Speaking of “Commerce”, it inevitably comes to the paradigm that “it scurries towards the crowd.” These past decade saw the global economic downturn. Consumers’ wallets have gone shallower, people feel uncertain about the economic status quo so they no longer squander money on high end brands. The show must go on, even though high end brand was taken a hard blow. Crossover was introduced to the scene and coined another trendy term, Hi Street, a hybrid between high fashion and street fashion.
Known for its practicality, street(sport) brand is much adored by younger generation which gives it an edge to talk about collaboration project with high-end designer. Examples? Yohji Yamamoto and Stella McCartney start to wear Adidas, John Varvatos mingles with Converse’s street fashion, Jean Paul Gaultier and Junya Watanabe now wear Americans’ favorite jeans, Levi’s, Raf Simons and Fred Perry jug with the idea of MOD. All in all, the street fashion was given a new layer/outlook, which is now called Hi Street.
After collaboration projects seen on apparel and snickers, accessories and bags are next. Students’ favorite backpack brand, EASTPAK was chosen by high end designer as the next “it” item. From Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Christopher Shnnon to Gaspard Yurkievich and Kris Van Assche (Dior Homme), one can clearly see the series of designers just getting bigger and more influential.
Take the EASTPAK X Kris Van Assche series as example, you could find some clues from the product design: massive use and combination of denim and canvas fabric (street fashion) mixed with washed-up leather as decoration (high fashion), last but not least, the joint logo printed with EASTPAK and Kris Van Assche. Such mix&match style is bound to be the trend in many more designs to come!
EASTPAK presents: EASTPAK x Kris Van Assche
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About Author
gamaniabrandcenter
A blog jointly written by members of Gamania brand center provides insights and observation about brand, marketing and design by designers, project drafters, musicians, exhibition planners, creative minds and aliens…
blog:gamaniabrandcenter.blogspot.com
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