Investors Are Pouring Millions (And Millions) Of Dollars Into Streetwear Startups

In what has felt like the blink of an eye, “streetwear” — a term that itself has become less and less tethered to one concrete definition — has gone from a niche, underground category of clothing and footwear to a mainstream industry that has shaken up the fashion business as we know it. It’s also spurred an ecosystem of exciting, blue-chip companies that are creating, reselling, “dropping” and/or writing about limited-edition T-shirts and sneakers that in the past may have only interested small groups of teenagers. Over just the past couple of years, investors have poured a collective $179.8 million into streetwear’s leading online marketplaces Goat, Grailed, StockX and Stadium Goods (which has a brick-and-mortar component) and media platform Highsnobiety. But there were two events that may have really turned the financial world onto this space: After its infinitely hyped Louis Vuitton collaboration, Supreme was given a reported $1 billion valuation upon selling a minority stake to private equity firm Carlyle Group last fall, and digital media and e-commerce platform Hypebeast filed for a groundbreaking IPO back in 2016. (Louis Vuitton later hired Off-White’s Virgil Abloh as its men’s artistic director, doubling down on the French house’s commitment to the hype model.) Read more at Fashionista.