Com-Raid revolutionary streetwear and design

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This site is about streetwear and street art, especially when it has a revolutionary pulse. Streetwear has always been about standing out and looking good, but is it today too much about being 'fashionable'?

By ‘fashionable’ I’m not talking so much about streetwear’s aesthetics. Sure, it’s gone in a more preppy, nouveau riche direction of late. If in 2005 it was Fresh Prince corny, in 2009 it’s strictly Carlton Banks.

The mixing of high and low style is nothing new. The Japanese have been doing it and still keeping it street for years. Open any Smart or Cool Trans mag and show me the brand that doesn’t have a pea coat in their collection.

By ‘fashion’ I refer to the way that streetwear is increasingly becoming a luxury commodity that appeals to the same vain aspirations as the most polished, high-end designer labels.

Exclusivity is the fashion industry’s capital. The more aloof and inaccessible the label, the more enviably desirable it becomes. In this way fashion is about isolating the individual from their peers rather than bringing them into any kind of common community.

Streetwear has always been exclusive. But it was a different type of exclusivity. ‘Exclusive’ in the sense that it was small and personal, in a “this is my own sh#t- I made this, I run it” kind of way. Knowing the brand meant knowing something about the people behind it. Buying into the brand bought you into their community and their worldview.

Even a brand as expensive and commercially bloated as Bape still felt personal back in its heyday (before its obsession with being hip hop’s Louis Vuitton.). It was still at its heart the eccentric flight of fancy of its creator. It was too random and far-fetched to be anything but streetwear.

Yes, streetwear’s about making paper. But it’s also about the individual on the outside who makes a stand for themselves. In it’s true form it shares a similar drive and ethic as other street crafts like skateboarding or writing. It’s about making your way up through a hard-edged city. Taking chances, using what’s around you to subvert the order that put it there. It’s business, but business against the odds. The reward comes when you bring some colour and light into the grey.

Streetwear is all about subverting the ordinary. Hence its ideal canvas is a simple tee or a sweat- not a prim suit jacket. By subtly warping everyday clothes and consumer artefacts streetwear creates unexpected pleasures that prickle our curiosity and imagination.

Streetwear's not about being luridly dramatic or pretentiously austere for the sake of making a fashion statement. It’s about keeping your look in tune with your own unique beat.  

Streetwear follows and echoes the beat of the outsider, be they the punk, the hip-hop hustler, the biker, the rasta or the militant rebel. It celebrates self-marginalisation through the respectful appropriation of the radical underground. Fashion, interested in its own gain and edification, knows only how to bite on the style of the rebel. It feeds off the energy and flamboyant excess of youth counter-culture, exploiting it for the sake of novelty.

So in short what’s real streetwear all about? James Jebbia summed it up best when he put it down for Smart magazine back in 2004:

“We (Supreme) just try and make things that we think a rebellious, stylish and bugged out kid will enjoy and appreciate and make them in our own way”.

Rebellious individuality. Blending inner attitude with a defiant outward style. Being authentically of the street, and still remaining accessible to it. That’s streetwear.

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