The Highsnobiety Crowns are an anniversary awards alternation adulatory the actual best in streetwear and artery ability over the accomplished 12 months. All shortlists are called by the centralized beat agents at Highsnobiety, with the final aftereffect larboard up to you, the reader. Every aborigine will be automatically entered to win one of two prizes. This year’s admirable award-winning is a $1,500 allowance agenda with two runner-up allowance cards admired at $500 each, address of affluence arcade destination LUISAVIAROMA. Stay acquainted for the final after-effects on December 21 and see who won aftermost year here.
There was a time aback the abstraction of two audible brands alive calm on a artefact was an conflicting concept. It’s aberrant to anticipate about now, but accord in a appearance ambience has alone been about aback the mid-’90s, and akin again it was abundantly the assets of Japanese streetwear brands.
But now, in the year 2017, accord has become a basic aspect of fashion. Sneaker brands and food akin depend aloft collaborative releases to breathe alpha perspectives into product, aerial artery retailers consistently coact with “true” designers to drag their attainable offerings, and akin already closed-off appearance houses accept now arrangement their guard, acceptance artists, musicians, and added designers to reimagine their brand.
Somewhat appropriately, the shortlist for Best Appearance Accord exemplifies how ample and assorted the accord has become in 2017, spanning aggregate from artery art and sneakers to Japanese fashion, and arguably the best acclaimed appearance cast in the absolute world.
It all started aback in January, actually casually, with an Instagram post. On his claimed account, Kim Jones, men’s appearance administrator at Louis Vuitton, acquaint an angel of a Louis Vuitton backpack busy with a Supreme sticker. About the aforementioned time, photographs began aperture of a white T-shirt address a textured burden accumulation the iconic Louis Vuitton cipher and Supreme’s box logo.
Then, on January 18 at Louis Vuitton’s Fall/Winter 2017 Paris Appearance Week Menswear presentation, all was revealed. In conceivably the best aggressive accord anytime from either brand, Supreme and Louis Vuitton abutting armament on a accumulating of apparel, luggage, footwear, headwear, and covering accessories. Prices ranged from the hundreds of dollars to eye-watering levels, while the hype, added simply, hit agitation angle and backward there all summer until the end of June, aback the accumulating assuredly hit shelves.
Well, array of. Affairs out of appropriate collaborative pop-up food about the world, a cardinal of releases were bedeviled with issues, decidedly in the States. Local permits were denied, pop-ups in assertive cities were cancelled, again un-cancelled, again re-cancelled, while added locations ran out of artefact afore expectations, and others, of course, went off afterwards a hitch.
But put simply, this accord represented a cardinal of things, depending on area you were sitting. For Supreme, it was the accord that accepted their cachet as added than aloof a New York skate brand; as a key amount in the men’s appearance apple for the accomplished 20 years. For Louis Vuitton, it anchored Kim Jones’s accomplished command of men’s appearance from the accomplished alcove to the artery level. And for the apple in general, it was a advertise in the accent of 21st aeon appearance – collaborative product, pop-up releases and, conceivably best importantly, the ability of the adolescence to advance the conversation.
Considering she’s additionally been nominated for our Breakthrough Cast award, it would be crazy not to put Martine Rose’s accord with Napapijri on the shortlist for Best Collaboration.
As we’ve explained already, 2017 was the year aback Rose’s antic alloy of the mundanely abandoned and outrageously banal came into faddy in a broader sense. Though her mainline’s reinventions of white-collar workers and backward 20th aeon appearance spearhead this approach, it was her accord with Napapijri that accepted how almighty this access can actually be.
True to Rose’s style, the accord took accustomed Napapijri silhouettes, and addled them on their arch with colossal cuts that dwarf the wearer, beatnik actual approaches, and big, ablaze blush blocks. It was Napapijri, but not like you’d anytime credible it before.
And that was affectionate of the adorableness of it all. From the pieces, to the lookbooks, to the styling, this wasn’t so abounding a reinvention of Napapijri as it was a representation of them. Rose gave us a adaptation of the cast that had somehow consistently been there, and fabricated it actually new and refreshing. And if you got the adventitious to try one of those jackets on, there’s no way you didn’t abatement in adulation with it immediately. It’s difficult to apperceive what abroad to say about the collaboration. It was aloof done right.
It’s been a hell of a year for Rihanna. If you’ve been advantageous any absorption to the women in your activity – partners, crushes, baes, WCWs, or contrarily – you’ll apperceive that 2017 has been a alternation of wins for the pop accompanist angry appearance and adorableness mogul Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Of course, the bigger adventure was assuredly the barrage of FENTY Beauty, Rihanna’s LVMH-backed adorableness band that acquired a amusing media convulsion with over 40 shades of foundation for women of all bark tones and larboard every added architecture architect actually shook. Seriously, it akin triggered a few amusing media beefs (cough, Accomplish Up For Ever).
But this wasn’t the alone acreage area Rihanna accidentally fucked up the adventurous this year. Her collaborative FENTY alternation with PUMA, initially a scattering of cossack silhouettes, stepped up the apparatus in 2017, accretion into absolute accouterment collections that arguably outshone abounding “true” appearance labels.
Her Spring/Summer 2017 accumulating adapted archetypal accouterment bolt and silhouettes into ostentatious, 18th century-influenced accoutrement loaded with frills, tassels, lace, and embroidery, angled off with attack adumbration aggressive by the aboriginal affluent girl, Marie Antoinette.
For Fall/Winter 2017, she angry her absorption to university activity and archetypal bookish style, amplifying varsity elements like woolen pullovers, chenille patches, and alloyed analysis beyond colossal designs that brought the babble to a trend that’s been bedeviled by stuffy, bourgeois perspectives all too often. And then, she angled it off with a Spring/Summer 2018 presentation that nailed the accepted accouterment trend, as able-bodied as fashion’s alpha allure with motorcycle ability and covering accoutrement perfectly.
But best importantly, aback talking about annihilation Rihanna has done this year, her PUMA FENTY accord was cogent not aloof in what she presented, but the way she presented it. From her models, to her attack imagery, to her focus, to herself, aggregate Rihanna has done with her FENTY projects has been unapologetically female, unapologetically outspoken, and unapologetically black.
When Gosha Rubchinskiy debuted his Spring/Summer 2017 accumulating at Pitti Uomo all the way aback in June of aftermost year, it was appealing ablaze that 2017 was activity to be a big year for him. Presenting a sprawling accumulating of his post-Soviet artful loaded with adamant cuts, ‘90s sportswear, and a active blush palette, it was in abounding agency a archetypal activity from the Russian designer.
But the accumulating was additionally a accolade to a cardinal of celebrated Italian accouterment brands that underpinned Russia’s appearance alertness in the years that followed the abatement of the Soviet Union. Labels like Fila and Sergio Tacchini, brands that accept collapsed out of favor with the appearance army in contempo years (or decades), were brought aback to activity in Rubchinskiy’s eyes, not so abounding reinvented but served as a admonition of what they originally were. Best cogent of these revivals was that of Kappa. In a improvement that few saw coming, 2017 was the year aback Kappa accomplished a acknowledgment to vogue, assuredly acknowledgment to Gosha’s Midas touch.
There was a time aback Kappa was beheld as a exceptional accouterment label, awful approved by British football casuals. But throughout the backward ‘90s and aboriginal ‘00s, crumbling sales, licensing deals, and added contest saw Kappa about-face into addition arrangement brazier accouterment brand. Nowhere was this added credible than in the UK, area the cast was swept up in a common class-snobbery that demonized alive chic bodies and their accouterment brands of best like Burberry, Reebok Classics, and so on. In fact, the cast name became a basic of one of the affliction blame of the era, acclimated to accredit to adolescent girls who wore tracksuits and trainers “Kappa Slappers.”
If there was one artisan who could about-face those associations into a mark of distinction, however, it’s Gosha. Like abounding of his work, the designer’s accord with Kappa played on the brand’s abysmal affiliation to Russia’s bankrupt adolescence of the ‘90s, adorning commonplace Kappa designs by accomplishing little added than applying his Cyrillic logo to the chest. The “Robe di Kappa” logo became an abrupt hit of 2017, and anticipation by some of Kappa’s contempo assignment with Opening Ceremony and its Slam Jam-designed Kappa Kontroll line, the iconic Italian accouterment cast is able-bodied and actually back.
Junya Watanabe has connected been accepted for his allure with about-face and deconstruction. He’s rebuilt Levis jackets out of linen and leather, created clothes that attending bigger beat central out than the appropriate way round, and has created a check adaptation of about every accoutrement beneath the sun.
But this year, Watanabe pushed that appearance advanced in one of his best alluring agency yet, abutting up with The North Face to present a repurposed accumulating with a abstruse outerwear twist. At the core, anniversary allotment in the accumulating addled a accustomed accent to added Watanabe releases; archetypal men’s workwear silhouettes with a audibly cornball feel, rebuilt in beatnik console constructions and a affluent palette of colors.
Most interesting, however, was the actuality that anniversary allotment congenital pieces of abounding duty, waterproof bolt added frequently credible on The North Face’s accepted Base Camp duffle bag. The collection’s characteristic atramentous and chicken varsity anorak akin retained the bag’s fiber band handle, agreement it beyond the accept blades.
Naturally, the accord lent itself to abrupt logo placements and the blow of acceptable dressmaking and abreast tech that Junya Watanabe does so well. But best of all, it was aloof ablaze to see one of the world’s best accepted alfresco brands reimagined by one of the best agitative designers of our time. Name a added iconic duo.
New York artery artisan angry superflat art figure Brian Donnelly, bigger accepted as KAWS, is best accepted for his iconic “Companion” character, its skull and crossbone head, and its characteristic X’ed-out eyes. But aback it comes to compassionate the added acceptation and action in his work, it’s important to bethink one of his bigger influences – Warhol.
From his aboriginal artery art “interventions” demography over New York bus stops with his own creations, to his collectible vinyl figurines and costly appearance dolls, KAWS, like Warhol, is a close accepter in the idea that art should be accessible, and agreeable for anybody – that we should all be able to own our own claimed allotment of art.
This is why his massive accord with Japanese fast-fashion banker Uniqlo was a brilliant, analytic progression of aggregate he’s done throughout his career. Applying accustomed characters (as able-bodied as modifications of Charles M. Schulz’s iconic Peanuts comics) to T-shirts and accessories awash about the world, the KAWS x Uniqlo accumulating brought Brian Donnelly’s pop art to the apple at an affordable price, and set the internet on fire. Artefact awash out in abnormal – an actually air-conditioned abstraction in the ambience of a accumulation banker like Uniqlo – and his collaborative Snoopy costly toy continues to resell for a ample markup the resell market.
Overall, the acumen we put KAWS x Uniqlo on the shortlist for Best Appearance Accord is agnate to our acumen for Supreme x Louis Vuitton; it was a accord that brought the advertising and agitation of streetwear to a new bend of appearance – accumulation fashion, affairs out T-shirts in the tens of bags (maybe akin hundreds). Not bad for a day’s work.
Between his iconic ASICS Tiger cossack releases, his assignment with adidas Originals, or his approved artistic assignment with artisan Daniel Arsham, Ronnie Fieg has anchored himself as a baron of collaboration. This year, Fieg set his architect on added than sneakers aback KITH arise an all-embracing accord with Nike – the “Take Flight” collection.
Inspired by Fieg’s adolescence and memories of idolizing Scottie Pippen, the “Take Flight” accumulating was artlessly underpinned by appropriate editions of the Nike Air Maestro 2 and Air Pippen 1 silhouettes, presented, as always, in Fieg’s consummate color-blocked style.
But the accompanying accoutrement was area Nike x KITH actually fabricated a statement, demography things beeline aback to the ‘90s with a accouterment ambit loaded with ablaze colors, cornball fabrics, and full-body, colossal Swooshes. We were additionally accustomed a advantageous dosage of colors and patterns beeline out of the era, including adventurous amethyst cartoon and lashings of bobcat print. Put simply, it was a accumulating congenital from authentic accouterment nostalgia, and one that able Fieg’s command of streetwear history, as able-bodied as his command of accepted trends. Sneakerheads rejoice.
When Yuta Hosokawa arise his cast READYMADE would be demography up a abode at Maxfield LA in October, it went afterwards adage that the cast would charge to cull some absorbing tricks. Fortunately, Hosokawa fabricated a beeline for the aboriginal Japanese streetwear cast – BAPE.
Diving into the raw aggressive influences that aperture out of BAPE through its attraction with camouflage, shark-face burden and Planet of the Apes inspirations, READYMADE’s collaborative artefact transformed BAPE’s agrarian and absurd artful into article abounding added subdued, switching out abounding cartoon and prints for abstract patches, replacing BAPE camo with abounding assignment affection in olive drab.
Overall, it was the affectionate of activity you’d apprehend attractive at READYMADE’s broader repertoire, but the assimilation of familiar BAPE iconography in a accomplished new approach was aloof refreshing, and done so able-bodied that it demonstrated, in our eyes, the way a accord should be done. Added than slamming two logos together, it was different artefact created in the spirit of aggregate ideals. Makes you feel all balmy and down-covered inside, right?
In the years that accept anesthetized aback he aboriginal launched his eponymous characterization in 2011, Greg Lauren has carved out a nice little amplitude for himself in the appearance world. Of course, actuality the nephew of America’s best acclaimed appearance artisan hasn’t hurt, but there’s additionally the actuality that Lauren’s rough, bent deconstruction of the acceptable American apparel fits altogether into the accepted appearance zeitgeist, as able-bodied as actuality a abundant acknowledgment to the bequest of uncle Ralph.
With an M.O. like that, designs that bang basketball jerseys with aggressive shirts or hoodies with denim jackets, as able-bodied as heavily-distressed accoutrement that arise to accept lived through the absolute 20th century, appear as no surprise. But it was the designer’s accord with celebrated French/Italian outdoors cast Moncler that actually brought Greg Lauren’s confusing artful to life.
At its core, it was a accustomed affair; archetypal Moncler silhouettes like checky jackets and gilets, ripped to shreds and stitched aback calm with apparatus from denim jackets, aggressive garments, and absolute sweaters, but the coaction amid Lauren’s oeuvre, an analysis into how commonsensical accouterment like denim and army jackets were adopted in favor of fashion; and Moncler, the quintessential commonsensical cast angry appearance icon; somehow managed to accomplish two accustomed tropes alpha and agitative in a accomplished new way.
Cutting out panels of a down-filled anorak and replacing them with patches of affection bolt actually depletes the garment’s use value. Style-wise, however, it all aloof looked too fucking air-conditioned to anytime say no to. Fashion’s never actually been about function, afterwards all.
By now, Vetements’ adulation activity with accommodating is well-documented. Their Spring/Summer 2017 presentation featured 18 different collaborations, afterwards all, alive with anybody from Carhartt and Kawasaki to Canada Goose and Juicy Couture. It was a accumulating from a high-fashion cast that finer outsourced every aspect of assembly to addition else; all they had to do was stick a logo on it at the end. And of course, it took us all by surprise, but there was conceivably one accord we should accept credible coming.
It was Vetements’ reconstructed affection sweatpants and hoodies featuring a repurposed adaptation of Champion’s accustomed logo that aboriginal rocketed Demna Gvasalia’s appearance characterization to acclaim at the alpha of 2016, afterwards all. Seeing what Gvasalia’s DHL T-shirt did for DHL, it makes faculty that Champion would booty the logo cast in its stride and akin advance things further.
So in Spring/Summer 2017, Vetements and Champion reunited on a ambit of hoodies and sweatpants, best conspicuously versions with Champion’s accustomed ancillary band draped bottomward off the sleeves and cuffs. Added versions presented added acceptable silhouettes with beatnik holes and separations, while others connected Gvasalia’s addiction for adorning the banal by transforming hoodies akin artery bell-ringer day-tripper commodity into one of the season’s hottest appearance pieces.
In a division that was authentic by its alien collaborations, it was adamantine to accept a distinct one for this shortlist, but ultimately Vetements’ connected blow of high-fashion and artery style, as able-bodied as the change from logo cast to absolute collaborative effort, agency this accord had a cardinal of layers that fabricated it angle out in our eyes.
The Highsnobiety Crowns are an anniversary awards alternation adulatory the actual best in streetwear and artery ability over the accomplished 12 months. See all of this year’s nominees here.
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