the Gucci and LV and Burberry flavours. The homage still runs deep today to the luxury brands iconic signatures - Gucci's deep forest green and red, Burberry Plaid, Chanel tweed etc etc.

Today however there is a translevel reorder with luxury brands looking to the street for inspiration, collaborations and more importantly, sales. With a quiet nod to Vivienne Westwoods punk inspired roots more and more high ends labels are drawing inspiration and creative notes from their street counterparts.

In 2003 Yohji Yamamoto asked adidas for sneakers for his range. Instead the signature yohji x adidas range debuted which would eventually lead to the Y-3 label a favourite with both gym bound fashionistas and football bound chav's. It doesn't stop there, Alexander McQueen and Jil Sander for Puma, Junya Watanabe for Nike and on the flipside Pharrell Williams and Kanye West for LV. Even graffiti, once the mark of territory and namesake notoriety, is now freely used by high end labels for inspiration in their own right on pieces costing upwards of $1000. Not bad for a movement that was freely found on walls.

Streetwear is also on the up and up. Brands like Fragment, Bape, Neighbourhood, Visvim, Maharishi, Undercover (which actually began as a streetwear label) are now charging premium $ for their product, with prices sometimes matching if not exceeding that of luxury brands. Then there's the resellers market who hold rare products for ransom money - think upwards of $300 for the first Kate Moss supreme tee. Yes that's right. Three hundred fucking dollars for a tee. After the release of the Neighbourhood Crash Denim their resale value skyrocketed, kids weren't just eating instant noodles to afford them, some were getting personal loans