This is Not Fashion: Streetwear Past, Present and Future

by King Adz, Wilma Stone

The story begins in 1972 in Jersey City, the birthplace of Trash and Vaudeville, the first- ever streetwear shop; it then moves on to the start of punk, which was a decisive influence on what is considered “streetwear” today. From the dresser/casual movement born out of British soccer culture to the skater scene of California, from the paninari poseurs of Milan to the surfer dudes of Hawaii, the authors show how streetwear has permeated a vast range of seemingly disparate tribes.


Streetwear recounts the remarkable history of how subcultural fashion trends have grown into a multi-billion-dollar global industry taking both high-end and fast fashion by storm. The intent behind streetwear remains the same: a powerful sense of identity and belonging.


With more than 500 photographs and illustrations, exclusive interviews, profiles of industry pioneers, spotlights on significant brands, and snapshots of key cities, this is the complete history of fashion’s fastest- growing and most influential trend.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction, Design

304 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2018

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up due to my teenager's increased interest in fashion and streetwear for him to dip into (he wasn't interested), and ended up flipping through the bulk of it myself. I've always had an interest in subcultural styles related to music scenes (mod, rudeboy, punk, hardcore), and an appreciation for plenty of others (hip hop, skater, surfer, etc.). Never heard of the authors, but this is their loose personal scrapbook of various topics, people, images, etc. related to streetwear. The book opens with an attempt to explain what streetwear is, and as it goes on for pages and pages -- eventually confirming my suspicion that you can more or less fit anything under the banner of "streetwear" and that the term is ultimately meaningless....

Next is a section called "Wardrobe Essentials" which lays out the key unisex basics that any streetwear brand generally includes: t-shirt, hoodie, sweatsuit, tennis/polo shirt, windbreak/cheater, demin, chinos, baseball cap, bomber/flight jacket, and "classic" footwear (a whole several books unto itself). The bulk of the book then becomes a quasi-chronological history of streetwear, starting in 1972 with Trash & Vaudeville, then moving to UK punk, then early 80s preppy, then hip-hop, then casuals (aka dresser, which I'd never heard as a term before), then club/rave, then paninari (which seems slightly chronologically off to me), then the Stussy brand gets its own section for some reason, and then comes skater/surfer/snow wear. Each of these sections gets lots of photo references, and a list at the end of the key brands in that space.

This is followed by a section on street art-influenced streetwear, which is also pretty shaggy in the sense that everything is influencing everything at this point, so trying to put a category on it feels odd. Then the book kind of peters out with some random interviews with designers and brand people, and then cities you should check out... All in all, it's a visually delicious book, and published by Thames & Hudson, so the design and quality is great. The text isn't super-illuminating, and so it's kind of like a really nice bound magazine one can flip through to see cool images.

[Aja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for writing and speaking about fashion with decent historic knowledge of trends and styles.

[Margot Soulas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful book but a lot of uncertain things, I have not seen a lot a sources. It’s more about how the authors felt the fashion at the time they were living

[麗瑩 · Rating 1 out of 5]

OK but No. 😔