Why is supreme so popular

But that's fine. He's happy to pay for a flight and a hotel—and then wait in line for six hours—in the hope he'll find anything in his size, even if it's just a pair of boxer shorts. This is completely normal. Every time Supreme releases chunks of new stuff at its ten stores across Europe, America, and Japan—which is every Thursday from the start of each collection—hundreds of people skip school or work to get first dibs.

No other clothing brands command this kind of devotion. Ralph Lauren had its " Lo-Lifes ," a group of guys from Brooklyn who spent the early 90s stealing as much Polo as they could. Sneaker-heads tend to be Nike lifers. However, by Supreme standards, these are all middling brand obsessions—their followers the fair-weather fans to Supreme's ultras: the kids who wait in line, the adult men who'll pay silly money for vintage Supreme-branded incense sticks.

The fandom is essentially a subculture in itself. Europe's largest Facebook page to buy, sell, trade, and chat Supreme is SupTalk, which, with nearly 60, members, surely outnumbers the continent's lesser-populated youth tribes—cyber-goths, say, or people who are deadly serious about vaping. In this group, you'll find the many denominations of Supreme devotee, from aging hype-beasts and year-old rich kids to skaters, Insta-celebs, and the stamp collectors of the streetwear generation: the guys—and they are always guys—who'll buy up every color of one specific cap, or the full set of Supreme x Stone Island jackets, or each and every T-shirt featuring the brand's iconic box logo.

Before each "drop day," SupTalk members discuss their favorite upcoming items—the Morrissey T-shirt, for example, or the snakeskin shoe from an Air Max collaboration that's released a couple of months after I visit the store. Until, that is, it appears again, on SupTalk or eBay, for considerably more than its original price. Some items go for twice what they cost on the rail, some for the sort of markups more commonly applied to movie-theater popcorn.

This is especially true for the last couple of years, as interest in the brand seems to have shot up exponentially. On Grailed, a high-end clothing resale site, you'll often find old Supreme for the same price as a plane ticket from London to Bangkok.

So why all this hysteria? Why do people build Supreme shrines in their bedrooms and not get embarrassed about it? Why are teenagers buying plane tickets to pick up a pair of boxer shorts? What kind of neurochemical reactions drive you to buy eight near-identical versions of the same very expensive T-shirt? Why, fundamentally, do so many people become so obsessed with Supreme?

Hype is the most cited reason: that the buzz around the brand is what sustains that same buzz—that a sighting of Drake or Kanye in Supreme is what inspires people to bid themselves into bankruptcy when the same item appears on eBay. But there has to be more to it than that.

Surely humans—the most evolved of all land mammals, creators of space stations, and two-person umbrellas—aren't that easily swayed? Equally, if you're the kind of person who actively worries about what's cool and buzzy, it follows that you'd lose interest in Supreme the more popular it becomes—yet the brand doesn't seem to be shedding any diehard followers as it continues to grow bar a few cool-guy commenters in SupTalk who'll talk shit about anyone who only started wearing Supreme this year.

Launching the shop on a stretch of Lafayette Street in Manhattan, New York, Supreme started off exactly like that — a skateboard and apparel brand. Yet, upon capturing the attention of a couple of well-known local skaters, the brand began to grow into something much more. Serving as a symbol of the underground, Supreme branded itself as something for the authentic and real. As Jebbia continued to connect with more artists and photographers along the way, he discovered the heart of Supreme beating louder, as the spread out through a multitude of collaborations.

There is no end to the number of collaborations Supreme has had over the years. From some of. Collaborations with luxury brands like Louis Vuitton or Lamborghini has also allowed Supreme to solidify itself in the high-end world, transforming the brand from local apparel to limited-edition luxury. Due to its roots in skateboarding culture, the branded is the epitome of what streetwear represents — free-spirited and fun with a mix of rebelliousness.

As Justin Gage, a data scientist and streetwear analyst comments,. Supreme has become successful in marketing their brand, paradoxically, by not marketing their brand. Unlike many other fashion brands that focus on a single-lane and at times, may come off too serious, Supreme has always held a light, fun vibe to its branding. Selling everything from Supreme-branded measuring cups to Oreos , the company never fails to surprise people with what odd and out-of-the-ordinary products it may release next.

Supreme has largely based its marketing on word-of-mouth and built-up hype, a factor that heavily influences its main demographic of younger consumers. Chris: So how I decide on what I think is gonna resell is based mainly on what I would wear. You can also go to these Instagram accounts, and they'll have Instagram polls, Twitter polls, talking about, oh, like you can up-vote this, you can down-vote this, and it's this crowdsourcing tool to understand the market better and find out, oh, this one's gonna resell, or this one is really popular.

Narrator: This incredibly limited release means that buying and reselling Supreme items is where the real money is. When you look at the prices of Supreme items in-store, they aren't as outlandish as you may expect. But it's once these products have sold out that they can reach 30 times their original price. Many other big brands are now adopting this method of very limited releases to generate hype around their products, from trainers to other streetwear brands.

These releases make people feel like they're part of something exclusive. Dimitrios: The more we make a consumer work for their particular access to a product, the more alluring these services and products are becoming.

So I think Supreme know very well how to make something incredibly accessible and sexy by allowing us to jump through as many hoops as possible to make it relevant for them. Narrator: But there's something about Supreme that's different. Could any other company get away with selling a brick or a branded crowbar? What is it that gives Supreme such a devoted following?

Shopper 1: I think it's the hype. They come out with really cool items. I personally feel like they do. It's a name brand, and name brands attract anybody at the end of the day. Shopper 3: In New York especially, it's a lot of streetwear. Launched as a basic skateboarding store, less than 30 years later, the brand has become one of the most popular clothing brands in the world.

Since its inception, Supreme has cultivated and maintained an image of skatewear originality and authenticity. While Supreme was taking New York by storm, the same community of skaters was making the brand famous on the other coast of the US. Located in central Los Angles, Fairfax Street is packed with hundreds of boutique shops and designer brands.

Streetwear labels are particularly famous in Los Angeles, seen as the birthplace of modern skateboarding. And, as the skater culture is at the core of the streetwear movement, Supreme has been, and will always be an OG, a history maker, and a number one.

However, Supreme reached country-wide popularity and fame in , thanks to the Supreme Blazer SB , a shoe collaboration with Nike. But despite all legal wars and constant expansion, Supreme has managed to keep its cool, alternative, exclusive, and rebellious image. Apart from their online store , Supreme sells merchandise at only 11 brick-and-mortar stores across the world.

Finally, almost a week later Thursday , you can go only to the given store and at the given time slot , and wait in the queue to get the product you want so much. Another hard-to-get Supreme technique that generates further interest is the intentional release of FEWER products than the market demand. The more Supreme makes their buyers work to gain access to products, the more alluring these services and products are becoming.