In need of extra cash, I comb my closet for a few garments to present to a New York City buy/sell clothing store: A Cheap Monday sweater I remember purchasing for $60. A pair of consignment Stella McCartney platform sandals, which did not match the pants I intended to wear with them, for $110. A $120 sweater dress from a niche brand out of Los Angeles. And a sweater, from which I removed the garment tag because it was itchy, for another $60.

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To account for profit and operating costs, most resale shops offer the seller 30% of the ticketed resale price. As the buyer would surely recognize and appreciate the minimal, but timeless, values my clothes represented, I expected to make roughly $116. The offer? $35.00

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“For everything?” I ask.

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“Yep. $30 for the Stella’s, $2 for the Cheap Monday and the dress, and $1 for the sweater with no label,” the buyer responds. I process, contemplating the burden of carrying the same clothes back to Brooklyn. “Sure,” I respond, “that’s fine.”

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I take my cash and proceed to spitefully browse the racks, taking note of what pieces are considered to have “higher resale value,” as the buyer phrased it. I dig through Supreme T-Shirts priced up to $129, Off-White pants priced at $199, Rick Owens sneakers priced at $599. Where did I go wrong? They’re wrong! Who decides? Who’s cheating who?

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Congruent with the Great Recession of 2008, clothing has only recently proven to retain, even accrue, value after purchase. As it offers consumers the mere possibility for fast cash, the market saw a tidal wave of prodigious activity throughout the events of 2020. Leading online consignment and thrift store ThredUP expects resale to be worth $64 billion by 2024, projecting a growth rate 11x faster than the broader retail sector.

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Furthermore, the platform reportedly assisted 36.2 million first-time sellers last year while estimating 9 billion wearable garments remain hanging idly in American closets. Such trends exhibit a distinct interest in selling, rather than buying, among market newcomers and shed light on the sheer quantity of excess clothing the current fashion system has produced to date. As we are likely witnessing the eclipse of traditional fashion in exchange for the more cyclical system of resale, how should consumers expect to be affected?

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The highest resale values are typically not found in the vintage, contemporary or luxury segments of fashion, rather in streetwear. Despite global economic fallout throughout 2020, sneaker and streetwear resale website Stock X experienced a record-breaking year; the Wall Street Journal currently valuing the platform at $3.8 billion after having just passed the $1 billion mark in mid-2019.

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Resale shifts the consumer into the role of a seller, positioning us to be evaluated and held accountable for past purchasing decisions. If offered a disappointing quote we may find ourselves confused, embarrassed, and even angry. A stark contrast to our long fostered relationship with retailers who, for decades, have consistently showered us with novelty, increasing affordability, and predictable discount cycles. Come Judgment Day, what truths are revealed when mainstream fashion seeks validation from the counterculture of streetwear?

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The term “fashion” is defined generally as, “a prevailing custom or style of dress, etiquette, socializing, etc.” and “conventional usage in dress, manners, etc., especially of polite society, or conformity to it.” Terms like “prevailing” and “conformity” suggest a systemic need for mass cooperation and mainstream fashion preferring a passive, unfulfilled consumer as contentment is not profitable for the industry. The relationship between trends and consumers relies on compliance, ensuring the latter routinely purchase trending clothing from the same industry deeming it so.

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In contrast, “streetwear” is hardly conventional, prevailing, or polite, and has yet to be formally articulated. The vague definition of streetwear as “fashionable casual clothes,” despite referencing a multibillion-dollar industry, is a bit unsatisfying. Streetwear originated within the subcultures of hip-hop and skate. Expression through music and uninhibited movement have always been tightly intertwined influences. These priorities established an elevated, yet practical, aesthetic expressed in such forms as, but not limited to, oversized graphic T-Shirts, exaggerated silhouettes, and methodically distressed and/or embellished denim.

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Differing aesthetics are just the tip of the iceberg, simply an image derived from entirely different business models. As stated in streetwear-focused editorial Hypebeast’s Streetwear Impact Report, “traditional luxury fashion largely derives its exclusivity from a high price point, streetwear’s exclusivity is contingent on know-how.” However, today’s resale values are capable of reaching upwards of 3x an item’s initial retail price proving to be a defiant characteristic of the (ironically) trending market.

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As mentioned, fashion remained exclusive to royalty, their courts, and the upper-class for centuries. But as monarchies crumbled and technological advances catapulted the west into the Gilded Age, wealth and social status were no longer inherited. These, among other material possessions, could now be acquired as tools to shift, assert, or merely suggest societal validation if one played their cards right.

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By the late 20th century, the American fashion industry noticed working-class suburban communities. Traditionally high-end names, like Ralph Lauren, aimed to develop less expensive ready-to-wear lines to capitalize on the unprecedented spending power of the middle-class. During the Industrial Revolution, however, the United States passed labor laws inconvenient to fashion labels striving for the divine balance of mass product and mass profit. This act simply sent production offshore where factories could produce more clothing more quickly sans labor costs. Out of sight out of mind, these well-intentioned savings were created to be passed onto shoppers, in the form of affordable retail prices, but ultimately protected profit margins for the industry.

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Meanwhile, in urban communities, fashion was a bit more nuanced. In an interview with Blamo! podcast host Jeremy Kirkland, former Creative Director of Supreme and founder of the brand NOAH, Brendon Babenzienreflects on growing up in East Islip, New York. “In the early days, the late 70’s early 80’s when I was a kid, everyone didn’t look exactly the same,” he describes.

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At the time, hip-hop was a craft of urban black youth and skateboarders generalized as rebellious unoccupied teenagers. The communities Babenzien speaks of were composed of people commonly dismissed by mainstream society. Remaining out of the public eye, unscathed by commercial interest, allowed them to live and create authentically from pure unobserved passion.

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“There wasn’t a massive industry building clothing for the hip-hop community. It wasn’t [targeted,] it was invented out of thin air.” he describes. “It was like ‘I’m a b-boy, I rap, my friend’s a writer, my other friend’s a dancer. This is what we do, and this is how we dress.”

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The democratization of traditional fashion resulted in more of the same. By challenging the notion of exclusivity and granting accessibility to millions, creativity and brand integrity were forfeited for the greater interest of profit. Decades later the inevitable costs of manufacturing clothing are seemingly circling back to the same consumer the industry evolved to so highly accommodate, in the form of low resale value.

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“When I’m assessing a garment, the number one thing to look for is style.” New York buy/sell shop manager Ethan Binnie, 23 explains. As the melting pot of fashion, resale consists of the general public’s past identities, relationships, and jobs hanging together on a single rack. Binnie claims pieces with more identity, via design details or graphics, stand out better, increasing the garment’s overall desirability and value.

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While assessing a brand new black Michael Kors dress, listed on Saks’ website for $175, he assures it is worth no more than $30 to his customer, resulting in a disappointing $10 offer for the seller. He points to an over-crowded rack of stagnant little black dresses confirming it simply doesn’t make sense to pay out for such pieces, regardless of condition or retail price. Meanwhile, multiple shoppers show interest in a grey Supreme box logo hoodie, initially retailing for the same price as the Michael Kors dress, ticketed upwards of $499.

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To the present moment, traditional fashion has included consumers just enough. ‘Enough’ for us to look and feel included, ‘enough’ for a rush of dopamine, but ultimately ‘enough’ for brands to achieve consistent yearly profits despite thin margins. A strategy that has us readily paying brands over 5x the value we feel the same garment is worth when hanging anonymously on an unlabelled rack.

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Growing up in the New York City suburbs with no allowance and limited household means, Binnie learned the ropes of resale in grade school. Every year, for his birthday and Christmas, he would receive Pokémon cards which he would sell or trade to his classmates. Acting similarly to baseball cards and comic books of generations past, Binnie learned to strategically buy cards he knew would retain or increase in value over time.

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Pokémon cards turned into Pokémon toys, which grew into hand-me-down skate clothes from his older brother. By 10th grade, Binnie was selling Supreme T-shirts out of his bedroom to fund weekends in the city. “[This mindset has] been with me my whole life. I’m grateful, [if I had things handed to me] I wouldn’t be like this now,” he says. “It’s funny to see how far the rabbit hole goes.”

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Jerry Lorenzo, creative director of Fear of God, once defined streetwear as “no investors, no partners, etc. The product is pure, as we’re not on the fashion calendar…I guess anything would be considered street that comes outside of the traditional fashion system.” The fashion “system” Lorenzo references widens our analysis beyond the industry to include the vast array of quiet, but pivotal, factors influencing the aesthetic, value, and how fashion is consumed. Factors could include anything from formal marketing campaigns and strategic celebrity endorsements to current events or unregulated social media, all of which carry influence in the wild west of resale.

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“I love a dark cowboy type of vibe,” says New York streetwear connoisseur, Savion Joseph, 23. Joseph’s style is rooted in his childhood, with references to skating and Nirvana’s frontman Kurt Cobain, but readily shifts and morphs with his ongoing personal research of designers. “[My clothes reflect] what I genuinely like to wear or spend my money on.” Today his aesthetic is an amalgamation of the polished, skinny rock “Hedi Slimane look” grounded with touches of western-influenced Japanese avant-garde designers, like Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake.

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Joseph remembers shopping Supreme drops — the day a new collection is available to buy in-store — in the early 2010s. From the beginning Supreme designed solely for themselves and their customers, resulting in 15+ years of unique and quality-made clothing despite willfully forfeiting commercial appeal, and profit.

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“It was always dead,” Joseph recalls. “You could go to every Supreme drop and [easily] find something.” Today’s drop experience includes presenting security with a reserved ticket number, limited shopping windows of 15 minutes, and a maximum purchase amount of six items. He remembers buying a hat from the Spring/Summer 2013 Fuck Denim collection for $40. Three years later the same hat was worth $500 in the resale market. “I didn’t know what happened!”

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Until that time, clothing wasn’t known to retain resale value. “Hype” was a concept unique to sneaker culture, first seen with Nike SB Dunks in 2002. Originally designed as a basketball sneaker, Dunks quickly gained popularity among skaters favoring the dynamic yet supportive silhouette, compared to predominantly chunky and heavier styles available at the time.

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In her book The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory, sociologist Joanne Entwistle reminds us that “the social world is a world of dressed bodies” arguing the daily task of getting dressed is how “bodies are made social and given meaning and identity.” Nike acknowledged and bridged numerous urban sub-cultures and empowered the same personalities leading these movements to create an authentic, multidimensional image. Through collaborations with sponsored skaters, musicians, streetwear brands, etc. refined image was now attainable through practical, limited-edition footwear.

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Today’s online resale platforms, such as StockX and Grailed, establish loose regulation within the market, but in the early 2000s, no such boundaries existed. Beyond Facebook, Reddit groups, and the forum NikeTalk, there was infinite space for subjective, often irregular, resale values. Having followed the sneaker market as a middle schooler, Joseph recalls the 2009 Twin Peaks release. Originally retailing for $80, the sneaker’s resale value managed to fluctuate between $235 and $800 within the past year but averaged out at $400.

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“When a group of people like a certain [brand or person,] they turn that [image] into a stigma,” Joseph explains. “Then the generalized people, when it comes to the resale market, they skyrocket the [value] to create [heightened] demand.” The impetus behind the case of then sleepy skate brand Supreme and Joseph’s $500 hat was Tyler the Creator’s 2011 Youtube hit “Yonkers.”

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As a member of the LA rap collective Odd Future, Tyler was known for vulgarity, but what set him apart was his confidence and fearless criticism of the music industry. Delivering cold, hard substance lyrically and visually to anyone with an internet connection, Tyler crafted deep aspirations in young fans, tangible and accessible through moderately priced Supreme merchandise.

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“[Tyler] and his crew were always wearing [Supreme,] it became [an] image,” Binnie describes, “You idolize these people for whatever they do, and naturally you [like what they’re wearing too,] so you want to emulate that in your own way.” He says Supreme will always have a place in his heart but has since developed his personal style to incorporate both luxury labels and nostalgia. He approaches the daily ritual of getting dressed with much intention. “To someone looking at me on the street it might be whatever,” he acknowledges, “but to me, there’s such a feeling.”

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For his interview Binnie wears distressed jeans, from cheeky brand Vetements, a long-sleeve camo tee he thrifted years back layered with a slim-cut white blazer. The jeans and tee provide a rugged militant foundation while the blazer offers a polished play on structure. “I be late sometimes,” he nods. “I gotta make sure shit makes sense. It could be a different brand head to toe but that generalized core feeling [needs to be present] for each piece.”

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To better understand the evolution of hype culture, and its emergence in high-end fashion, we must examine Belgian designer Raf Simons and the 2001 Riot jacket. An MA-1 camo bomber, adorned with patches, references the designer’s musical taste of David Bowie, rock band Bauhaus, and glam-punk band Manic Street Preachers. The jacket has graced the shoulders of Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, and appeared in Drake’s 2020 “Toosie Slide” video. Initially retailing for $500, the runway piece was most recently sold on Grailed for $47,000 in 2018.

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Part of the Riot! Riot! Riot! Collection, an overall grunge aesthetic executed with unapologetically vast silhouettes, the jacket summarizes the stark contrast to variations of slinky, sexy looks shown by traditional fashion houses at the time. Simons told the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung about how he found inspiration in the youth culture he observed at a Vienna flea market: heavily layered thus “[creating] their own volumes because of the cold.” The collection validated the designer’s ability to create a state of being, filtered through the art of fashion, rather than fashion alone. Having since held chief creative positions at industry-leading brands like Christian Dior, Calvin Klein, and currently Prada, the Riot jacket marks the precise moment that high fashion arched its elitist eyebrow, pivoting the trajectory of the industry entirely.

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Simons’ creative processes and business strategies have gone on to influence today’s most notable pop culture personalities like the creative duo Kanye West and Virgil Abloh. Carrying credibility in both music and fashion, Abloh currently designs for his own luxury brand OFF-WHITE as well as fulfilling the creative director role for Louis Vuitton menswear. In a 2014 interview with Vogue, Abloh speaks of his admiration for Simons stating that Simons essentially established a new “benchmark for all designers: to embody more than an aesthetic.”

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Archival pieces like the Riot bomber are the pinnacle of fashion therefore highly coveted by collectors. As runway pieces are impractical for mass production (either too expensive or risky in terms of sales) these pieces are inherently scarce. Through industry insiders, like stylists, photographers, models, etc. they make their way into the resale market, often surfacing via Instagram.

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Once an item is posted and gains traction, from reposts or being worn by the right person, the item acquires hype, and resale value skyrockets. “[The cadence] is very fast,” Binnie says. “All it takes is a few people wanting an item for the price to go up. It becomes almost survival of the fittest. Who can pay more for an item? How much can I really push the limit? How much can I really sell this for?” Within a year, an item’s value could increase as much as 3x the original asking price but typically balances out once its hype has died down. “Everything comes in cycles with clothing,” he assures.

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In challenging our traditional image of success, and who was granted access to it, streetwear rewarded people whose interest extended beyond ownership. However, consumers by the masses are no longer satisfied with simply owning well-made clothing. Through navigating this challenge two polarizations of collectors evolved: archivists and hype beasts.

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Archivists are essentially streetwear romantics, seeking an ethos that emulates their own. Unconditional love and genuine interest in the craft of fashion prove useful in developing foundational knowledge to reason with sudden desire or price spikes.

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“Low key, I buy my stuff at steals in a way,” Joseph describes recently purchasing his favorite pair of denim; the Dior Spring/Summer 2004 Striped Waxed Denim. “Those denims is why I got into Hedi in the first place, it took me three years just to get them.” They cost him $1,000 but have sold for as much as $4,000. How did he manage such a bargain? “You gotta finesse. You gotta dig. You gotta be patient.”

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In contrast, hype beasts are known for paying top dollar for the most current trends, seeking recognition, approval, even envy, seemingly unanchored to any core values. What happens when a hot air balloon comes untethered? Inevitably, it floats higher. “I feel like [they] don’t have any [sense] of value in their wardrobe because it’s not really their wardrobe,” he says, suggesting continued lack of emotional value is being supplemented with obscene resale values.

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“Some people have influences within themselves,” Joseph says, “but I feel like there are more people looking for acceptance. They’re not living for themselves, they’re not into fashion.” He recalls friends and acquaintances hesitant to buy anything without consulting their peers, even shorting rent payments in favor of purchasing the most recent drop.

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The dynamics of streetwear resale bring to light the cyclical nature, and paradox, of human desire. Despite being rooted in pure intention, chronic unfulfillment and our relentless search for “more” landed us precisely where we started. As the brands themselves lack a formal narrative within the market, we have no one to blame for its turbulent, often ruthless, behavior but ourselves.

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Abloh predicts streetwear will die out in the next 10 years. “Its time will be up. In my mind, how many more T-shirts can we own, how many more hoodies, how many sneakers?” he asks rhetorically in a 2019 Dazed interview. Considering various mergers that occurred in 2020, including VF Corporation’s acquisition of Supreme for $2.1 billion (VF Corporation being the parent company of Vans and North Face, among others) raises concern of overproduction and dilution of the brand’s value meanwhile increasing scarcity of archival pieces.

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“It’s already cutthroat,” Binnie says, suspecting many collectors will start holding onto archival pieces as opposed to posting them. “What will take me one month to find [today] will take me two years in the future.” In anticipation he’s been surveilling investment items, “you put down $2,000 [on a piece] and sell it for $10,000 or $15,000 in a few years.”

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Most recently he had his eye on a Balenciaga Seven-Layer jacket. During his search he noticed sellers increasing prices simply because they can, watching one Grailed listing jump from $3,000 to $10,000 in a matter of months. After reaching out to the seller to negotiate a lower price, he was met with swift rejection. “It’s brutal out there,” Binnie laughs, “a cold, cold world.”

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Post 2020, notable department stores like Nordstrom unveiled their own adaptations of streetwear business models. Consisting of ambassador programs and exclusive brand collaborations suggesting the segment’s founding principles still has much to offer. The annual creative director shuffle was also especially intriguing in its unconventional pairings. After filing for bankruptcy in May 2020, the traditionally preppy brand J. Crew persevered, even successfully recruiting Babenzien as creative director for their menswear segment.

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“Either the [fashion] system has to provide people with better options, or we have to change our view; how we gain our self-esteem.” Babenzien describes. “A lot of people tie their self-esteem to what they own, what they wear, what they drive, where they live and all these things. We would have to change that completely and that’s a lot to ask.”