Why tweens and teens are the new streetwear kings and queens

HONG KONG — In London’s Soho, queues snake around the block, getting in the way of irritable commuters and hapless tourists.

There are pockets of Chinese visitors and a few university students standing out in the English drizzle, but most are children and young teenagers, accompanied by their long-suffering parents. Everyone under 18 is dressed in dazzling white trainers and bulky jackets with a just-bought sheen. It’s as if every Justin Bieber concert circa 2015 has been re-created.

They are fighting their way into 26 Brewer Street, where Palace Skateboards – the British streetwear label known for its hieroglyphic-like logo and eyebrow-raising prints – is located, and which launches a new collection each week that sells out in hours.

Around the corner are Supreme and Stone Island – two other hypebeast stores that have turned their weekly drops into a major online event, with thousands of young people who can’t make it to London sitting, fingers poised, waiting for those who did hit the stores to resell the goods they’ve just bought there.

On Instagram, teenagers such as Rashed Saif Belhasa – the son of Dubai construction billionaire Saif Ahmed Belhasa – are leading the streetwear revolution. With 1.6 million followers on Instagram, he can promote his e-commerce store and streetwear line, KA-1 Clothing, from his bedroom.

In Britain, streetwear influencer Gully Guy Leo is just 16 but has already amassed more than 700,000 followers on Instagram and counts American fashion designer Virgil Abloh and US rapper Tyler The Creator as friends.

Ms Natasha Zinko, a Ukrainian-born, London-based designer, has a son, Ivan – also known as The Golden Fly or The Drip God Ivan G – who is even younger.

At just 12 years old, he has amassed nearly 100,000 followers by photographing himself in outfits made up of pieces by Off-White, Saint Laurent and Nike, shot everywhere from Moscow to Miami.

Streetwear is for the young – that’s not news. But its customer base is shifting from millennials (those born between 1982 and 1996) to Gen Z, who were born from 1997 to 2012. The shopping preferences of these young teens and their millennial elders are different.

Supreme, for example, has long been the darling of millennials, collaborating with brands such as Louis Vuitton and The North Face and worn by celebrities around the globe. But Gen Z in Europe and the United States is starting to eschew it for smaller, more authentic local brands such as Palace in Britain, and Carnival in Thailand, and as a result Supreme has seen its share price fall.

In China, streetwear is a much newer phenomenon and is being used by both independent and luxury brands as a tool to attract very young shoppers. 

Hypebeast, an online media and e-commerce site for streetwear enthusiasts, has seen revenue and profits soar in recent years, as teenage readers – including a growing number in China – flock to the site to shop.

“Traditionally speaking, streetwear represents disruptive energy and going against the grain and cultural norms, particularly compared to, say, high-end fashion,” says Mr Petar Kujundzic, the editorial director of Hypebeast. “This sort of anti-feel is something young people gravitate towards. The tween market in particular is an essential one since it is the age where people usually start discovering and shaping their interests and passion.”

Mr Kujundzic says the core group of readers on Hypebeast is between 15 and 17.

Mr Xiaofeng Gu, a social media and fashion consultant based between the US and China, says the trend is being driven in this age group by exposure.

“Talent show The Rap of China has made hip-hop culture and streetwear really desirable among the young Chinese,” he says. “Before that most of them had never heard of it. Vice China, which is beloved by teenage Chinese consumers, has also been integral – frequently discussing topics related to music, streetwear, and hip-hop culture.”

According to Gartner L2’s recent report, Luxury China: Streetwear Insight Report, the average Baidu Index for streetwear brands (a measure of the relative volume of searches for specific keywords) increased 12 per cent year on year – and the client base was almost all under 25. In comparison, the Baidu Indexes for activewear and fashion brands only grew by half that amount.

This surge in interest is largely coming from clickthroughs on popular Gen Z digital platforms such as YOHO!, Bilibili, and Douyin (Tiktok), which promote stories on what young Chinese celebrities are wearing. Interest is also coming from streaming shows such as Fourtry.

Brands have woken up to this potential and are now targeting the teenage market.

Italian leather-goods fashion house Fendi has an account on the Gen-Z-heavy platform Douyin, and has used the app to promote its streetwear collection in collaboration with rapper 
Jackson Wang, who is 25.

The brand also held a gig for him, which was attended by a handful of other celebrities, all of whom were in their teens or early twenties. Wang blasted the campaign across social media channels and Fendi released a limited-edition collection of branded stickers featuring a cartoon panda mascot clearly aimed at the youth market.

“Brands are tapping into Gen-Z-specific digital platforms in China,” saysMs Liz Flora, the Asia editor of intelligence firm L2. “They’re trying to remain relevant with a younger, streetwear-obsessed demographic in China – and it’s working. Rimowa x Off-White was the most popular luxury collaboration on Weibo earlier this year.” 

Social media is at the heart of everything – but when it comes to Generation Z, Instagram and Weibo no longer reign supreme.

“For any new launch or new product drop, the customer will be notified via a variety of different channels,” says Mr Anupong Kuttikul, the CEO of Carnival, one of Asia’s most popular streetwear brands and retailers.

This high reliance on social media is one of the reasons streetwear garments are often resold at a mark-up on the original price.

Hype is generated around weekly drops and customers will pay more for a particular garment once it is sold out. The popularity of second-hand garments and footwear has also risen, as they allow Gen Z to express their concern for causes like sustainability.

On Depop – an online market for second-hand clothing based out of London – over 90 per cent of the 15 million active users are under 25 and the streetwear category rose by 60 per cent in the past year.

In China, official resale platforms such as Stadium Goods and Goat are entering the market, but Gen-Z is still largely trading through social media channels where there is little to no regulation.

With so many buyers and sellers still legally underage, should the governments of these respective countries step in?

“The Chinese government mainly seems concerned with the speculative nature of the reseller platforms and the fact that they’ve turned into mini sneaker stock markets, which is why the People’s Bank of China warned against using online speculative sneaker-buying platforms,” says Ms Flora.

“The Chinese government is also extremely preoccupied with the idea of preventing young people from engaging in addictive online behaviour, which can be seen from its recent video-game regulations. Regardless of whether it should regulate, it is certainly possible that it could.”

There are undoubtedly a few ethical questions swirling around – in particular whether brands should be targeting such young customers, especially given streetwear advertising sometimes plays with tropes of American gang culture.

But more than anything, the hypebeast scene is about fitting into a specific tribe with well-defined rules – and what could be more teenage than that? SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST